You stopped me—
friend, how far have you come, tell me?
If only you’d left me behind,
how much further would you have gone?
Your friend
stops, and then your journey moves on,
that journey—look at it—
will halt before long, the destination still far away!
Shackles on another’s feet,
keeping your own free to move,
blocking another’s path,
seeing your own as clear—
that’s what weakness is called!
And yet I see,
keeping in mind who’s moving, who’s stopped, never lagging behind anyone—the way a dog runs for nothing……
on the strong path, yes,
one goes on!
I read it. Such a
delicious morsel of verse! In fact, more delicious even than noodles! Thank you to the poet for writing it.
After reading your lines, I sat down to write after many days. I’ve been angry all this while, haven’t written a thing. I couldn’t bear to stay angry anymore, to live in separation. How many times I think, never again, this is the last time—and yet I sit down, can’t help myself. Last wrote on Sunday. And now it’s Saturday. This gap of these few days feels enormous to me. Thinking about you, writing about you—all of it is just my own selfish solitude. I need it to stay alive. If I couldn’t be that selfish, perhaps I’d die. Just because I’ve been silent, withdrawn my hands—don’t think for a moment that I haven’t loved you these days. Love isn’t such an obedient thing. It’s a terribly confused, terrible thing, this love. Once love begins, there’s peril—it can’t be stopped; all that’s left is to surrender like the helpless, and accept it.
Becoming dear to someone you hold dear is not easy work. It takes far too much love, care, labor, and devotion to become dear to the person you cherish. And when someone else begins to become that dear person’s dear one, to make yourself undesirable to them in that same moment and withdraw far away—that too is no simple task. Just as affection can make you dear to someone, creating that much hatred in their heart to make yourself undesirable is a truly difficult thing. When you ask, foolishly, what’s wrong with me?—it pains me to think that I cannot make you understand what’s wrong with me. There could be a hundred reasons for my sadness; you understand them all, and yet you just sit there quietly. What can I do if I’m hurting? I’m a useless sort of girl, you know? I’m just pointlessly causing you pain. Sorry, silly little heartfelt bird. Sleep. Good night. That much love for you. Ummm… I slept……………..Those who dwell in emotional emptiness, for whom there is only indifference—let their precious feelings remain silent. And let them, even if they truly cannot, at least outwardly, gradually move themselves away—to that very distance where distance, holding the hand of distance, walks on to far, far away.
The truth is, to live by love, you need the power not to love. The capacity to withhold love—that’s a gift of tremendous strength. I ask one thing of you. Never send me heart signs. I cannot bear such hollow, manufactured sentiment. My prayer is this: let known lies remain unseen, dissolve into nothing. Let them never take the shape of symbols, never claim a face in this visible world! Yet I owe you gratitude in so many ways. When I had surrendered every shred of confidence in myself, when I felt like nothing but a dead, purposeless thing in this world, I heard some words from you. Then I found you on Facebook and followed you. Believe me—from that day, I stopped believing I could amount to nothing. You kindled in me a faith so fierce I felt forged for battle. The moment you said, “You can do it, you must do it”—from that instant, I knew that whatever I desire, I shall have it, if only I prove worthy of having it. And I am willing to put in every ounce of labor needed to become worthy. Sorry, boss—no shortcuts. That single sentence has given me so much in life. This confidence of mine is your gift. You’ve given me back the will to dream. This is why I call you an angel of light. Now I don’t believe anymore that I cannot. The more people tell me I cannot, the more my stubbornness grows, until I am determined to prove them wrong, no matter what. You say the greatest joy in this world is to do what others say you cannot do. “If you wish to know your own strength, then cast yourself into a battle where a thousand stand against you, each ready to strike, and emerge victorious from that war.” I don’t recall reading words that set the blood on fire quite like these. I’ve learned from you the strength to bear all things in silence. I don’t want to wound them with words—I want to wound them with my success. I know the anguish of enduring people’s judgment. My silent meditation, I learned that from you. From you I have received far more than I have received from anyone else. I am deeply grateful to you. I love you greatly.
