# Last Try
I wanted to cut my wrists. I wanted to hang. There’s a strange pity—even for myself. The last time, I swallowed one and a half strips of sleeping pills. The day after his wedding. That was my last try. I watch that divorce-day video sometimes. I watch my Nihal in his white shirt. It’s the last video I have of him. In that video, in the background, I’m sobbing—howling—and that crying still hasn’t stopped. Once he cried for me in a dream. I watch that video sometimes too. He sent it after the divorce. I look at his younger sister’s photo—the one who turned my life upside down. I look at pictures from our wedding day. His new woman isn’t fairer than me, not taller than me, just a bit healthier, that’s all. I see him sometimes too.
I studied the Quran and Hadith quite thoroughly, looking into the steps of divorce. According to the Quran, Hadith, and the practices of the Companions and their successors, the best method of giving divorce is this: when the wife becomes pure from her menses, the husband should give her a clear and explicit divorce without having relations with her. Divorce during menstruation is forbidden precisely to prevent it from happening in her distress; instead, it should happen at a good time, after thought and consideration. They didn’t follow this. There are other steps before divorce, and Nihal ignored every single one of them. By Islamic law, our divorce is completely invalid. So Nihal is still my husband. How can he marry a second wife while the first still lives, without the first wife’s consent? He forced a divorce on me without giving me a proper one—something forbidden in Islam.
We moved to a new house, leaving the old one behind. My brother and sister-in-law left us. Their future was being ruined with us, so they decided to move away. Father, Mother, and I—three people sitting idle, eating without earning. A divorced daughter in the house is another calamity. Their daughter is four. My shadow might fall on her. And remarrying me—that’s a financial burden too. Thinking of all this, they left long ago. They don’t ask about us anymore. After that, I got a job at the primary school. Loneliness, family tension, how to manage alone, how he’s with someone else—with all these worries, I’ve searched for an escape many times. I found no psychiatrist. No mentor either. I thought of going to the discipline teachers, but business studies—would they actually help, or would I just get scolded and come home worse? Fear stopped me. I watch motivational videos all day and search for reasons to stay alive.
I’ve cried and broken everything in the house. Father and Mother misunderstand further. They can’t handle me; they just make it worse. I cry all day. On April 13th, when I pulled the stool from under my feet as I hung from the fan, Mother heard that sound, ran and lifted me up, called people, got me down. After that, an uncle and aunt from the neighboring house took me in as their own. Though they scolded me too, plenty of times. Wanted to send me away to Pabna. Said all sorts of things. That aunt and uncle keep explaining things to me every day. A friend of mine came and stayed. For eight or nine days now, she’s been with me. This is where I am.
# The Weight of Waiting
I can’t eat anything. Sleep won’t come—the whole night through I lie awake, and every hour or so it shatters, and I’m left weeping, calling his name, lamenting. Every other day, food poisoning. Milk, eggs, bananas—nothing settles. My stomach won’t have it. Those aunts and uncles asked my old schoolfriend Joni to spend time with me. She’s in the village now. She messages me on Facebook now and then, asking how I am, what I’m doing. Small things. But it doesn’t help. They all think Joni’s company will make me feel better. It won’t. My heart is on fire for Nihal. All the time I think he couldn’t just leave me like this. He couldn’t become someone else’s. He has to come back to me.
After his marriage, I called him from a different number. He picked up. He spoke in whispers, terror-struck. I asked him, “Is the girl very beautiful?”
“No.”
“Are they very rich?”
“No.”
“Is she very brilliant?”
“None of it!”
“What’s her name?”
“You don’t need to know.”
And he hung up. He said he’d call when the time came. Perhaps his wife doesn’t know any of this. He’s taken the girl to her father’s house—he and she are staying there together with the girl’s family. That’s how they’ll live until they come back with the child. Then they’ll tell her everything in their own way, maybe. Or maybe they won’t—maybe they’ll hide it all. I heard he’s taking her to Dhaka. They’ll rent a separate place. He won’t keep Komal with them. But when I was there, there were conditions. I had to do the cooking and cleaning. Komal had to stay. I couldn’t even take tuition. I was supposed to study for the BCS all day and night. Confidence Academy, Uttara branch.
Now he’ll take his new wife, so Komal can’t stay with him anymore. When I was there, I asked him to buy me a chick because I was alone in the house all day. He wouldn’t buy birds—it was a waste of money, he said. Later I asked for one chick, just fifteen taka. He didn’t get that either. One day he sent me some pictures. He’d bought a pair of white doves for his new house—beautiful birds. For his new wife, he can buy anything. The first three days after marriage, they beat me. That pain lasted two and a half months. Not even a painkiller did they give me. I saw a doctor later, in Khulna. An X-ray showed blood pooling in my chest. But the pain of that—terrible as it was—didn’t run as deep as what I felt when, after the divorce, I reminded him in conversation of our plan. We were going to be buried together, he and I. Beneath the tree by the pond at his house. He laughed then—a cruel, braying laugh—and said, “Ha ha ha! What an idiot you are. Life demands that we change plans sometimes, or we lose. What I said back then, I said because of the time. What I did now, I did because of the time too. You wouldn’t understand these things. There’s no brain in your head. Your chest is full of love, your head is empty. I’m free of a stupid donkey like you, and thank God for that!” When I heard this, I was wounded far more deeply.
# Before the Divorce
So many times before the divorce, I called and begged him: “Please, don’t leave me.” He’d say, “Leave you? I haven’t even held you yet—what am I letting go of?” I asked my mother to plead with him countless times. He mistreated her too, treated her terribly. Mother had to endure so much humiliation. He told me I lived in his eyes like a dream, that I was meant to fulfill that dream. But then in the next breath, he’d say I shouldn’t text him anymore. When I stayed quiet for a few days, he’d knock on my door asking why I wasn’t reaching out, why I wasn’t calling. He swore no other woman would ever come into his life. “If I live, you’ll see,” he said. But when the fear of corona gripped everyone, he didn’t even postpone his wedding—he went ahead and married someone else!
