'Beyond the window, the kadam tree. To its left stands the jarul, head held high with pride, bearing two jarul blossoms. Behind it, a bamboo grove. And above the grove's crown, Kajla-didi's ancient moon. Against the darkened blue canvas of the sky, the intricate needlework of countless stars. One looks and thinks the evening star must be only a few yards from the moon. On the south-facing window's grille, a few scattered surrenders of longing. Through the night's length, wrapped round the body, whispers of some melancholy song in the happy voice of eternal freedom. O earth, you have kept me alive so long. I thank you.' The clock hands read exactly four in the morning. After posting the note on Facebook, Natasha tied her scarf firmly around the ceiling fan, her body rigid with purpose. She kicked the stool from beneath her feet with both heels, and in a single motion, hung. Natasha's still, silent body swayed on the scarf knotted to the fan. --- It was the first day of Baishakh, 2008. Natasha wore a white sari with a red border. She had woven a red rose into her braided hair. Her forehead bindi too was red. In that dusky complexion, as if Saraswati herself had taken form. Her youth bloomed upon her like dew drops scattered on winter morning grass. Barely into her teens, Natasha's lips perpetually brimmed with laughter—worlds of it. Her eyes, thick-lined with kajal, seemed like enchanted shores from across the Padma. Sitting with her friends on the college grounds, she bit into hilsa, ate rice with leftover curry, and broke into peals of laughter at every jest that passed. A few yards away stood a boy, recently entered into his teens, watching it all. His eyes were caught on Natasha's mischievous, sweet smile, its mysterious geometry. In all that noise and crowd, it was this one girl who had arrested his sight. Ah, how her entire being seemed woven through with enchantment! Lost in carelessness, the flower came loose from her braided knot and fell to the ground with a soft drop. The cluster of girls, absorbed in their merriment, barely noticed. The boy who had been watching Natasha—his name was Himu—walked slowly and stood behind her. He picked up the rose from the dust, wiped the earth from it, and with the flower in one hand and his other hand gently touching her shoulder, called softly, "Excuse me, miss. Your flower fell. It was on the ground." Natasha quickly reached up to her hair and felt the gap. The flower was indeed gone. In a gentle laugh, their eyes met. Natasha was in the second year of HSC at Patiya College. Her final exams were coming. She was the eldest in her family. Her father ran a small grocery shop. She had one younger brother and one younger sister. A family barely scraping by. Since class nine, Natasha had been tutoring younger students to pay for her own tuition and pocket money. In a few months, her exams would begin. Himu lived in the village next door. From the day of the Baishakhi fair, when he had first seen her, a kind of affection had taken root in him. Both their homes were in Patiya. Since that first glimpse, Himu had begun asking about her. Through friends, he had learned where she went, what she did. He began standing in Natasha's path on her way to college. He would wait for as long as it took until she finished, until she emerged. Natasha slowly began to notice. Their eyes would meet. Sometimes, in the language of eyes alone, they would speak—conversations without words. The eyes held a thousand things to say.
It was Monday. Himu followed behind Natasha on her way to college. Though he would stand by the roadside or in front of the college gate just to catch a glimpse of her, he could never muster the courage to speak to her directly. He had let four or five months slip by, telling himself he would talk to her someday. But today, after steeling himself for weeks, he had finally made a firm resolve: he would bare his heart completely.
Natasha, of course, had understood what was happening. She smiled to herself, half-amused, half-pretending not to notice. At the college gate, Himu blocked her path and thrust a piece of paper into her hand, then, overcome with shame, he bolted away.
Natasha unfolded the paper. It read: “I like you—no, I mean, I really love you. Will you walk this path with me?” Below it was a mobile number. Natasha smiled softly. She copied down the number and went into class.
When she got home from college, Natasha called the number. From the other end came a trembling “hello.” He must have known it would be her.
From that day on, their acquaintance crossed into something deeper. They learned that Himu was a year younger than Natasha. He was in the first year of HSC while she was in the second. Natasha was his senior, something Himu had discovered when he asked around about her. And yet—or perhaps because of this—he loved her all the more. He wanted her.