Do I wish to have you close? Yes, I do. Always have. More than I should, perhaps. I saw you in a dream last night. I came to you. Somewhere along the way, I hurt myself—my forehead was cut on one side. And you, so tenderly, wiped my face, carefully cleaned the wound, and then your eyes caught the vermillion hidden in the parting of my hair. You were bothered by it, I could tell. You know, I do wear vermillion on my forehead sometimes. Not to show anyone—I do it wishing you well, with all my heart. But I do it in such a way that no one notices. Leaving you that day was unbearable. As the microbus turned toward Nator, tears wouldn’t stop falling from my eyes. The driver glanced at me several times in the mirror, bewildered, watching me wipe my face.
“Sister, is something wrong?” I didn’t answer him. Leaving you is always painful for me. So many months have passed. Yet it feels like only yesterday. I write this keeping that in mind—I will never let you make even one mistake because of me. The truth is, making peace with yourself is the most essential thing in life. What is wrong, one must abandon, and that is the beginning of something new. Delay brings only delay; there is no gain in it. This is the truth. But can anything happen before its time? One must give time for the right moment to arrive. Walking the wrong path with someone is worse than walking alone. Yet solitude itself draws new mistakes to us! What shall we do about that, tell me? On any journey, one needs someone. So if that someone is you, is that really such a catastrophe? At least until the right time comes, I cannot live without thinking of you! And tell me one thing—do you love me? Or is this just my misunderstanding? My heart’s willfulness? Did you never love me at all? Have you never found peace thinking of me? Have you found no happiness in the awareness of my existence? If you haven’t, then it was only my mistake in understanding. I don’t want to present countless proofs and diminish either my own strength or your dignity in any way. That goodness which kept me well, which taught me to remain well—let that affection rest undisturbed where it lived priceless and true. Why would I drag it before some measuring scale and devalue it? I know how precious those moments are to me! Not everyone feels everything equally, it’s true. But tell me, if the notes don’t harmonize, can you ever go deeper? If the note keeps breaking and dissonance keeps emerging instead, then harmony will never return. What happiness is there then? So what has gone is gone. What was, was, and now it is no more. This is the truth—beyond all doubt. From now on, things will be as you wish them to be. And I won’t cry, you’ll see! I only want to know—do you love me? If not me, then do you love the depth of my love for you?
Everything about you—
I fell in love with you because of all of it, and now it’s those very same things I can’t bear anymore. Why do you have to be so busy? You should be busy only with me, busy! Forgetting—that’s always possible, isn’t it? I could forget, I could, but why should I? Did I keep you in my heart just so I could forget you?
It makes me so angry, you know? Who am I loving, and why? What happiness am I loving in?
A selfish nonsense, an arrogant boy—that’s who I love. The kind who won’t even give the smallest response unless there’s something in it for him. Am I really so disposable? I was never like this before, never! I message you on Facebook, and forget about a reply—you don’t even read the messages. What’s all this pride about? You’re in Dhaka sipping coffee with your friends, looking perfectly at ease. Turn off the lights and suddenly every girl looks beautiful to you! How many men have managed to go from the four letters of your sweetness to the three letters of your coldness? In your eyes, I’m just easy, therefore, I’m nothing. I sent you a message on your phone, no reply there either. What use is such a phone? I’ll smash it to pieces, throw it against the wall! We women—once we have someone, we remember them with such devotion. But you men—someone you’ve never even had, you remember them exactly the same way. Listen, boy, I know perfectly well what you’re doing, where you are, I accept it all. But what would it cost you to send one reply?
You know Mohua would never disturb you. You won’t find another lover as safe, as trouble-free, as worry-free as this. And yet you do this? Then why did you give me your number on Facebook that day?
To show off? Without a word of warning, you hand over your number, and now when I call you cut me off, you don’t reply to my messages. What have you gained from this?
Don’t you understand that this can hurt someone? You shouldn’t be the type not to understand—but the truth is, you love without understanding. You’re so many things, fine, but does that make me nothing? Or does everyone except yourself seem shameless to you? Yes, shameless, that’s what!
