I want to live like a human being. I want a healthy and normal life. I can no longer bear the humiliation from people. I often wish I could die. It seems to me that there is no greater punishment than having to stay alive.
My childhood was not like everyone else’s. Because my forehead was different from others, I received nothing but ridicule from this society. If you had spoken with me, I think you would understand that no one in this world has ever been as dishonored as I have been. People would see me and point their fingers, laughing with cruel delight… and I could do nothing in response. What could be more painful than being unable to answer back to humiliation that I never deserved? My entire life I have kept my head bowed, weeping in silence. I had to cry. I had to live my life through tears. I have paid the debt of my birth only with the water of my eyes.
I will never come and stand before you. Those whom I deeply respect or care for deeply—I must never go to such people. So you and I will never meet. Wait a minute! I take back the word ‘never.’ I will tell you just one thing—if you don’t know Nirbhoya, you will miss knowing so much of life itself. That day you jokingly asked me to send you pickles—if I succeed, I will definitely come before you. Even though you came to my city twice, I couldn’t bring myself to see you. I honor my emotions, whether anyone else in the world does or not. Even if my feelings are worth nothing to anyone else, to me they are priceless. I could give my life for my emotions. I didn’t come before you because I feared that you too, like others, might belittle my feelings!
I say again—if you don’t know my story, you will miss knowing so much of this world. Why? Because no one else has ever been Nirbhoya, none of them have ever had to live as Nirbhoya. None of them have ever had their own birth-giving mother cut the umbilical cord and move far away from the person dearest to their heart. Who could be more unfortunate than one whose birth-mother cuts the cord and leaves? When a mother abandons her child, who in this world becomes more sorrowful than that child? Whatever the case, no matter how much you jest, I have only one thing to say—some of your old words I hear again and again, I read them. Those same words! In the past three months I have tried to commit suicide thirty times. Then I grow strong again. What else could there be in this world for a child who grew up like a dog, getting kicked by everyone, without parents? So please don’t think that like everyone else I idolize you or am trying to bother you—don’t think anything like that about me. You probably think I’m fake! You very well might! I know Facebook is fake. Still I will say this—if you ask the Creator just once, you will find the answer yourself. Not everyone is fake. Not everyone sells their feelings to survive.
You can put up a structure and call it a house, but that doesn’t make it a home. To turn a house into a home takes so much more. Mandakranta Sen has a poem about homes. In that poem, the poet explains very clearly what a home truly means. Not everyone is blessed with all that. And if nothing else, a home needs some bonds of the heart. I never even had that! No one in this world has had a more bitter experience with the idea of home than I have—I can say this with absolute certainty. I am the child of that home where the relationship between mother and child is more merciless than the relationship between two strangers on the street. When a wretched child is born from the womb of a savage mother, that child’s sufferings become eternal—nothing but the wordless agony of salt-stained nights, drying and leaving scars on both cheeks forever. Not every home is a place of comfort; sometimes the tragic drama of home reaches such a denouement that all feelings become blunt, paralyzed—and I am a helpless victim of this myself. Carrying such intense pain for so long, I am utterly exhausted today.
You don’t need to know me. In these times, trying to know or understand anything on Facebook is a dangerous thing. So not as a Facebook follower, but simply as a regular reader of your writing and a regular listener to your words, I want to say just this—even in my hunger for nature’s promised justice, I couldn’t bring myself to commit suicide after enduring twenty-one years. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this hope alive! But as a reader and listener, I would request you to write something about ignored children. Because like unborn children, they too carry immense pain. Society doesn’t want to hear them, doesn’t want to acknowledge them. Instead, some age-old rules and customs are imposed upon them to suppress them. That they too are human, that they too want to live with their heads held high—no one wants to remember this. Even writers don’t use their pens for such helpless people. Why doesn’t anyone speak for them? Are children always the ones at fault? Can parents fulfill their responsibilities correctly in every case? If I say they cannot, then what? I myself am proof of such cases. My father died twenty-one years ago, when I had just learned to speak. But now if someone asks me about my parents, I say my mother died before my father. One is physically absent from my life, the other mentally absent. The mind is everything, isn’t it? You know, I’ve had no home for so long—only a house. Childhood isn’t always joyful. Not everyone’s childhood is the same. Some people like me have no childhood at all.
I want to tell you everything—only you. Everything! I will speak. I just need a little time. Before I begin writing, I have one request. Even if you forget me, please never forget my sorrows.
