The remains of my ancestors are mingled with this soil.
I was born here, drew my first breath in this air. So this path feels like the way home. Coming back to this earth brings such joy. There was a river right in front of our house, fields beside it. The scent of the river still touches me, brushes against me. When I remember all this, I think, oh! what have I left behind! what have I left behind! That’s why returning brings such happiness.
I’m returning home on the bus, barely hanging on; about to fall any moment. Suddenly the bus brakes, then doesn’t brake, I’m getting off—I mean, trying to get off—the bus hasn’t stopped completely, but it’s not running either, in that sort of state. I fell. The bus stopped right at that moment. It stopped, so I was saved. Otherwise, that very day I would have fallen under the wheels. I wouldn’t even be alive today to tell this story. At that moment someone said, Sir, you really should have died. Why did you get on the bus like that? Hearing this, I didn’t get angry at all. I was just thinking, people weren’t supposed to live with such indifference.
People are increasing, and along with them, indifference toward people is also growing. But it wasn’t supposed to be like this. How casually people are becoming accustomed to wishing death upon others. When will this end?
You’ve come to hear about my life. I’ll tell you.
Though my life isn’t something so extraordinary that it must be heard. Whatever work I didn’t enjoy doing, I simply wouldn’t do. One such thing was studying. My attention was elsewhere, not on the syllabus books. I did read, but not the textbooks. The result was that I had no career to speak of. A meaningless life, purposeless days. I was even afraid to fall in love. I would think, who am I that anyone would love me? I wouldn’t love, fearing rejection. But after a certain age, one woman made the mistake of falling in love with me out of compassion. Later she understood this too, but by then it was quite late. She’s still cheerfully paying the price for that youthful mistake.
For a time I was naturally melancholic.
Certain philosophical questions would chase me around. I would think far too much about what, why, how things were happening. All of this would somehow empty everything inside and outside me.
During that time, being alive seemed so joyless. An identity crisis had enveloped me. I felt I had no sense of self. I would run to my mother seeking refuge. This condition came to my life several times. In these moments of extreme suffering, I had once decided that I would no longer remain in this world. This decision gave me considerable comfort. The thought of death brings great satisfaction, peace to a person when they can no longer bear life’s torment. In cricket, when someone gets injured and leaves the field without finishing the game, their condition was mine too. I was thinking of leaving life without completing life’s game.
Then I met my Thakur Anukul Chandra. He gave me rebirth, as it were. He taught me that one must continue with life’s pain, sorrow, and suffering. He said, Go, nothing has happened to you. Play again. Go, and see the light again. He convinced me that even if I was incompetent, even if I couldn’t be as brilliant as five other bright people in this world, I could at least be one dim person and live a little to see what happens! This is how I went on living. I wrote—I mean, I began writing. At the age of twenty-two.
Desh magazine didn’t publish my first story. I thought, let me send another one. If they don’t publish this either, I’ll assume I have no right to write. There’ll be no point in my writing anymore. They kindly published the next one. My beginning was in that editor’s encouragement. It’s continued since then. In the early days, not many people read my writing. What I wrote was a construction of my mind. I would break down people and surroundings into fragments, then reassemble them in my own way. No one would accept it, so my first novel ‘Ghunpoka’ wasn’t selling either, all copies just lay there. No one was reading it, or they were reading but not understanding. No one was praising it, nor criticizing it. When I wrote ‘Durbin,’ I had assumed that no one would read this either. This was going to be another Ghunpoka. After writing, I can never tell what I’ve written, how it turned out. I’ve written this way, I continue writing this way. What I’ve received is more indulgence than achievement. Most of the time I don’t even remember that I write, that I’m a writer. Seeing you all waiting for me so kindly reminds me that I have to write, that I do write!