I’m still here, biting my teeth, living with your neglect. I don’t know where this ends. Believe me, if I could hate you or forget you, I’d be so much happier. But that won’t happen. Because it’s not happening, it would have happened by now if it could. I’ve somehow learned to live shamelessly! With all this dread eating away at my life for no reason—if only you knew! I can’t find any shore, any anchor in anything. I want to be free from this. Do I have to think of you every single moment?
Do I have no other work?
Sometimes it happens
that nothing stirs inside me, no emotion comes, but there you are, clear as day before my eyes! Your presence won’t lift from these burned eyes. Why? What have you done to my eyes? Don’t you have a home of your own? Why should my helpless pair of eyes become your dwelling place?
You yourself are doing fine, being yourself. Then why am I stuck with you? Was I ever meant to become so utterly useless, so worthless, and get used to living that way?
I know now, with a certainty that cuts, that we will never meet again. You’ll marry someone, suddenly, and that will be that. But then why did God bind me to you with love’s chains? Oh! No—I misspoke. Not your love binding me. My love binding me to you. And this binding is the root of all ruin! A life so small, so brief, and even that must be spent shackled, no matter the suffering? What is it but madness?
Why did I love you? Why can’t I forget you? Why is forgetting impossible? Why does your memory return, again and again, unbidden?
I thought I had forgotten. But you won’t leave my mind, won’t leave my sight.
Once I got angry and blocked you. The anger wasn’t for you—it was for myself. You never knew that, and you didn’t need to. My existence or non-existence means nothing to you. When I’m not first on your search list, I can’t accept it. It unmakes me. My breath stops. I would rather die—just a few minutes of it. I went mad, truly mad, couldn’t bear it anymore. After a hundred silent wars with myself, I unblocked you. Do you remember how I called you like a madwoman that day, begging you to add me back? Do you?
That day I swore an oath: no matter the pain, as long as I draw breath, I will never make this mistake again. So why do I look at your pictures every day like a desperate woman?
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of your photos are in my album now. My phone password is built around you. I log into Facebook with a password I created from your name. My laptop won’t unlock without the letters of your name arranged just so. Every permutation, every combination I’ve ever made—they’re all you. It’s as if there are no other words in the world! What sense does any of it make? Why do I do these things? No one knows. No one understands, and no one ever will. Is love something to be shown? And that old question: “How far must a traveler walk before he becomes a wanderer?” Well, how much must one love before they can finally forget? Will I never grow weary?
Now I understand—the logic that the same thing loses its charm after time—it doesn’t apply to women. It certainly doesn’t apply to those who have truly loved. Yes, it works with men; it works with those others, except for the devotion in *Kamaal* or the dreams in *Swapnasish*—those are exceptions. They are different. But I can think of nothing but you. I’ve forgotten how to think of anything else. I try so hard, and still nothing enters my head but you. Why won’t this head of mine shatter into three pieces?
These days I don’t look at the sky the way I used to. I couldn’t even say when I last truly saw it. A full moon descended on Tuesday evening. I was teaching at a student’s house when the power suddenly went out. I went inside to fetch an emergency lamp, and for five or ten minutes there was no sign of my student. The table sat by the window. Through the ornamental grille, I caught sight of the moon. A white, silvery plate that had leaped up into the sky in a single bound, climbing the trembling ladder of rustling leaves. And then, out of nowhere, you came and tapped me on the head. With your index finger raised between your middle and thumb, you pointed to the moon and said, “Look how the moonlight pours like milk-foam from the very skin of the sky! Why don’t we spend tonight drifting to the tune of this wind’s flute song?”