It was the year 2000. Father was a big businessman. Terribly busy. Where did he have time to look after his own health? All day long, just money and money. The city’s number one businessman. Then suddenly one day Father’s cancer was discovered. He was taken to Calcutta, and Father grabbed the doctor’s hand and said, “Sir, you are God. Whatever it costs, I must live. I have two little daughters.” I was six years old then. My sister was three. The healthy father came back to Bangladesh in a wheelchair. I waited at the bus terminal for when Father would arrive. That day God didn’t listen to me. Father returned paralyzed. He would call me close many times, saying things I couldn’t understand. He would try so hard to show affection but couldn’t—Father’s hands would tremble. He would look at us two sisters with vacant eyes and weep. I would try to understand the language of Father’s eyes, but I couldn’t. I never understood what Father was trying to say. Then August 31st. Everything ended. The day we left Father at the crematorium, that’s when the real tragedy of my life began.
A man entered our house, drawn by greed for our wealth. My mother was extraordinarily beautiful. The man was a distant relative of ours. I saw that man gradually begin to live permanently in our house. You know, I was so small that I couldn’t understand at all what was happening to me! My little sister was so young that on the day of Father’s death, seeing the house full of people, she said, “To…day…is…a feast…day. So…many…peo…ple!” When I saw that something abnormal was happening to me, I protested against that brutality with all my strength. With my own eyes I saw my own mother, who had carried me in her womb, engaged in shameless coupling with that beast. That inhuman creature brought more inhuman beings, and my home became a den of drinking, a gambling house, practically a brothel! Meanwhile, my sister’s and my existence became near death. I understood only one thing—at any cost, I had to resist, I had to keep myself safe. When a child sees her mother engaging in wanton sexual acts with a beast, can you imagine what her mental state becomes? Does she have any place to go in this world?
For protesting,
I faced terrible mental and physical torture. The street became my new home.
I had to live on the same street with dogs at 2 AM. Many nights passed when I,
burning with hunger, shared food from garbage bins with the dogs. When you have time,
read Robert Browning’s Fra Lippo Lippi. There the poet has depicted
the coexistence of humans and dogs with sharp precision, which resonates with my life. There was a line there,
something like—And a face
that looked up . . . zooks, sir, flesh and blood,/ That’s all I’m made of! That’s all I was—just a lump of flesh, blood, and bone! You know, for these twenty-one years, no one thought of me as a human being. I used to stay
at friends’ houses for a month, two months at a time. But time wouldn’t move
according to my will. School exams would come, and I would somehow
scrape by and pass. Then some kind-hearted person would occasionally explain with understanding… girls can’t live outside, away from home, but boys can. They
would take me back home. Then after a few days, the moment I protested, back to the streets… At one point
my room situation became worse than a brothel. Even my birth-mother wanted me to sleep with those animals! She wanted me to do
what she was doing, and for this I had to endure constant mental torture,
often physical abuse too from my mother and
other beasts. But I didn’t give in.
Rather than bow to their pressure, I would destroy myself—this was my stubbornness, my oath.
And so began my solitary struggle. The battle to survive without a single sympathetic relative. I was around thirteen or fourteen then. Just as God showed no stinginess in writing my misfortunes, He was equally generous when drawing my features. So staying on the streets wasn’t safe for me. Boys would harass me. But where could I go? Before I knew it, the scholarship exam was upon us. The one whose father had so much money asked her uncle one day, “Uncle, will you give me 400 taka? I want to enroll in coaching.” Her uncle said, “Are you even scholarship material? And you’re asking for money!” Hearing this ignited a fierce stubbornness in me. At my friend’s house, her mother would sit beside me all night, seeing my intense passion for studies. I won the junior scholarship. Then came the SSC exam. I had jaundice at the time. A whole year of torment had left my body listless. I fell ill after just two test exams. A teacher paid for me to see a doctor. But I couldn’t take the final exam. I was even more broken mentally. The next time, I took the exam from the humanities section and got an A+. That day I cried so hard that everyone thought I had failed. For a girl who has to suppress hunger day after day, such a result would naturally seem unbelievable.
After this, the few well-wishers I had—those who gave me food when I was hungry, who gave me money to buy books—they all said I must never give up my studies for anything. In HSC I scored 4.88. Then I got admission to Rajshahi University in English. The professors stood by me. Together they saved me bit by bit from the path of suicide every single day. There were days when I would enter the Dean’s room without permission and then cry my heart out. I never received a father’s love, I don’t know what fathers are like, but the affection I received from the Dean—perhaps if my father had lived, he would have loved me the same way. You know, why they tolerated me so much, I don’t know. No one ever even scolded me!
