Anyway, one Friday morning out of the blue, she said I should go with her to the clinic next to our house for a thalassemia test. She'd been saying it for a while now. She had minor thalassemia herself. We went there, got the test done. After that, we sat on the campus. She bought me an ice cream. We chatted for a bit. I told her, if you could come to campus next Baisakh, I'd wear a saree that day. She said she couldn't make it. Wasn't sure if she'd get leave, and even if she did, she'd stay home. Wouldn't go anywhere. Because she didn't like going out. I said, I love coming to campus in Baisakh. She said, if I lived in one of those Dhanmondi houses, I wouldn't want to go out anymore. They have all the conveniences there. Since there's nowhere to roam around here, we come here! Besides, students come to these open spaces because they can't afford to sit in restaurants!
Hearing her words, I was stunned! How could I explain that coming here wasn't about money, it was about feeling? Of course, she'd belittled our banyan tree spot, where once upon a time actors like Humayun Faridi, Selim Al Deen, and great writers used to gather and chat, coming this far! Our conversations never went very far. She'd be quiet, I'd talk endlessly! Eventually I'd get on the bus. Because she had to rush off to her MRCP coaching. Oh, who knew that would be our last meeting!
She'd become lifeless somehow. She didn't talk much. I did all the talking. It suffocated me. She'd only say emotional things. She wasn't interested in anything else. Getting a bit frustrated, I'd told her once or twice, if you don't love me like you used to, forget it, I won't tell Hema Auntie anything. She wouldn't say anything in reply. On Thursday I called her and asked, will you meet me on Friday? She said she couldn't, she had a stomachache. The next day, Friday, she called and said, since you wanted to meet, now tell me—should I come to your campus or not? I said, you can't just decide like that on the spot. If you'd told me yesterday, I could have prepared properly. A while later she called again and said, tell me yes or no within five minutes. I couldn't bring myself to call her back. Got caught up with work. Then she called herself and asked me to say yes or no. I can't say no to people directly. And her—I love her, so it hurts me terribly to refuse her anything. So I stammered and said, I'm fasting anyway. Plus Apu and my brother-in-law are home. If I keep going out every day, they'll get angry. After that she said, fine. She video called without asking. I couldn't say no. Something about her behavior made me uncomfortable! Was she actually psycho? In that moment, I felt such pity for her. I thought I'd love her back to health.
In the afternoon I called her. She'd been studying. She got very emotional, like a teenager. I was terribly sentimental too. I told her casually, 'Babu, at the wedding I'll wear a bright red saree. And I'll dress up so much. Our bridal chamber will be somewhere else.' Hearing this, she suddenly flew into a rage. She said, 'You keep saying the same thing over and over. Why do you have such a passion for roaming around and taking me with you?
# A Matter of Wants
If you want to travel, take your family with you, take your friends. Why do you need me there? I’ve told you again and again—I don’t like making plans in advance—yet you keep on about it. You introduce me to your friends, and the moment I ask them when they’re getting married, that’s apparently the problem. Why do we have to start planning everything before they’ve even set a date?”
I said, “A girl’s whole life is her wedding. She doesn’t just plan for six months—she plans her entire life around it. And I didn’t want to travel with your friends and family, just you—with my husband. Why can’t I have this one simple happiness?”
During one of our arguments, I told him, “You’re never going to talk to me like this again. And stop all this chatting too. I’m falling apart. Getting twisted up inside. But I shouldn’t have to. In university, I read so many good books—books that changed how I see life. You wouldn’t understand that. I’m serious about this: you won’t say things like this to me before we’re married. Since you don’t like making advance plans, why would we do advance things?”
I hung up. Then I didn’t call him for four days out of anger. He didn’t call either. Those four days, I understood I truly loved him. I missed him terribly. My chest would ache for him. I couldn’t sleep at night. I had nightmares about him. I was constantly anxious about him.