I heard it so clearly! For at least five, maybe seven minutes, I was drowning in your ocean of grace. That enchantment, that profound sorcery that ensnared me—I cannot write it into words that would do it justice. Over and over, I kept thinking to myself: “Oh God, if only you were sitting beside me! I wouldn’t even dare to rest your head on my lap, wouldn’t even dream of laying your head on my shoulder—whatever the ache, I would bear it in silence. Just this much: if I could only sit beside you once in this pale light and bathe in it! How many longings in life go unfulfilled! Not for long—just one minute, if I could only moonbathe beside you! If only we could sit by some distant river’s edge and let moments fly away while our feet danced in the water. Your scent keeps striking my nostrils, driving me mad, and the moon sees us and wants to hide itself in shame, like a herd of white cows wandering through clouds, that slick, milk-white radiance coming to drench us both……..” I could swear to God that in that moment I would never have troubled you, never caused you pain—I would have simply sat beside you in silence, perhaps only glancing now and then at your moon-kissed, luminous face, restraining myself from even touching, just gazing in wonder at the dance of light across your entire body. Then you seemed to me truly like some divine being descended from heaven, whose eyes had been dazzled by such blinding light and who, having lost her way, had wandered down to me—this insignificant mortal. Let it be illusion, let it be delusion; she had come, and that was the truth. I would have sat at the feet of the worshipped, gently touching the moon, piercing the silence of night with that moment, and lived through it in exquisite bliss.
A person who has grown up bathed in love cannot bear its absence—this, above all else. Perhaps this is why I grow more intolerant with each passing day. Yet I am afraid. He is already a rare man, and having asked God for more than my share, I cling to what little I’ve been given, terrified of losing even that. Where would I go then? But the cruel irony—how can one lose what one never truly had? He exists as he is, surrounded by walls I cannot breach, a labyrinth I have no power to penetrate. The thought of it brings tears to my eyes. Even beneath that moonlit sky, my cheeks are wet with monsoon rains. I look up at the heavens and think: if I gathered all the wealth and treasure of the world, it would still not fulfill this one dream of mine. If I were to die, what would it matter to him? Why should he bear the burden of a dream he never touched, never promised to fulfill? This rare moment—thousands of lifetimes of prayer could not bring it again. What does it matter if it comes or goes? When a moment falls into a corner of the heart, neglected and unwiped, let it not come to deepen the wound. While I was thinking all this, a student arrived—or perhaps the power returned, I cannot quite remember. All I know is that I could not teach him that day. I sent him away and came home. There, alone in my room, I wept without pause, like a madwoman. And I thought: O, how great a man! Before death, he makes me weep like this—will he make so many others weep after he is gone? I do not want such greatness, such renown, such fame, such love. Let him drown in it if he wishes! What good comes from binding a human heart with such tenderness? I will go blind from weeping for him, and he will never know. And even if he did, he would not care. My tears change nothing for him. Had I been in his place, I would never have wanted to climb to such heights. What good is a greatness that makes others suffer? What is lost if it never existed? I do not want—I will never want—anyone to weep for me. Listen to me babble on like this, and you are not even here to hear. No matter. Just be well. That is enough. Do you know what it is like to weep alone, utterly alone? You were not born with the fortune to feel love. I was, and so I am dying. Is this life? What manner of strange feeling is this? Is this love? What kind of love is this, O God? Why do people come into this world? To create attachment? Or to suffer? The suffering of attachment is the deepest suffering! Do people not come to live in joy? It is people themselves who bring people into this world. Yet why do those same people learn to inflict such pain? Why can everyone not learn differently? Why must some be fated to live in suffering, to die in suffering?
