Oh on my father's side, we were not land-holding gentry; that was my mama-bari, the Barisali side. They, too, by the time partition came along, had spent their fortune in wine, women and song. My grandfather worked his way through school doing household chores at his sister's house - no free rides there. On the other hand, my other grandfather, on his meagre professor's pay and two daughters and six sons to educate, still managed to keep a poor scholar at home, free of cost.
My great-great grandfather settled in Comilla; the United Bank of India was started in a rented part of his house by the legendary Botu Dutta. My grandfather shifted to Dhaka for better prospects, and the family lived in Ganderia, walking distance from his college, but the vain old man never walked; he would step out of the (fairly humble) house dressed immaculately in Punjabi and dhuti, smoking his cheroot, and brandishing his walking stick, and the garwans would line up to drive him the half-mile or so to his college. His English was extraordinary, although the other grandfather was the one who spent a decade abroad getting an education; with this one, my earliest memory is of him correcting my pronunciation,"It is pleece, not poaleece." He intimidated all of the family except his wife; not even the Viceroy would have been able to intimidate her. She had the singular distinction of putting Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy to flight, and sending another friend, Iqbal Athar Ali, creeping along to his bedroom to avoid disturbing the family at the unearthly hour at which they had turned up (all these high jinks were in Calcutta, NOT in Dhaka, where we were most respectable people!).
Payesh is Gobindabhog rice (short-grained fragrant sticky rice - I don't know the Bangladeshi equivalent) boiled in milk and reduced, sugar added and flavoured with delicate flavours such as Cardamom powder (elaichi), pistachio (pesta), almonds (badam) and cashew (kaju). There is a super-sexy version called Nolen gurer payesh; if you taste it, you will reform and abandon all evil ways, because you would have found what heaven can be like.