After four days, one night I called twice. He didn’t pick up. Early morning I called twice more—nothing. At seven in the morning when I called, he picked up and immediately said he was on a bus, to call him in the evening. I asked, “I called so many times—why didn’t you answer?” He said he was asleep, then cut the line. In the evening I called again. He said he was with a friend. Later that night I called and said, “I called so many times and you didn’t call back even once. Do you know how much I’ve cried missing you all these days?” He said sharply, “Say what you need to say, keep it brief. I don’t have time for all this rambling.”
Then he started a fight with me. The thing is, he’s brilliant. Every word, every detail stays sharp in his mind. He argues point by point with logic and reason, tearing me down. I’m a foolish girl, terribly emotional—the kind of girl who cries if the person she loves raises his voice even a little. I can’t match his logic. That day, he didn’t address what had happened between us at all. Instead, from the very beginning of our relationship, he started listing my faults one by one. He brought up something I’ve never even acknowledged admitting—that I told Hema aunty something about him. He says I keep pressuring him to go to Sajek, that it costs so much money.
I said, “Two people are never the same. You don’t like traveling, I do. That’s what marriage is—compromising, adjusting. Besides, you can buy me an expensive phone, but traveling is wasteful to you?” He said, “What matters to you doesn’t matter to me. You should marry someone who understands your importance. To me, a phone is necessary. Travel is wasteful. Career comes first.”
I said, “Fine, I won’t ask to travel with you anymore.” He said, “No, you’ll just torment me about it.”
I looked at the phone screen, my hands trembling. She was right—I’d done all of it. Used her ID without permission, stalked her ex-girlfriend, deleted messages, uncovered the blocked contacts one by one. Every word was true, and there was no escaping it.
“Why did you play games with my identity like that?” she asked, her voice steady but cutting. “Why follow my ex, then delete her messages? She had nothing to do with any of this. You destroyed my image. And then you went through my blocklist, unblocking women one by one, searching them out. Why? It means you don’t trust me. These people are my enemies. You know how hard I worked to find and block them all over again!” She paused, then her voice grew sharper. “Did you tell me you’d unblocked them? No. You did it in secret. If I marry you, I’ll have to live like this forever—in pain, in doubt. You’ll kill me slowly with your suspicion. You’ll keep me in mental turmoil all the time. I don’t need this kind of love. I need peace. If I marry you, you’ll never let me have it.”
I sat there, stunned. I couldn’t marshal a single counterargument, and honestly, I didn’t want to. I said, “If you felt this way, why didn’t you say something when I did these things? This was so long ago. Why did you keep talking to me after that?”
She looked at me coldly. “Why should I have to tell you? Shouldn’t you have realized it yourself? I want to marry someone mature and thoughtful. You’re a dreamer, an immature girl. I don’t like that.”
I apologized. Begged her forgiveness. “I was wrong to go into your account and open your blocklist. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”
“Sorry won’t change anything,” she said flatly. “This is who you are. It will never change.”
She went on, her complaints multiplying. Why did I ask about her family, her background? Didn’t I understand that she had an important identity of her own? Why did I have such trivial curiosity? Then: “You keep saying you won’t contact me anymore, and then you do. You screamed on the street that you wouldn’t talk to me for six months, and then you did. Now you keep asking me for guarantees—six months until marriage, or what? Why do you keep negotiating about whether we’ll get married in six months or not? Get a job. Then take your time and tell me your decision.”
I asked her directly: “Do you want to break up with me?”
She answered calmly, without hesitation: “Yes.”
The world collapsed. I cried. I begged. “Please, give me one more chance. Don’t disrespect my love. If that’s how it is, why did you play with my heart? Why did you give me new dreams? Why did your love disappear so fast? Real love doesn’t break so easily.”
“My heart has left you,” she said simply. “I tried. I couldn’t do it. Being alone is better than suffering. I did care for you sincerely. I gave you gifts sincerely. But it’s over.”
In desperation, I said, “Then how do I return your phone and the money I gave you?”
“You don’t have to,” she said. “Throw them in the water.”