This endless writing to you—will I ever be able to let you read it? I’m not asking for you, only that you might know once, just once, how this wretch suffers loving you. I know that even if you knew, you’d do nothing—you’d only move further away, deliberately push me back. Perhaps I was once something you recognized, you never pulled me close, but you never pushed me away either, and now none of that will ever happen again. You’ll simply block me, or tell me straight to my face to never contact you again. And yet I wish you knew—just once—how madly this fool loves you. There’s no measure for love. If you had the vision to see straight through to the heart’s core, that cruel God denied you. If He had granted it, you’d see that in this girl’s mind, in the pupils of her eyes, in every joy of her being, there’s only you—playing day and night. You come unbidden, ceaselessly, of your own accord. If only you could understand. Or perhaps, if knowing this could ease that suffering soul, if she were to lose completely and utterly, there would still be one consolation—that you knew. I know that not telling you, or your not knowing, leaves me better off than I would be if you somehow found out—my pain would at least double then. What does my love matter to you? So many people love you like that. Besides, you’re not a birthday cake to be divided up and distributed in pieces to keep everyone happy. So let it be—better to leave it as is, as it’s going. Let it go on, until I’m done. But yes, if I ever die, if I see it coming even a little, then somehow I’ll arrange for you to have this diary. Then there will be no regret. Better to be freed in death than to live like someone already dead from having confessed. At least I can die in peace! You haven’t given me peace in life—when death comes, give me at least that much. Take this diary. You have no duty to forget me, I know—I was never in your heart anyway, how could you forget? Be well, keep everyone around you well. Hold your wife close. She came into this world blessed by fortune. I envy her, I love her. She is my Ram’s Sita. Keep my sister safe, keep her so very safe. I truly love you beyond measure. No one could ever love you like this. I won’t compete—I’ve already won by losing.
(26.03.2016. Dawn 5:10)
It’s nearly impossible to accept that you will never call me again. This is an unbearable truth. A brutal, unspoken no. I never imagined losing you this way. I didn’t understand that you could dismiss me like this. My thumb throbs with pain, but I sit down to write anyway. Because I have no other choice. What else can I do? I never thought life could turn upside down like this, so suddenly. I didn’t realize you would avoid me, give no response at all. I don’t matter to you. So you’ve erased me from your reckoning. You won’t contact me anymore—I understand that now. No phone call will ever come from your mobile to mine. What am I supposed to do? Call you endlessly? Knock persistently? Act like a madwoman on Facebook? Or is it because I don’t do any of these things that I’ve fallen beyond your sight? You must think I only come to you when I need something, and once that need is gone, I don’t reach out or push—so you won’t either. But if you knew how I’ve been surviving for you, could you do this? I know there’s nothing lovable about me. Not a single reason for you to like me. Nothing worth dreaming about. So I don’t exist anywhere. I’m hidden in neglect. That’s why you’ve shoved me into the crowd. Though I stretch out my hand, though I perform countless lifetimes of penance, I will never reach you. I never wanted to possess you. I only wanted to be near you. You wouldn’t even give me that. I won’t ask for it anymore. I’m living a life of revulsion. Without reason. Without condition. There was nothing between us, and there is nothing now. Fate, time, epoch, and place—none of them wait in hope for anything to become.
Let me turn the conversation elsewhere for a moment.
Your post just came through—The Shortest Love Story: someone I have loved one-sidedly, day after day; whose profile I’ve lingered over all hours; whose smallest, most trivial post I’ve dissected again and again, wringing meaning from every word; pages and pages I’ve written about you, thoughts of you consuming every moment; yet never once did I have the courage to speak, terrified of rejection—and then one day, suddenly, you knocked and said “I love you” and never made contact again, or wouldn’t let me. ……..I would have accepted even that. You’d say you love me? Even if it were a lie?
Just say it, won’t you! How much longer can I live like this? Did life surrender me so easily? And you? Why does such strange familiarity exist in the world—this knowing of the unknown? A faint hope was peeking through my chest all day long. I think somehow you sensed it and slowly, quietly, snuffed it out. It won’t burn anymore. Perhaps I’ll keep trying to light a mirage, mistaking it for truth, but I know—the light of hope won’t kindle again. A false feeling, a false dream, false colors, false imagination, false touch—I’ve smeared them all over my eyes and skin and I’m dragging this life along. I can’t let go of it, can’t forget it, can’t erase it, can’t unremember it. Why did I love you so much? Is there any question harder than this one? Why can’t I accept your indifference? Why does your silence awaken every feeling in me? Don’t you have mercy for anyone? Won’t you give alms to anyone? Will you not give me a little love as charity? Will you not give me a little shelter? Will you not give me a little time? No no no no no no no ………… I didn’t even get to hear that no from you before you vanished.
