A Fragment of Existence

(In memory of Dr. Ehsanul Karim)

I know only a handful of people as truly good.
And I watch some of them die.
While I see myself living on, among countless other flawed souls.
To stay alive means witnessing all this. This is divine punishment.

The one whose very presence could heal half an illness,
I watch him fall sick and die before his time,
leaving behind his grieving wife with a two-year-old child crying in her lap!
And after this, when I look at myself,
I wonder: where will I go now?
There are always places to go, yet can one really go to just anyone...with eyes closed?
I want to believe that what I know is false!
Tomorrow evening, if I go to his chamber at Golpahar corner, I'll surely see him again!

The man who kept those I love—
those I love—
in sound mind and body,
day after day,
when that man slips away without warning,
once more I look at my beloved ones
with helpless eyes.
Fragments of resentment grow, racing with my sighs.

The gentlest man, with the most serene gaze—
why do his eyes close at such an untimely hour?
Just two days ago I spoke with him and felt healed—
dreaming carefree dreams of staying well in the future,
seeing him leave before my very eyes makes me want
to run and hold him tight against my chest!

I've seen many become good doctors,
but how many among them have I seen become good human beings in this life?
—When countless such questions accumulate in mother's tears, father's sighs,
brother's helpless bitter resentment, or my own suppressed sobs,
then those two loving words of his, two reassurances, two smiles,
...I'll never have again, for as long as I live—
all this too must be silently accepted if one wants to stay alive—
I understand it all, yet it's terribly hard to believe!

The man I've known for twelve years,
the man with whom I share not a single painful or reproachful memory,
the man I've never seen even slightly angry,
the man I've always known as gentle, self-contained, devoted to his work,
the man in whose shelter one could go with eyes closed, completely fearless,
the man who made me think, 'If I had an elder brother, he would be just like this!'
the man whose presence saved my ailing mother, father, and many other loved ones time and again,
the man I watched remain steadfast in his work with sure hands, smiling face, ice-cool temper,
—when that very man becomes a memory, clinging to the tears in my eyes,
then I truly feel how burdensome memory becomes, how the heart burns like a crematorium,
how much burning and bleeding some departures cause in chest and blood and brain!

Good people's lives end quickly,
what remains are some unnecessary people with long lives.
I witness these deaths and think: there really is no justice in this world.
Some deaths exist whose divine justice I refuse to accept,
even though they too are ordained by the Creator...just as the lifelines of bad people are ordained!

In death's procession, sometimes, it's not just another number that gets added,
but a piece of one's own existence.

.........................................
June 3, 2020