For reasons she couldn’t quite explain, Natasha had grown fond of Himu too. To catch a single glimpse of her, he would skip classes and stand for hours on the blazing road she took to college, gazing at her with eyes full of a tender longing. There was something pure in that gaze. Sometimes he would hide his face in shame. Witnessing this, Natasha’s heart softened toward him. She began to like him back.
After that phone call, their conversations multiplied. They decided to meet at a tea stall. They met one Sunday at a small shop near the college. They sat facing each other. Himu was stiff with embarrassment. Natasha too could barely look at him. An awkward silence hung between them. It was Natasha who spoke first. “Listen, you’re my junior. How can what you’re asking for ever happen? Tell me.”
Her words struck Himu like a blow. His eyes and face crumpled with desperation. Like a man beyond reason, he suddenly reached across the table and took both her hands in his own. With tears streaming down his face and his voice breaking, he said, “Please, don’t say no. I can’t think of anything without you. The whole world feels meaningless without you!” He bit his lip and lowered his head, turning away as if trying to hide his eyes from her gaze, but he couldn’t manage it.
Natasha saw the tears rolling down Himu’s cheeks onto the table, saw him desperately trying to swallow his sobs, trying to hide his weeping. She understood then that in every drop falling from his eyes flowed a vast ocean of love for her. She could drown in that ocean without a moment’s hesitation. There was no cunning in these tears, no deceit. Each drop held the fear of loss, the thirst of love. This water was genuine, this water was pure.
Now Natasha’s heart melted like wax, dissolving entirely. There is one place in this world where womankind is most fragile. When they find a pure love, they grip it with both hands and wish to live for ages with it. Somehow they know—they understand—the depth of love. The Creator has fashioned their hearts with an infinite capacity to feel. With this gift, they know precisely who truly loves them and who merely wishes to brush against them.
In his boyhood years, Himu’s mind and soul knew only Natasha. She was his world—everything in it. Boyhood itself is such a terrible time. When love blooms then, its depths exceed the ocean’s. There is nothing in the world as heart-stirring as first love.
Natasha answers Himu’s selfless affection. She places her hands in his, wipes the tears from her eyes. From that day forward, their acquaintance transformed into love. And so began their journey together.
Love is a strange thing. Love obeys no rule of the world, respects no law or prohibition. Love is deeply blind. Love ultimately transcends all conventions. Love that bows to rules, that counts and calculates—that is not love at all, merely a contract or a transaction.
Natasha and Himu’s love progressed beautifully. After college they would walk together. They would sit at Cooling Corner, gazing into each other’s eyes. Hand in hand, they swore to walk life’s path together forever. Each day brought new dreams, careful craftsmanship in weaving their futures, their entire lives.
Gradually, the matter became known to their college circle. Whoever learned of their relationship didn’t say much to their faces, but whispered and smiled behind their backs—though Natasha and Himu paid little heed.
Natasha’s HSC exams would begin next month. Yet in the whirlwind of new love, her mind was restless, turbulent. In this restless state, studies found little room. Himu’s thoughts circled endlessly through her mind. It was as if there were no brain in her head at all—only Himu, filling everything to bursting.
Natasha was a fairly good student; no one could call her a poor one. She had scored an A grade in Science in her SSC and been admitted to Poitya College. What fate held now, who could say? She tried repeatedly to focus on studying for the exams, but failed each time. At Himu’s urging, she would sit down to study. But can the wind of new love so easily let go of a mind it has entered? Moreover, this was first love in girlhood. Love at this age is more powerful than the gales of April or the tornadoes of the ocean floor!
Somehow she finished her HSC exams. By then, word of her relationship with Himu had spread through the neighborhood. The elders who learned of it all began speaking with contempt, mocking and belittling the two.
Natasha’s father flew into a rage and beat his daughter terribly. Yet this was the same man who had never allowed even a flower petal to touch his beloved daughter’s skin. The household made it abundantly clear to Natasha: either she ended her relationship with Himu, or she would have to leave home.