“If I have to keep them, then you have to marry me. Otherwise, take them back. Come get them yourself.”
She shook her head. “No. If we meet, you’ll cry and make a scene on the street. If you really want to return them, send them by courier. And don’t try to blackmail me. It won’t work.”
I’ll break off our relationship on any terms you set.
She’s panicked now for a hundred reasons. The country’s in turmoil—she doesn’t know if she’s living or dying. On top of that, she’s had this gnawing pain in her stomach for weeks. And now I’m adding to her distress. So she’s decided: no wedding for now. Two years down the line, maybe. But I can’t wait that long. So I should marry someone else, she said. That was the end of our conversation. The next day I called and only said I’d send everything by courier once things settle down. It would take a little time. She just kept saying yes, yes, nothing more. I fell apart completely. Cried all day. Developed a visceral hatred for living itself. Started wondering: why am I still alive? To endure all this?
The ribs of my heart shattered. I lost all respect for myself, all faith. Why do I keep loving the wrong people and gathering wounds? Why do I court my own suffering? How many times can one person make the same mistake? How could I be so foolish? I don’t even know if she ever loved me. But I got caught in her spell. I can’t shake her off. This morning I saw her in a dream. Why did she plant so many dreams in these eyes? Dreams of living in love! Is love so flimsy, so cheap that you can grow close to someone instantly, then snap it all away just like that—for the most trivial reasons? I keep blaming myself. It feels like I broke the relationship. I should have been cleverer, more strategic. I’m drowning in regret. I can’t forgive myself. Over and over it hits me: if I hadn’t made that immature mistake, we’d still be together.
I couldn’t convince my heart of anything. Instead, I became obsessed with understanding her, knowing more about her. Just the futile fumbling of an idiot! I googled psychopath, paranormal, schizophrenia—searched for symptoms to see if any fit her. I played detective, trying to know and understand her, and it got me nowhere. One day, suddenly, using a fake account I found her enemy—her brother. I messaged him without revealing who I was, and craftily tried to extract everything about Rumi. He said he knew it all. He told me to call him. The brother’s name was Shawkat. They’d had some ideological conflict between them. So I told Shawkat that a friend of mine was thinking of marrying Rumi, that they’d met on Facebook, and I’d heard he knew Rumi somehow. He said he’d been with Rumi about two years ago, for a year. Since then he’d had no updates on him.
Shawkat went on talking. Rumi’s first posting was in Satkhira. He couldn’t manage to transfer to Dhaka no matter what—his colleagues kept him trapped there. He’d had problems with everyone at that office, seniors and juniors alike. He’d met Shawkat through Facebook. With great difficulty, Shawkat got him transferred to Noakhali. Once in Noakhali, Rumi started making serious money. He took the most he could from pharmaceutical companies. A hundred thousand a month. He’d use various brokers to order unnecessary tests for patients. He had thirty-one lakhs in the bank. The interest from that he kept in another bank to earn more. He stayed in Noakhali for a year.
After that, due to his behavioral problems, he was sent to Cox’s Bazaar as punishment. Now, after considerable struggle, he’s managed to come to Dhaka Medical for two years. He’s got a chance to do his postgraduate studies in oncology.
Rumi is an extraordinarily stingy person. Weddings, travel—these are just wasteful expenditures to him. He suffers from bipolar disorder. Sometimes composed, sometimes destructive. He stays up at night. He sleeps no more than two hours at night. He talks in his sleep. He laughs to himself. He believes his mother won’t give him any land or property. Because his older brother sold the family car, he wants to report him to the police. He’s naturally a drunk, but keeps his wits about him. He has screenshots of everything, recordings of every conversation. Yet he’s brilliant, cunning, intelligent. He’s exceptionally good at medicine. He helps everyone in that regard. He has multiple fake IDs. With these, he gets a kick out of posting absurd comments on various Facebook posts. My brother asked me: is the girl he’s planning to marry a psycho or something? Why does she want to marry such a psycho? Save her. She’s falling into a pit. But he couldn’t tell me anything about Rumi’s character—the one thing I most desperately needed to hear!