How can I explain to you
the way I live? I have no strength,
I am helpless. I have gone mute,
turned to stone.
Can’t you show me a little mercy? Why would you?
I know you won’t. I want so badly to think you cruel, wicked, arrogant. And yet I cannot.
Today, on winds that split the heavens, the whole world mocks me with the notes of suffering.
For such audacity—for daring to show, to make myself heard—invisible ridicule has laughed at me all day long, tittering without end. Black clouds grinding against each other, roaring,
pouring down their scorn upon me,
making sport of my name.
They taught me my lesson. Again and again they said, “Fool! That one is not yours, will never be yours. You are a speck and it is vast.
You are small and it is sky-measure. Where would you keep it? In your heart? Do you have room there? Be content with the scraps of mercy you’ve been given. Your silent love was only ever a hunger to possess it. Today it all proved false. We tell you, you failed, you are failing, you will fail forever! Hahahaha………..” Then came the roar of clouds again, their howling laughter,
mockery upon mockery of me,
humiliation rolling on and on through sky,
through air, everywhere. Believe me, I didn’t have the courage that day to even look toward the heavens once. They kept hurling these words at me, drawing close to my ears with terrible force. They were laughing. Such terrible, terrible laughter! That day you posted a picture on Facebook—some perfect union of sky and nature—and from within that screen they crawled out and attacked me with all their might. Seized by such arrogance, they tore me to pieces, shattered me, and kept saying over and over: I am no one to you,
nothing at all. I am without existence, I am false,
I am frozen, I am hollow. I have lost, I lost far too soon.
You’re laughing at all this?
Go ahead, laugh. You’re just like them! Or are they like you? Must be one or the other. Punish me then—punish me hard, punish me cruel. Why? What wrong have I done? Just one thing. I loved you. Fine, I accept it. Give me the punishment. Whatever punishment you deal, I will bow my head and take it.
I know you’ll say it without hesitation:
“Forget me.
Stop bothering me.” Say it then. And while you’re at it, please teach me—how do I make it possible to forget you? You can’t do it, big man. You simply cannot erase yourself from my mind. In this, you are helpless, utterly defeated by me. I win again and again just thinking about it. So will I really step away? How does one step away from someone’s life? It would be nice if there were a user manual for that. I only wanted to live. There was a time when your words alone pumped infinite strength into my body. There was a time I found new meaning in living. And now? Yes, like this—just living on and on—one day I’ll truly turn around. Perhaps I won’t love you anymore.
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger……” Really? No, that’s a lie. Not everyone is you. Not everyone can rise from the rubble and be born anew like you do, can’t stand up the way you have. Can’t think the way you think, can’t laugh the way you laugh, can’t speak the way you speak, can’t have that depth in the eyes you have, can’t read books the way you do, can’t blend in with such easy grace, can’t have even a fraction of your wit and taste—bring me someone like that, just one person like that; I’m giving you my word, absolute and complete, I will forget you entirely.
I’m serious! I didn’t want Tagore, didn’t want Sarat Chandra, didn’t want Humayun, didn’t want Sankha, didn’t want Sunil, didn’t want Samaresh, didn’t want Shirshendu. I didn’t want Kumar Sanu or Udit Narayan or Shah or Sonu Nigam coming to sing to me. I never even harbored the foolish dream that you’d say “I love you” with all the drama of Uttam Kumar or Soumitra. I didn’t even want you, really. Nothing else—just bring me death, that’s all. Only then will I forget you. Yes, I will. I will. If death comes, showing mercy, I will embrace it with boundless love and end it all, completely, once and for all.
I never knew love could be such an ugly thing. Lately, I keep thinking about a friend of mine. The poor fellow once told me, “Mohúa, if you deliberately fall in love with someone, it’s not really love. Love and affection come suddenly, and you can’t forget them even for a moment.” I asked him, how would I know? He said, “You’ll know it yourself. It doesn’t stay hidden.”