When I lived on the streets, everyone would ask my mother, “Where’s your daughter?” She’d say, “She’s not my daughter. Whether she lives or dies makes no difference to me.” Tell me, is there anyone more wretched in this world than such a person? My family’s table was laden with food, the refrigerator full. And there I was, gazing hopefully at other people’s homes, waiting for scraps. When I couldn’t bear the hunger anymore, I’d go door to door, doing odd jobs around the house in hopes of a little food. You know, I have no childhood, no adolescence, no youth. When I see people on the street walking hand in hand with their parents, I just stand there staring like a fool. Do you know why I’m telling you all this? You’re not some free therapy for me—you’re the voice I heard just seconds before I was about to kill myself, that strength I’ve kept locked inside my chest. You say that living as a nobody in this world is the greatest suffering of all. No one can honor those words as deeply as I can. I am that nobody—whose existence or non-existence doesn’t matter even to her own mother, let alone society! Back then I had no decent clothes, I looked just like the housemaids. Someone once asked me, “You keep wandering around that house—are you their domestic help?” When they went somewhere, my mother would tell my sister, “If you see her on the street, don’t tell her when we’re home, or she’ll come looking for food.” One day my mother said to me, “Can’t you see there’s no place for you in my house? Who are you? Why can’t you just die?”
My sister would sometimes start talking to me when I was nineteen years old. Mother would tell her, “I better not catch you talking to her!” One day, Mother beat me with her boyfriend’s shoe and threw me out of the house. It was midnight then. You know, when someone calls me beautiful now, I still look in the mirror and see that shoe mark on my cheek. Why do I still see it? Never, not a single relative of mine ever stood by my side. Not one. Because I’m from a broken family, I have no friends—no one mingles with me. I used to cry at university, so everyone gave me a nickname—Goddess of Melancholy! Is there any greater humiliation in this world? You tell me! During university exams, when I stayed at home, I’d study through the night, and Mother would come at midnight and turn off the lights. In tremendous anger and pain, I’d go sit at the bus stand before dawn, waiting for transport. No one would be on campus. I’d sit there alone. She wouldn’t let me study at home at all. I used to sit on the street and cry while studying. Everyone would laugh seeing me. At university, everyone brought good food; I only drank water. You probably know how unbearable even water becomes on an empty stomach. I’d borrow books from a senior at university. And the Dean Sir was my shadow, in place of my father. He was always beside me, calling me “daughter” in a loud voice. He still calls me that. He was like a protective shade over my head. Even when I couldn’t take midterms, he’d say, “Whenever you can manage, you’ll take them.” I needed 10,000 taka for my master’s admission. Sir gave me the entire amount. Without him, completing my master’s would have been impossible for me. My CGPA of 3.58 is really his achievement. When our classes were at 4 PM, he’d call to let me know whether there would be class or not. Because I had to make an 18-kilometer journey from home to campus every day. So that I wouldn’t go through the trouble of traveling all the way there only to come back, he’d inform me beforehand. Once I was sitting on the stairs of the second floor of the department, studying, and I kept falling asleep while reading. I was so broken mentally and physically that I got dizzy right there near the stairs and collapsed. When I regained consciousness, I found myself in the university hospital with saline in my veins. Dean Sir was sitting beside me… I’ve encountered such living gods in life too.
One day, in extreme hunger, I told my mother I was very hungry. Mother told me, “First serve rice on the plates, then I’ll give you some.” From that day until now, I do tutoring, and with whatever I earn, at least I don’t feel hunger anymore. When expensive food appears before me sometimes, I think of that day. I had a gold bracelet on my hand, like your son has. Father had given it to me. I had a gold chain around my neck, and there were many more ornaments kept in the drawer. One day, while I was sleeping, she removed all my gold jewelry (given by Father), cleared away all the ornaments from the drawer. Today, with my own money, I’ve made a neck chain and earrings, and I wear them and look at myself in the mirror. And I think of that day.
I was forced to live with those animals. But you probably won’t believe me when I tell you what kind of strength I found then, though I don’t know where it came from. I managed to protect myself. Didn’t you always say that God sometimes answers through His very silence? I could have been brutally violated—that would have been the natural course—but even when I found myself on the streets at midnight, I fell into the hands of good people. I don’t know why. Perhaps because there would be no one to weep for me after I died, the Creator saved me so many times in so many ways. Do you know how many times you have appeared in my life as a human incarnation of the divine? I would be ready to commit suicide, everything decided, taking the phone in my hands for the last time, when suddenly—your writing! I would begin to read, lose myself in the words, and return to life once more. This has happened so many times.