I couldn’t bring myself to believe how he could be a psycho. Or perhaps Allah hasn’t given me the maturity to understand him. I tried to match his symptoms with bipolar disorder syndrome. Like his severe insomnia problems. He can’t take pressure or force. If anyone tries to judge him, he flies into a rage. He prefers to be alone. He feels insecure. He’s always suspicious of everyone about property and land. And he seeks all his safety only in wealth. Somewhat hypersexual, but in no way aggressive. But these syndromes can afflict ordinary people too. Yet, I don’t know—his eyes in photographs seem so strange, so abnormal. I can’t quite explain it. You can’t look into his eyes for long; something about them frightens me.
For some reason, I feel he can’t sustain relationships with women for long, or women can’t put up with him for long. He lasted only two months with his ex. After growing so close, he ended things with that girl so brutally and completely. With me, it was a month and a half. Though I’d liked him virtually for three or four years now. I used to regularly follow every post, every comment of his. Never said anything unnecessary in inbox chats. Never confessed my feelings unless it was through our mutual neighbor Hema Auntie that he came to know me. I couldn’t have imagined he’d respond. Because I’ve never believed much in virtual relationships. So I tried to put him out of my mind and focus on studies, but then he approached me first. There’s no pain in one-sided love. But love in which two people commit to each other and one breaks that promise—that’s a different kind of pain. The one who betrays feels nothing; only the betrayed one suffers. Such betrayal is far worse than loving someone one-sidedly and beautifully, without them ever knowing.
Even if everything Shawkat Bhai said is true, it hasn’t diminished my affection for him one bit. In fact, because he’s so brilliant, I’ve become even more drawn to him.
# Untold Stories
We grow weak before those in whom we find what we lack in ourselves. The intellectual poverty I carry births in me an overwhelming hunger—a desperate longing—for those whose minds burn bright. That’s why I’m drawn to him, irreversibly, irrevocably. Perhaps what he felt was only physical. What I feel is of the mind. This inversion, this fundamental mismatch—it’s why he forgot me while I cannot forget him. And because I remember, I suffer.
On the day we broke up, I told him: *I love all of you—the good and the bad, the whole of it. Why couldn’t you do the same for me?*
—
After the breakup, he changed his password. Then he deactivated the account entirely. I tried other IDs, but he was gone. We’d been connected on Imoto. The morning after, I blocked him myself. No pictures, no texts—I couldn’t bear the proof. Yes, I kept his phone number. Just to confirm once, when the courier delivered his things back to him. To know if he’d received them. That’s the only reason. Now there’s no way to reach him, and even if there were, I wouldn’t. I’m not shameless enough for that.
—
The breakup was March 19th. On March 26th, I sent a friend request from a fake account to another fake profile. It appeared in my Messenger’s “People You May Know.” The name was his. But not Rumi Islam—Mohammad Rumi. Fresh. Just created, it seemed. Only a fragment of cloud on the profile picture. Nothing else. The moment I sent the request, he accepted. Then he messaged: *Hi.*
I wrote back: *Hi.*
I tried to be sure. His writing style—eighty percent certainty. Then I saw his mannerisms, his syntax, the way his thoughts moved. Completely certain now. It was him.
At first, I didn’t know if he’d recognized me. I wanted to play with it, pretend to be someone else. But he’s too clever. Too intelligent. So I didn’t take that risk. On that fake ID, he stayed connected to me for four, five days.
—
In those four or five days, he told me his family ran a business. Then he admitted the truth: he’s a doctor. The only lie he told was this—his wife was bothered by his Facebook presence, so he’d opened a fake account. He asked me many things. I lied about everything. But I couldn’t hide my writing style, so he figured it out. He knew it was me.