For Thakur’s work, I often have to rush from village to village. The people I rush to don’t know how to read or write. They don’t know me as a writer. They probably don’t even know what a writer is. Once I went to a remote village in India. I went to a shop to have breakfast and sat down. Coolies, laborers, and drivers eat there. I went and sat beside them. I was the only one wearing somewhat respectable clothes, which stood out differently. The shop was run by a rural, uneducated woman of about forty to forty-five. She was constantly hurling obscene abuse at everyone in Hindi. I sat there for a long time, but she wouldn’t even turn to look at me. Many people came after me, ate and left, but I couldn’t get anything to eat. Meanwhile, I was terribly hungry. What to do, what to do, I was thinking, when I remembered something my Thakur Anukul had said. Thakur would say, all women are mothers. He would ask us to address women as mother. But looking at that woman’s language, clothes, behavior—nothing made me want to call her mother. I don’t know why, but I thought, let me try calling her that! I looked at her and said, Mother, I’m very hungry, could you give me something to eat? What happened next was like magic! That woman personally arranged hot rotis and curry on a plate and sat before me saying, Eat, boy, eat. You don’t pay the full amount, pay half. I simply couldn’t give her the full payment. Where was her rudeness, where was her neglect! Actually, we can never know what hunger someone is secretly suffering from. Who could know that this woman too had the eternal hunger to give maternal affection hidden within her?
From the words Shirshendu spoke on that rain-soaked evening of the 30th, I’ve written down the above somewhat in my own way. I could probably write only these parts because they match more closely with my own life; I don’t remember the rest as well. If all the people born on November 2nd suddenly declared that just by staying alive they’ve received much more than they ever should have—so much that they were never supposed to get; those who had assumed their days would just pass like this, but later found that days weren’t passing just to pass by; I wouldn’t be surprised at all.
That day at Batigraha, Shantanu-da (he sings) was saying, this man does so much himself yet in the end gives all the credit to Anukul Babu!
I had said, if one can become so accomplished even by giving all credit to someone else, then let it be so, brother! My mother too has taken initiation from Thakur Anukul Chandra. Mother also thinks and believes that Anukul has given her shore in life’s most critical moments. Just staying alive is such a great thing! If during that time of staying alive one can mingle with so many other people’s time of staying alive, then these little matters of belief and disbelief don’t matter, brother.
Preface: This Saturday evening Shirshendu is coming to Batigraha. Samaresh came before him. Before that, many others too.
I was there that time. I’ve been there before. I’ll be there this time too.
I learned from my father that one must learn from teachers and great people by sitting at their feet.
One must shake off all one’s ego and learn with bowed head. They won’t teach; they don’t have that much time either. Even if they did, why would they give it? To insignificant me? Who am I? Why should they give me time? Still, one must learn.
Shirshendu and I were born on the same day, November 2nd. Shakespeare made Juliet ask, what’s in a name? That’s not a question, it’s a soliloquy. Many would similarly ask, what’s in a birthday? I’d say, nothing happens. Still, this coincidence of birthdays creates a kind of joy within me. Very precious joy, more precious than money. I like Shah Rukh’s acting, he too was “kindly” born on that day. If I say it like that just to make myself feel good, what difference does it make to anyone! There’s no reason for this feeling-good to work; yet it does. How much can one match oneself with beloved people! Shirshendu was born in Bangladesh, so was I. He rose from very dire circumstances in life; so did I. Without going through such terrible situations, could anyone write a novel like ‘Swimmer and Water Nymph’? A very small novel, yet how weighty! Many things small in size are not small in measure. “For sale: baby shoes, never worn”—Hemingway’s six words have been given the dignity of a novel! Can you imagine! Even if I were given six centuries of life, could I ever write like that? Even with the pain of a hundred lifetimes, one cannot write words so full of pain. Good writers are as large as our sufferings. These six words are more valuable than ten shelves of books by many non-writers. What does size matter? If we made a list of very short yet philosophically profound novels in Bengali literature, Shirshendu’s ‘Swimmer and Water Nymph’ should be among the first. This book costs 18 rupees in Indian currency. After reading it, I felt that this book alone could teach one to think about life. Before saying ‘no’ or ‘goodbye’ to life, one could live at least once accepting this: “Just staying alive accomplishes much.” These are Shirshendu’s words. To see—even from a distance, for just a moment—the person who could say this, one could easily travel from Dhaka to Chittagong.
So I’m going; on the night train.
Dipankar-da, the light you’ve lit, continue to light—please never extinguish that light. Stay always like this, mingled deep within us. Brother, thank you.