When a child witnesses their own mother with multiple men, that pain becomes the greatest suffering in that child’s life. I know how it feels to endure such anguish. I once read a story, “A Mother in Manville.” In it, a boy named Jerry tells the narrator elaborate lies about his mother, though Jerry’s mother had died long ago. I often think now that no one would want to hear about my sorrows. Even if someone did, they couldn’t possibly understand my pain! What’s the point of telling anyone about my grief? Perhaps I’ll have to spend my entire life like Jerry, spinning false tales about my mother. Jerry had no mother at all, but I do have one. Then why must I too weave such stories? When these thoughts come to me, I feel restless, wanting to understand why things turned out this way. And then I wonder—does God truly exist?
I lived on the streets, stayed with dogs, people gave me shelter, teachers gave me money. Friends belittled me then, and still do now. When someone finds an opportunity to humiliate another’s weakness, they never let it pass. The day my father died, they told me to recite mantras. I was so young I could barely pronounce simple words—how was I supposed to chant Sanskrit verses? What were you thinking, reverend sir! I came home on August 31st, 2002. From that very day it all began. Every kind of revelry, drinking, gambling, debauchery—absolutely everything. Their ringleader would bring ten more men with him. Together they embezzled all of my father’s money. Every last penny. How hard my father had worked to earn that money—going without food, neglecting his own health, laboring beyond belief, until finally illness consumed him and he died. My mother handed the shop over to my uncle. My uncle would sit in the shop drinking and gambling while his sister prostituted herself at home. And there I was, living on the streets with dogs, working from house to house to stave off hunger. A university teacher would buy me food, a professor handed me ten thousand taka for my master’s degree—this is how I completed my master’s with a 3.58 GPA.
You know,
those days of living on the streets
were pure agony. How I survived, I myself don’t know. It takes a certain age to bear blows. The tragedy that befell my life before I could even begin to understand anything—I truly wasn’t prepared for it. Can one really write down everything that happens in life? Of all that occurs in our lives, even with great effort we can perhaps capture ten percent in writing; nearly the entire chapter of our existence remains hidden from everyone’s view. One day. That man wanted to be intimate with me. When he failed, he told my mother that your daughter speaks ill of me whenever she sees me. Then I witnessed my mother starting to beat me with that very man’s shoe—it was midnight then. After that,
the two of them together beat me and dragged me outside the house. I stepped onto the street; it was 2 AM then. Dogs were running about, and I with them. I knocked on a door. She opened it. I knew that auntie from before. Right next door was my uncle’s house. Hearing my cries,
my uncle shut his door even more firmly. When father was alive, he had supported nearly the entire expenses of uncle’s family. Father had taken uncle to Bangalore for open heart surgery at Devi Shetty’s hospital and brought him back. And from that very uncle, such treatment was perhaps what I deserved. I think now, whatever may happen,
uncle’s veins too carry Bengali blood!
Once a man from that group tried to misbehave with my sister; after my sister told me about it, I told my mother that man should never come to this house again. The next day
it turned out he came again. Mother
told that man I had supposedly spoken badly about him. Upon hearing this, the man slapped me hard across the ear. Blood came out of my ear. My mother joined him too. When my mother couldn’t manage alone, she would call my uncle
to come beat me. Despite being his own niece, uncle never
loved me. One day, for the mere crime of asking for a grammar book, he kicked me;
since then, even when I have money, I never buy grammar books. Seeing that book reminds me of the kick. Much like you, I feel then that a book for which
I have to endure kicks is a book I don’t need. Even now I don’t get rice in my own home, and they won’t even let me study. Just a few days ago I held my mother’s hands and feet and pleaded,
my chest hurts on the left side now,
I can’t take this mental and
physical torture anymore, I have job exams ahead. I want to study a little. She tells me, your certificates have no value to me,
this won’t go on in this house. You must surely understand somewhat what dire circumstances drive a girl to take to the streets to protect herself. I want to say those words of yours—O God, I don’t ask for long life,
just let me live a little. I had wanted to talk with you
on the phone or face to face. I don’t know if that opportunity will ever come. May I be able to answer every humiliation—please pray for that on my behalf.
I have no home. I used to eat on campus before, and before that in people’s houses, and now since I’m a 25-year-old young woman, I’m forced to stay at home. Even then, mental torture goes on all day. They won’t even let me read books! The one they throw out on the street—would they let her read books? Hahaha. What nonsense am I saying like a madwoman! Where will I stay? In a hostel? Or somewhere else? What’s the solution to this? I’ve spent my whole life searching for solutions. None of my relatives provided any answers. All of life’s damage has been mine alone. When they threw me out on the street as a child, when no one came forward to solve things then, now the question doesn’t even arise. When the university hall opened, my honors was nearly finished. Now I go to tutor students, and you see, even after teaching I sit there. Because I can’t stay on the streets anymore. It hurts my self-respect. And if God had wanted some solution to my life, then surely I wouldn’t have had to watch my beloved’s wedding six months ago. There’s no remedy for this—I have to endure it. Every birthday I post Daud Haider’s line as my status: My very birth is my lifelong sin!