The beautiful part? We both knew. And we both pretended we didn’t, talking through our fake identities like actors in some strange play. One afternoon, I posted something on my wall in English—*There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.* He reacted with a like. Then, suddenly, at noon, he messaged. We talked for a while. Normal conversation. Ordinary talk. That night, he posted on his fake wall: *Fever.*
I understood immediately. It was for me. Only for me. That fake account had no friends but me, and he posted on his wall anyway—where no one would see, where no one would react. He’d done it deliberately, knowing only I would see. I became restless. I reacted with sadness first. I couldn’t bring myself to message. He messaged instead: *Thank you.* I asked: *When did it start? How high? How long?*
I wanted so badly to touch his forehead.
I told him, sleep quickly. He said he’d stay awake; sleep wouldn’t come now. I told him, as long as you’re awake, I’ll stay awake too. Right now, from this distance, there’s nothing I can do but pray for you. I’m helpless. You’re a sick man, and as long as you’re awake, I want to keep you company from afar. He said, no trouble. After that, I started telling him stories. Then he began asking me personal questions. Why I hadn’t married, whether I’d take the BCS exam, things like that. I said, I don’t want to marry anymore, I’ve lost faith in men. He asked, why? Have you been betrayed? I said, first, a man prefers talking to other women more than his wife or girlfriend. Second, a man’s love for a woman is purely physical, nothing of the mind.
He said, I can’t express myself in literary language like you do, but does that mean I don’t love my wife? I told him, the fact that you’re talking to me right now—isn’t that unethical too? Your wife wouldn’t like it if she knew. But I’m talking to you ethically, because you have a fever. He told me, if I have a fever, that’s my business, but why are you so anxious about it? Do you secretly want to be my wife? You can say so. I dodged that question. He said again, I’m beside my wife right now. At this moment I feel alone, I want to touch her. Suppose you were in her place. What should I do now? Whatever you say, I’ll do it. In response, I wrote, ‘I’m not an omniscient being who can tell you what you should do or what you want at this moment. And even if I did tell you, why should you do it? Who am I to you? Why do you want to put me in your wife’s place? We can’t turn everything into farce or mockery.’
I wrote further, ‘Someone insulted me or treated me badly, and then I’m supposed to pine for them—how does that work? Am I a clay doll that someone breaks my hands and feet, and then joins them back, and everything is fine again? Bad treatment hurts me too. I have tears streaming down in torrents. My eyes blur. At such times, these kinds of words feel like pure mockery to me. I bear no hatred or malice toward anyone. I believe with all my heart in fate. What happened was good. What will happen will be good. If you want, you can block or unfriend me. Take care.’ Then I wrote, ‘And, anyone can spoil my dream. After burning, I can be a spark in the ashes. I didn’t make any mistake. My love was pure but he was not worthy of containing that love. God never neglects the teardrops of pure love.’
It was three in the morning then. The conversation had started around eleven. I turned off the net and lay down. I felt some resentment toward him, and an old love resurfaced. The fire of love for him blazed in my chest. I lay there, but couldn’t sleep. Until dawn, I just lay hugging my pillow and cried. The next day I didn’t reply, only asked at night if his fever had gone down. He just said yes. Nothing more was said. I couldn’t sleep no matter what.
# Crying Late into the Night
I replied to that yes through tears, late into the night. I told her she could block me or unfriend me if she wanted. When I woke up the next morning, I found she’d deleted her own account entirely. When I got a response from her on a fake ID, I thought I’d gotten her back! Especially after seeing her recent posts, I became frantic with hope. I imagined she still loved me, that she still couldn’t forget me. After reading our conversations on the fake ID a few times, I wondered if she thought of me as a wife—or was she just playing with me! God, I was such a fool! But tell me, was I being foolish? Or do I actually love her? Which is it, really?
I loved Rumi after so much tumult in my life. I don’t know if it was an illusion or infatuation. I kept wanting to check if she was a psychopath. I tried to observe her, to really watch. She’d even told me once, ‘Promise me you’ll never leave me.’ One day I asked her: if we ever fought, what would you do? She said she’d hold my feet and beg for forgiveness, say sorry. Such intense emotion! When Rumi first came to me dressed that way, I thought she hadn’t wanted to follow the current—she was trying to impress me differently! She told me once that she dressed that way deliberately because she didn’t want to show me a false appearance. When she came dressed the same way the next day too, I was confused. Later I heard it was mostly to gain people’s sympathy.