I didn’t understand then. I didn’t understand for the past two years either, but now I do—in my bones, in my heart. It pains me for that poor fellow. He loved me. I caused him suffering, never wanted to understand his feelings, couldn’t understand them. Just as you don’t want to understand mine, can’t understand them. I suppose that’s natural justice. But believe me, with all my heart and soul, I wish you never had to suffer this much. I always tell God that you should live a lifetime of happiness. That you should get exactly what you want. Sometimes I’m furious with myself for doing such a thing, thinking about it. But I actually didn’t do anything—it all just happened. I don’t know why it happened, how it happened, when it happened. Nothing at all. I knew beforehand that nothing would ever happen between us, and I know it even better now. Then why does it hurt so much, knowing everything? Why does the inside keep burning? What would stop this torment? Where do I steer this scattered, directionless life? After just two or three steps, there you are, suddenly before me. But I understand that if I had truly gotten you, I could never have loved you so much. I would have made excuses, leveled complaints, wasted time bowing to ego. I still do. Really, ego is just another name for fear. We call it ego to get away with it. From fear of loss, I say nothing aloud; even as I burn inside, I tell myself aloud that I’m selfish. I’m no exception either. I could blurt out “I love you” in a heartbeat, but I know you wouldn’t even look back. So I tell myself, alone: “What’s the point? What will he do if he knows? What can he even do? Nothing. He’s indifferent.” I never had you. Never having you, I’ve lost you completely. I will never have you again. I can’t remove you from this heart. You’ve made me lonely, a pauper, destitute. Without taking anything from me, you’ve turned me into a beggar. I am empty. I am no longer inside myself. Inside you, I don’t exist at all. I’ve drowned in your love. And yet, look—even the depths won’t make room for me. I’m that cursed. (29-03-16. 4:41 AM)
To dissect you—
do you know how many nights I’ve lost to sleeplessness?
How could you? You’ve stopped loving me, but I’m adrift on the raft of your affection. The waves, colluding with the wind, keep hammering at my little vessel, trying to drag it under, but they keep losing their battle against my will, my stubbornness. The day my will weakens, or I decide to sink myself, it won’t take more than two seconds for these fathomless waters to swallow me whole. But these aren’t the waters of the sea, or a river, or a spring—these are my tears. Crying for you has turned my eyes into an ocean. The water never runs dry. Does the sea only ever rise? Never recede? Do my tears keep mounting, day after day?
Or am I the one making them rise? Tell me, is it really crying if tears fall from the eyes? The crying without tears—I’ve seen that kind. It burns more. You don’t know what it’s like, swallowing a cry, how the breath catches in your throat. My cheeks stay heavy all the time. My chest collapses inward. Each breath staggers out. My face won’t wrinkle, stays taut as a drum. And there’s this ringing in my ears, a kind of buzzing. Can I not hear clearly? Or do I choose not to? What is it that happens to me? But one face is fixed in my sight—yours. Your face lives in my eyes.
I don’t have to strain to imagine you anymore; you’re always with me. What kind of thing is this? What do you call it? When tears fall from the eyes, you have to wipe your nose, dry your face, cry out loud, soak your pillow, press something to your mouth so no sound escapes, only to dampen it again with the water from your eyes, your nose, your mouth. But when I sit like this, numb and hollow, it hurts more. I remember you more. I think of you and the pain grows. Pain, pain, and more pain. That one word has destroyed my entire life. I’m collecting all the world’s suffering so easily! There has to be a limit to this foolishness. What am I doing? Every day I write countless senseless things, mostly variations of the same thing. What’s the point?
After all this, I still can’t seem to express anything. I doubt I can even write a fraction of what kind of time I’m having. I suffer all day, and I write for half an hour. How can I make anyone understand with so little? There are painkillers for physical pain. Is there no painkiller for this kind of suffering? If there were, I’d swallow them all day. Best of all would be a drug to simply forget someone, just like that.