Everyone comments on your posts, while I practically memorize them. I read every line so many times that it gets memorized. I’ll say just this—your standing by me indirectly might have helped me get back on my feet. Everyone just wants job tips. I want nothing. I just want to read your writing and listen to your words, get inspired, and do something with my life to show everyone that when there’s will, you can carve out a path. I want to talk with you, with the person from ten years ago. If you ever get the chance, please let me know.
One day in literature class, sir asked everyone, “Well, why did only ten of you choose literature over linguistics?” Everyone else’s answers were things like: I don’t have the ability to memorize, so; someone said, I can slack off—those kinds of answers. I said, “Sir, maybe nothing will happen to you if I’m not here, but without me this literary realm is incomplete. I told you too—if you don’t know me, you’ll remain somewhat ignorant of the fact that beyond the world’s eternal rules, there exists a different kind of life.” I didn’t even have my father’s shadow over my head. They all used force on me to make me food for some animals. I had to endure mental and physical torture day after day. But I didn’t bow my head. Don’t you say that tough circumstances can’t persist long against tough people? How many nights I’ve risked my life to protect my honor—it’s impossible to explain all of that in writing. If I write some of it and get it wrong, I’ll be diminishing that very struggle. That’s why I’m not writing about those nights.
I know you’ll forget me after today. You’ll forget, and I don’t mind. You know, when a man abandons me to bring another woman into his home, when he plays with my feelings, then your words come back to me—that those born only to lose and survive are no longer considered human by anyone. So you’ll forget this nobody, this sub-human being, and I don’t regret that either. No one has ever thought of me as human anyway. One day I went to a wealthy man’s house to tutor his daughter. When he dismissed me, he put 600 rupees in my hand and said, buy yourself a good dress. Don’t come back to teach wearing this one. Today people give charity to the daughter of a man who had so much money. I loved someone. He knew everything about me. He acted on Facebook for a few days. His marriage had already been arranged elsewhere, but I knew nothing of it. He thought, it’s just Facebook! Let me have some fun for a few days. What’s the harm? That day I held his hands and feet and wept, begging him not to leave me. After finding him, I thought maybe now I’d try to live. Someone who knew everything about me and still held my hand—surely he would never abandon me. But seizing his chance, he left me with the cruelest humiliation. He said to me, did I ever tell you I would marry you? How can you dream so much? Have you forgotten your own past? I had to hear so much more from his mouth. You know, he made me understand once more that I’m not really human… I deserve to live with street dogs.
Tell me, why do men think only about sex? Can a boy and a girl never just remain friends? Must they go to bed? Is that all there is? Whoever I talk to, whoever I spend time with, they all want to end everything with sex. Isn’t it strange? Such people say such things—people from whom you’d never expect to hear this, you can’t even imagine it coming from their mouths! Even when I refuse directly, again and again, they keep talking. Is a person’s body everything? The other day a friend was describing my body in such a way in my inbox, it made me sick to my stomach. I couldn’t listen anymore. I blocked him. Don’t they understand? Another friend, a doctor by profession. He supposedly studied human psychology. My childhood friend. I told him I wasn’t feeling well, everything seemed unbearable somehow. He too steered the conversation toward sex. If I fooled around with him, apparently everything would be fine! How stupid can men be! What do they think of women? Disgusted, I logged out. Don’t men understand that beyond the body there’s also something called the mind? Men are this way, that way, but never simply human!
You know, I’m dying bit by bit every day—perhaps I’ve already died. A year and a half ago, I was the kind of person who would wail and cry at the slightest provocation, as if the house was coming down on my head. And now, learning to keep all that pain locked inside my chest, I’m destroying myself in the process. No one knows how the person who keeps smiling in front of everyone completely falls apart behind closed doors. Every night I think about suicide. I tell myself to live just one more day, to see if time might change things. I can see clearly how mentally sick I’ve become. Maybe one day I won’t even think to myself, let me live just one more day. I desperately need to talk to a psychologist, but I can’t even manage that. What’s the point of not committing suicide anyway? I’ve already died inside. For how many days, months, years have I desperately tried to survive by clutching at straws? I’ve wanted so badly to live. The more I want to live, the more death’s door seems to swing open!
(There is another part to this story.)