She’d told Hema Apu, ‘Anika is the greatest blessing in my life.’ The day she bought me a mobile phone, she held my hand in the food court and said, ‘I gave it to you from my heart. I don’t want anything in return for it.’ When I insisted on repaying her from my salary, she said, ‘Okay, fine. We’ll buy a laptop together, and you can pay for half.’ I didn’t understand her real purpose for giving me that phone then, but I came to understand it later. My old phone took blurry pictures. The new one would take clear ones. She was very frustrated that I wasn’t using the mobile. She held back her irritation with great effort. But my sixth sense kept telling me not to use it—that this relationship had no real foundation. There was always something gnawing at me from within. I’d torment myself with doubts: Was I making a mistake? I look at most men with suspicion, I don’t fully trust any of them. She was no exception, though I don’t have that ‘Othello Syndrome’ that the excessively paranoid have.
She’d told me, ‘When Ma says you come from a good family, I didn’t need to know anything else about you. I always wanted to marry a girl from a good family.’ Some doctor’s daughter had asked her for a CV, and apparently that girl couldn’t hold a candle to me. Buck teeth, dark as anything. Yet Rumi was willing. That girl was apparently terribly bad-tempered, treated Rumi poorly. My close friend says Rumi moved on because I wouldn’t give her what she wanted the way she wanted it. But I can’t stop regretting that I went through her personal account and unblocked other girls to see their profiles! When I told her she should never treat me that way again, she blocked me over that whole unblocking thing. Apparently it hurt her deeply.
# A Minor Block
Could someone really do this to the person they love, just over opening a minor block?
Given all the details I’ve told you about him, does he strike you as a psychopath? I don’t know if all boys who are psychopaths act this way. The truth is, I don’t understand male psychology at all. My father was in the house, yes, but I barely spent time with him. I have some male friends, but most of them seem conservative to me. Here I am—someone who doesn’t even understand how boys think—and it falls to my lot to get tangled up with someone like Rumi! Is this fate? Or God’s cruel joke?
My heart’s wound is still deep and raw. So much of it hasn’t healed yet. Writing out this much of my life’s story was partly to ease the pain of that wound. Great sorrows may not destroy a person, but small, persistent pains—those a person cannot forget. In this month of Ramadan, I will pray and ask Allah to let me forget my grief, to grant me peace as I’ve always sought. If He gives me nothing else, let Him at least grant me the grace to forget sorrow. When things settle down, I’ll send him his things by courier—the mobile phone worth thirty-one and a half thousand taka, the three thousand he gave me, the thousand for shoes, and a letter along with it. But in that letter, I don’t want to hint at the slightest desire to have him back, nor do I want to hurl hatred at him. Everything that needs saying, I’ll say only to my Creator.
In the letter, I’ll share only some thoughts from my heart—what I felt before meeting him and after, or whatever random, rambling things I feel compelled to write. I’ll apologize sincerely for the delay in sending his things by courier. And I’ll include something I wrote. I wrote it two days before the breakup, about him. A description of our first meeting. Whether or not he reads it, whether or not I give it to him—my piece won’t feel complete unless he sees it. I want to post the story on my real account too.
All these thoughts swirl in my head. Then Hema Auntie calls out of nowhere.
“Hello…”
“Anika, have you heard about Rumi?”
“No. What happened?”
“Rumi’s tested positive for corona.”
“What?! When?! How?!”
“A patient came to his hospital two days ago with chest pain. The man had covid, didn’t mention it before. You don’t know anything about it?”
(I couldn’t say another word. I gripped the railing of the second-floor balcony and stood there, frozen.)
“Hello, Anika… can you hear me? Hello…!”
The call to prayer is echoing. The wait to send his things back by courier grows sharper, more unbearable…