Knowing you
didn’t hurt me. Love is pain; hatred… an even greater pain. You’ll never understand that. What I’ve understood, what I’ve learned by breaking over you, I’ve written it down for you:
Analysis One:
Others’ creations
on your singular canvas:
I have respect for those who love you and write about you, or whom you yourself inspire to write. What else can the poor souls do! When nature overflows, disaster comes, and this is the heart we’re talking about. But what I didn’t know was that you could edit all those creations into something so beautiful. Is the power to make a creation beautiful given only to you? And so much of it, at that!
Critique 2:
To you, the creator:
When I read your writings, your pale hands float before my eyes. They seem like brushes to me. You turn words into colours, each one a light-filled stroke—not imaginary, but dreamlike, as if painted on canvas by some white-thoughted, tender hand. Those hands, though—they are mine!
Tell me, how do you explain a subject so beautifully? It brings back those questions from childhood Bengali textbooks—the prose and poetry sections. Explain that line, discuss its significance, analyse it… and so much more. Back then, I’d just string together the dull platitudes from study guides and hope for the best. Ah, if only I could have forced you to write—even just one Bengali guide for SSC or HSC exams!
I’ve never been able to speak with flattery. I only feel and understand what I truly love. Everything else I say springs from that alone. So I’m offering these words below. I don’t know if this is even a critique of your work, so I’m asking forgiveness beforehand.
1) First and foremost—beginning to end—your writing is so, so, so very beautiful. All of it. Why? I’ll tell you. In your own words: *You know very well that you have to write the best ones… ALWAYS!* That very conviction is what makes all your writing beautiful.
2) Those who’ve caught the addiction from your writing will never, ever be able to shake it free. Why? Because you write precisely to addict them.
3) Most things probably progress in some sequence. Topics arrive one after another, in order. But in your writing, many pieces of information about a single subject arrive in sequence. And you give us everything—the fullness of it. The reader never thinks there might be something more beyond what you’ve written.
4) Simple things that never occur to anyone—things that don’t occur to them even when all the context stands right before their eyes—these ideas somehow teem and writhe in your mind alone. Entirely, of course, of their own accord.
5) Some of what you write requires reading again and again, and even then I often can’t grasp it. And there are things you perhaps deliberately keep hidden from understanding. You sometimes elevate yourself above all intelligibility itself.
6) Your writing plays heavily with open-secret kinds of things. The whole world reads them, yet nearly everyone—somewhat willfully—understands nothing. They see it with open eyes, and yet they desperately persuade themselves that their eyes remain shut. Knowing when to serve clear water as if it were clouded—that, my friend, is quite an art!
7) You must have such fun sometimes, don’t you? A thing means one thing, yet everyone thinks it means another. The public believes they’re understanding correctly, when really the meaning is quite different. And some perfectly sane people go a little mad from not understanding at all. This hide-and-seek game in writing is tremendous fun, isn’t it? Only you know it, and unless you say so, no one else ever will. That writhing confusion, that restless bewilderment, won’t let go of readers. Take me, for instance—I read your work and can’t even tell what I don’t understand!
8) Everyone who reads your work wants to be done with you in a flash. But they probably don’t realize—and this happens often—that the writer is usually absent from his own writing!
9) There’s something grasshopper-like about these pieces. Right before your eyes, yet impossible to catch. And you can’t stop chasing after them either.
10) How do you arrange lifeless words like that? Why do they leave marks across the mind? Is this sorcery or something? How do you manage it? Where do such gatherings of words come from? How do you think so beautifully? Why does such an uncanny fondness take hold? And why won’t all the meaning reveal itself even if you tear your hair out? Why don’t these writings ever grow old? Why do certain pieces become ‘just once, never again’? Why does the thought of reading them again frighten you?
What do you think, reading my dissection like this? I’m a ghost!
There you go—I’ve given you a perfect ten!
Is that too much? Are you breathless? Drink a bucket of water! There was more to say, but I didn’t write it. You don’t have to write everything. Why did you ask me to write about your work anyway? Might as well ask a monkey to dance. Don’t you know—a monkey doesn’t know how to stop!