When I approach Love, it buries itself in me. So, I've decided to make it approach Me. I'd rather play hide and seek with it! I promised to Love many a time, Later, I realized I made promises only to break them up. I, then decided to make Love promises to me. For Love's sake, I let not it break the promises! I taught Love how to live broken-hearted. It stayed longer to leave me forever. I burnt myself in desire --- Yet let it go away safe. I walked on the wall of darkness, Love made its journey to my soul, I wonder I hardly noticed its pace, Only discovered its essence in the silent music of darkness! I thought, I drank the nectar of love to my heart, But I sipped but a little! I found myself entrapped with your eyes, Even though I never dared ask you even just a kiss! Love once whispered to my soul, I was too busy then even to listen to it. Long long afterwards, I heard its echo, My heart treasured it, I felt like floating! Our sweetest feelings always remain untouched, I realized. I did mesmerize Love, its zeal. Angels robbed it but once, Again, it dropped like a star on the strand I stood. How can Love be subdued? I made them bethink! Love tried to veil your radiant eyes, Even you remained behind the silken snare of your tresses. How could pearls get concealed when oysters let not them do so? Can water but turn to wine if I leave a kiss? Love gave me leave to kiss, made me bold to woo, Yet, how can daring fate be ignored? I wonder! Elsewhere in other world, my soul dotes in solitude, In the distant shore, you once dreamt to go. The story of that distant bliss--couldn't but be gone with the wind, Left me insane, just in the lap of eternity. So obvious in hue, yet blurred in guise of Erida. I recalled my oath, which I made not to you, but to my love. Again came Aphrodite, just emerged from the ever-frozen zone! As vowed I've, never dare banish Love. Never too late begins my ache to shun. Gentle swain as I'm to refuse--- To turn wicked spirit into divine one! O Love! You whom I often and silently can't but adore, Hear the sighing sound beyond silence's shore; Yet not too late to counsel or pray. I'll dare to bet Love's broken heart for decades to come! Footnote. A statutory warning: This poem contains no romance, only love. I wrote this poem nearly nine years ago. The story behind it is rather amusing. Let me tell you. Back then, I wrote only in English; by English, I mean, solely English. I was determined never to write in Bengali. My resolves change from moment to moment; this one did too. Even now, my most enduring desire—the one that has held longest—is simply to live. I posted the first three lines of this poem as a status one evening in the monsoon season. Rain has a curious power. Somehow it makes you write! I can hardly believe, reading those pieces from back then, that they came from me. Even now, try as I might a thousand times, I cannot write English that way. Most comments on my statuses came from my Indian friends; I was quite close to them. (Educated Indians generally know English better than we do.)
(Though of course they had to know for various reasons.) I remember, back then I used to spend time with people who knew better than me, who understood more—only with such people. Obviously for my own benefit, to develop myself. Losing to someone greater is far better than winning against someone small. (When teachers make exam questions harder and boast about it, I always find it amusing. Come on, sir, students are students precisely because they can’t do it! If they could, why not prove your mettle against someone your equal or someone who knows more than you?) I was grateful to them for so much. (I’m not in touch with them anymore. My capacity to forget, to sever ties with people, is infinite. Among my old friends, there are a few I still stay in contact with—and that’s entirely their doing, not mine.)
So, as I was saying. After I wrote the first three lines, my Indian friends (there was a professor from IIT among them, who would blindly love everything I wrote. His books are taught in many engineering universities around the world. He used to mention me in class. I once mistreated him over something. It hurt him, and he never spoke to me again.) and a Bangladeshi friend (he was studying at Oxford. He was a huge fan of my writing. I had a terrible fight with him over something trivial, and cut off all contact. It was entirely my fault.) started commenting on that status. I don’t know what came over me, but I started replying to everyone in verse. (Really, the blame lies with that evening in Shravan.) It went on like this for quite a while. Suddenly my Bangladeshi friend messaged me: “Sushant, did you notice—if you string together all your comments, they’d make a beautiful poem?” I said, “No, I didn’t. I was just enjoying it, so I replied in verse, nothing more.” He said, “I know you. You don’t need to explain. Do this: turn it into a proper poem.” Encouraged by his words, I gathered all the comments together. I saw that the words, sitting side by side, weren’t quarreling at all. I liked how they befriended each other. That’s how this poem came to be. I shared it with my Facebook friends much later—during some Eid or Puja break. (I’ve lost so many of my writings simply through laziness, pieces I’ll never find again. You can’t write the same thing twice.)
I’ll tell you about a bitter experience with this poem. Another Indian friend of mine had shared it on his blog, claiming it as his own work—something I only found out about a year and a half later through yet another friend. I asked him very politely why he’d done this. He got angry instead and treated me very badly. He was a retired Chief Physician from the Indian Army. He ran a few blogs. (Most of them about sexual matters.) When I’m hurt, I don’t speak, I just cut off all contact. I’ve never been good at arguing my point (or maybe I don’t want to), and I have no interest in explaining myself to someone who isn’t close to me. I have one principle: live and let live. I did the same with him and never contacted him again.
I am someone naturally talented at losing friends. Many great people have vanished from my life through my own negligence. I am indifferent to keeping in touch; thus, lonely. My three oldest trusted companions are only this—mother, father, younger brother.
Those interested can visit the link below and read the comments too. Yes, some time will be wasted. But I am certain the interplay of those comments will please you. (Forgive me, I could not provide a link. Everything in this note except these bracketed words existed on my previous Facebook account. The poem was there. That post had comments from many learned people, and there is much to learn from them. My old account is gone now; some sick, twisted people saw to it permanently, and they were happy. With it vanished many treasures I will never find again.)