But Natasha could not abandon Himu, not for anything. There exists such a thing as “the courage of love.” Relying on this courage, Natasha made her decision: she would leave the village for the city and enroll in some college there.
# Natasha
With the money saved from tutoring, Natasha set out to find a hostel in the city. After making inquiries, she moved into a hostel in Chawk Bazaar. At the same time, she began searching for more tutoring jobs—and found them. In the meantime, her HSC results came out. She passed with an A grade, as she had done before.
On Himu’s side, his family came to know about his relationship with Natasha and began subjecting him to mental torture. They were financially struggling. Himu was a brilliant student; fighting against poverty, he had secured a golden A+ in Commerce from his SSC. He had his HSC exams ahead of him. And now, because of his unwanted relationship, his family could barely—or simply refused to—give him any pocket money or tutoring fees, even though his exams were drawing near.
Natasha found out about all this. Learning of Himu’s financial difficulties, she took on more tutoring work. From her tutoring earnings, she began sending money to support Himu’s education. In this way, Natasha enrolled for honours at Mohassin College in Chittagong. Caught in such family turmoil and relationship complications, she hadn’t been able to secure a place at a public university. The truth was, she had scarcely had the chance to study at all. But keeping her focus on ensuring Himu’s education didn’t suffer, she sent him money every month. She had to manage all her own expenses too.
The days passed like this.
Himu was conscientious with his studies. He took his HSC exams and, true to form, did well. He got an A+, though he just missed the golden mark. Now came the time to prepare for university admission. He needed money for coaching classes to prepare for the entrance exam. Natasha scraped together the fees, bit by bit. Himu enrolled at a coaching center in Potiya.
Several months rolled by. Love and responsibility grew in both of them. Their bond deepened over these months. Himu studied day and night. In the brief moments between study sessions, he would talk to Natasha. The two of them would lose themselves in dreams of a shared future, in the certainty of forever standing side by side.
Days and months passed, and finally came Himu’s university entrance exam. He got a place at Dhaka University. Natasha paid for everything—his travel, food, lodging, and all the admission expenses. She was happiest of all to see him succeed. Indeed, Himu’s success owed most to Natasha’s sacrifice.
Everything was going well. Both were happy. Natasha had grown distant from her family. No one knew if she was alive or dead; her family asked no questions. Whenever she called, they recognized her voice and hung up. She had had to abandon her family to keep her love alive.
The two of them spent their days chatting on Facebook and talking for hours. From morning until night, Natasha and Himu seemed like jasmine flowers strung on the same thread. They fell asleep listening to each other’s breath. Each morning began with the sound of breathing—each other’s. Their love seemed as deep as the ocean floor.
Himu got a seat in the university hostel. His pocket money—Natasha sent it. Finding tutoring work in Dhaka wasn’t easy, and Himu needed time to adjust to this new city. Once he learned the streets and lanes well, he would manage everything.
Natasha was now in her second year of honours; Himu in his first. Life was going well.
Toward the end of his first year, Himu managed to land two tutoring jobs. Now he took the responsibility for his own expenses into his own hands.
# Two years slipped by like that. Himu was in his third year now, and Natasha in her fourth. The decision to marry after completing their honors degree had been made long ago. Those days were passing well enough. Hour after hour of travel, and Natasha would come to Dhaka to see Himu. Sometimes Himu would travel to Chittagong instead. This was how they saw each other, scattered and occasional.
Natasha wrote well alongside her academic studies. Her hand for writing was remarkable. She had composed many poems and songs dedicated to Himu. Her diary pages were thick with verse. Every poem had Himu as its hidden subject. She posted poems on Facebook now and then. Calendar pages turned, days became months, months became years. And sometimes, following that current, a person’s fate too would shift. With it came changes in what people loved and hated, their tastes and preferences. Even the most familiar person could change.
Lately, Himu seemed occupied with everything. When she called, there was a wait. When he picked up, he sounded hurried, cutting the conversation short after a few words. There was an odd restlessness to him. Where once they could talk for hours on end, now—somehow—his ocean of words would dry up into a desert within five or ten minutes. The wordsmith who once wove words upon words, who conjured magic with speech, now barely seemed to speak at all. It was as if he had no stories left to share with Natasha.
That old pull in his voice was gone. Those familiar fragments of old talk had vanished. The madness he once felt about seeing her—none of it remained. An indifference now filled every inch of Himu, from head to toe. The very man who once used to speak with her twice an hour—now, even if hours passed, morning turning to night, he wouldn’t think to check on her. Even when Natasha called, he seemed preoccupied, distant.
Natasha sensed it then: the premonition of a new storm gathering in her life. A neatly arranged thatched house, and suddenly—an omen of calamity. That silent signal was conveying to her the depths contained in so many kinds of words.
Himu was not as he had been. His indifference toward her was growing with each passing day. To live in the face of indifference from the person you love desperately—it cannot be borne. Perhaps this is the hardest thing of all. Death would be easier than this.
Natasha’s habit of keeping a diary was long-established. She preserved in its pages all manner of things that happened in her life. Every victory and defeat, every gain and loss, every twist and turn of joy and sorrow—all were stored in that diary bound in black. She had bought it on a whim back in class six. From that day on, much like Anne Frank’s diary, Natasha’s own diary had become an inseparable part of her life.
Not everything can be told to everyone. Not everyone can understand the meaning behind every word. There are things in this world that can only be told to oneself and one’s diary. A word whose vastness seems to me greater than the ocean itself might be just a few letters to someone else. What good is it to tell someone everything? Better perhaps to keep certain things, certain feelings, close—guarded carefully, known only to oneself.
Natasha keeps writing. She writes and writes until the pages run out, yet the words do not. When the night grows deep, she would call Himu and ask what he did or didn’t do all day, what he saw, what he heard, what he ate or didn’t eat. From morning light into the depths of night, her words would tumble over one another like a cascade, until at last they came crashing down. But nowadays, Himu apparently falls into a heavy sleep the moment darkness comes. He finds no words to speak. Now from Himu’s throat, words for Natasha no longer bloom—instead, there grows only a crease of irritation furrowed between his brows.
All those things Natasha no longer has the chance to tell Himu, she tells to her diary. Page after page of accumulated sorrow and unfulfilled longing belch forth until the white pages themselves sometimes become a pond of salt water.
Love is a strange thing. You cannot love just anyone simply because you wish it, yet once you have loved someone, you cannot stop loving them no matter how hard you try. The mystery of the universe’s creation is the world’s most complex matter, and yet the mystery of love is a hundredfold more intricate still—a mystery no one on earth has ever been able to unravel.
Natasha, who thrust her thumb in logic’s face and fell in love with a boy of different years, who left her home and now lies in a narrow alley in some forgotten corner of the city—that very boy’s love for her has perhaps become thin, fragile. Perhaps he loves someone else now. Oh, and one must live accepting even this! Love changes hands, and meanwhile one pair of hands stares helplessly after those newly unfamiliar hands that have moved away. One pair of hands dances in the light; the other gropes in darkness.
That the person you love does not love you—even this can be borne. But that he loves someone else—surely the Creator has not made any lover, man or woman, noble-hearted enough to bear this. There was a time when Natasha’s pen flowed with hundreds of poems about Himu, each line brimming with deep love, each letter beckoning with dreams overflowing. Himu would sometimes weep reading such love-filled poems, moved by joy or by sorrow. Now such poems seem to Himu like clumsy, misshapen gibberish. Ah, when love ends, the pages of poetry become mere wrappers for spiced snacks.
Like this, day after day drifts by in indifference and neglect. Nights fade away. Perhaps Himu will return as he was before. The hand that held and led her away from home, from society—surely one day it will return. Perhaps this is only his passing fancy. Even the homeless bird that flies toward distant horizons at dawn returns to its nest by evening. And Himu is human, after all—he will surely return! So thinks Natasha. She thinks and searches for the means to go on living.
That day was the fifteenth of April. Natasha’s birthday. On Natasha’s birthday, Himu used to be the most joyful of all. Even if Natasha forgot, Himu never forgot this day. Yet on that day, from morning itself, Himu has been quite busy. There’s some work he has to do, apparently.
# Unspoken Rules
There was an unwritten law between them: no matter how demanding the world became, no matter what mountain of obligations piled up, on this one night—from midnight to dawn—they would talk. Unbroken. Continuous. Their night.
But this year, Himu hadn’t found a single moment.
Not one handful of time on an entire birthday. Natasha’s chest had been tearing itself apart all day. It felt as though someone were sitting on her ribs, methodically cutting, sawing away, yanking out her very heart and dragging it through the wound. A phone call. A message. A single word—*hello*. What depths of emotion, what oceans of feeling lived in such small things. They were nothing, really. And yet to Natasha, each one was a sea unto itself.
But Himu? Himu was desperately busy.
The time for Natasha had simply run out.
Every love carries with it some expectation or other. You wait for a birthday wish from the person you love, or perhaps a few tender words. But on *this* day—her birthday—Natasha’s heart ached for something more. For him to show her the fullness of his love.
At four-thirty in the morning, she saw Himu online. Natasha pushed past her hesitation and called.
He was on another call. Deep in the night, and he was *busy*.
Her chest lurched. Was there someone else? Someone with whom he was occupied at this hour? Someone important enough that he could forget her birthday wish?
Natasha had told herself that even if he’d been too caught up in the day to remember, surely he’d call before dawn. She could wait for that. She *had* waited.
But he hadn’t called. Instead, he was on the phone with someone else. Everyone else had wished her—friends, acquaintances, strangers from Facebook. Everyone but him. Everyone but the one whose wish mattered most.
Five-thirty in the morning. Still online. She called again.
Busy again. She tried his mobile. He declined the call.
This time, Natasha buried her face in the pillow and wept. The whole world had turned numb around her. Dawn came. Noon arrived. When she finally woke, she saw he’d called once—just once—around eleven-thirty. Once. Where was the man who used to call a hundred times if she didn’t pick up the first time?
She called back. His voice was awkward, hesitant. There was tension in it. Fear, perhaps. Anticipating questions about the night. Bracing for accusations.
Natasha said nothing about it. She spoke to him naturally, easily, and ended the call the same way. But before she hung up, she reminded him—gently—that yesterday had been her birthday.
Silence. Long silence. Neither of them spoke. Finally, from her end, Natasha cut the line.
What struck her most was that Himu never called back. Never once said he was sorry.
Natasha has been feeling terribly alone lately. If two people are in a relationship and one of them still feels lonely, you have to assume they’re in the wrong kind of relationship. Love is the sort of thing that doesn’t need to be spoken—it’s felt, understood in the bones. Those who ring up twenty-four times a day frothing at the mouth with “I love you, I love you”—they’ll do the same to someone else. It’s a simple truth most women don’t grasp. Though Natasha isn’t that kind of woman, she longs to feel Himul’s pull toward her, that tug she once sensed but cannot feel anymore. These days Natasha understands certain things. Lovelessness, like the bed of a dried riverbed, has its own terrible clarity.
Natasha tries to reach out to her family. But her parents’ anger hasn’t lessened in all these years. If anything, the village has woven tales. She ran away to the city with some boy—barely an adult—and married him, they say. Worse tales have spread: that in the city, Natasha turned to flesh-selling. Certain people claim to have seen her with their own eyes doing this work. (Though no one in the village has had the spine to ask these gossips, “If you saw it yourself, how come, friend?”) This is why she no longer comes home, they say. The family is trapped in this web of lies. They can’t step outside. They can’t face anyone for shame. In the eyes of society, Natasha is already ruined, already expelled. There’s no place for such a girl in their world. If you let a girl like that back in, they say, it will corrupt the character of all the other girls. (The implication being that every other girl in that village is pure as a flower!) So a curfew has been issued—Natasha is not to be allowed home.
She learned all this from her younger siblings. In secret, her two youngest brothers and sisters speak to her sometimes. They were pieces of her heart.