Early in April, I pleaded with that Chairman Uncle so many times to mend things between us. He turned around and contradicted everything he’d said before. He scolded me harshly, put my number on the blacklist. In the end, I cursed him—may Allah never forgive him, may he be destroyed by divine wrath. He said, “A vulture’s prayer doesn’t kill a cow.” And yet for Nihal—not a curse, not even an unkind thought has ever crossed my mind. I left no stone unturned. I spared no effort. I never once neglected him. That’s why I can’t forget. Every memory comes back and hangs before my eyes. God, if only I could lose my memory somehow, for some reason, right now!
Our relationship was good. Then suddenly, his lies and his family’s tyranny destroyed everything in an instant! I want my Nihal back. The more I think about it, the more I’m losing my mind! I can’t forget the millions of memories, all my sacrifices. Why did this happen? How could he forget all those promises and marry someone else even during this pandemic? It shouldn’t have happened this way. His younger brother-in-law ruined him. From the beginning, that man has been stirring up trouble between us. Otherwise Nihal isn’t that kind of boy.
My mother keeps telling me, “If you starve yourself, will that boy abandon his wife and come back to you? Accept it. You have to accept it!” I can’t bear any of this. It feels like five angels of death are grabbing my heart and tearing it to shreds. Won’t Allah judge him? What happened to all those thousand promises he made? He messaged me just two days before the wedding. He said, “Even if Allah commanded the sun to rise in the west, it would—but I will always be yours, no one else’s.” Two months of marriage. One year of formal wedding. Two years of secret marriage. All of it over! He gave me divorce just three days before our marriage anniversary. I can’t accept any of this. The pain is killing me.
# Untold Stories
I could not write down so much of what happened in my life. I wanted to set it all down, but grief and fear stopped me before the end. In the midst of it all, she even went ahead and married someone else. My studies, my work, my career—everything came to nothing. There is nothing left for me to do. Now a friend has come to stay with us, trying to heal my broken mind. She is pushing me back toward my books. But all day long, the memory of it gnaws at me. When I sit down to break my fast or to pray, to make my supplications, I find nothing—only tears. After prayer, during my intimate plea to God, the tears overflow so much they run down my hands, past my wrists, to my elbows. I have lost more weight. My body cannot even tolerate an egg. I have become so weak. Sometimes it feels as though all this pain is bunched up in my throat, suffocating me. I can barely breathe. My chest twists in on itself again and again. I am the only one who suffers from all this—she feels no pain about it at all. My friend tells me, “Life begins now. Remember that. You were chasing a mirage; you have survived it!” And I think to myself, “Will God not reward me for all my sacrifices? Will I truly never see my Nihal again?”
You are reading my story now, and for that I am deeply grateful. No one wants to know, hear, or understand the tale of a wretched creature like me—not even my own family. I exist in a kind of daze, it seems. And yet, if I reckon truthfully, I am better off now than I was back then. But I never wanted to be well like this. Life, however, moves according to its own laws. I feel such pity for myself, I don’t know why. Perhaps no one has ever been this sorrowful. They never once treated me as human. The most beautiful years of a girl’s life—nineteen to twenty-five—I gave those years to him. I had friends too, once. Now they are all rushing after their own lives and careers. And I am left behind. He drowned me in an ocean of solitude, and now he is out there with his new bride, living happily, making merry.
Everyone tells me, “You survived. God saved you because you are pious.” But he was my first in everything in this life. My first walk, my first time in the rain, my first visit to a park, my first kiss, even my first time holding a boy’s hand—he was my first in all of it. That is why I remember him in everything. An aunt came by today and we talked. After she left, I sat down with a book, but I could not read through my tears.
# Still I Exist
And yet I am alive. People go on living. But how I am, I don’t even know myself. I’m forcing myself forward. Everything feels numb, dreamlike, as though I’m moving through water. Some people say Nihal is small-minded. But is he really small-minded, or is he a victim of circumstance? Even now, I don’t know. Some say he’s a psychopath. I don’t want to understand all that. I only know this much: I cannot bear to see him with another woman. The day before the divorce, coming back from Dhaka, I held his hands and feet and made him understand over and over—if only his share, I cannot give to anyone; everything else I’m willing to do. He heard nothing of what I said. That day I see he’s added on Facebook the girl he’d had a five or six-year relationship with before me. That girl, of course, married twenty-nine days after our divorce. Wearing enormous, heavy jewelry, she does.
An older sister said to me that day, “Sanjida, let me give you a clever idea. If you can, fall in love with someone else. Your heartache will ease so much.” But I don’t feel drawn to anyone anymore. Many tell me to block him. It hurts me. I’m not contacting him through this account at all. Not looking at anything of his either—I’ve unfriended him from my list. And yet I’m still constantly on his profile. The day he added those two married women we’d had trouble with before, and he messaged me—that very day I unfriended him. Before me, Nihal had a long relationship with a girl who was in the series of his girlfriends. But he didn’t marry her. The girl studied at Noraiganj Victoria College. She must have been two years younger than me. Nihal blamed the girl, saying her mother was bad because her father worked abroad. And because the girl had said something like Nihal’s father didn’t have a handsome face, Nihal had gotten upset.
He never told me who all he’d been with. He always said there was no girl in his life. No girlfriend. His school was a boys’ school, his college was a boys’ college. He hardly went to university. Doesn’t know anyone there, he’d say. I find out everything differently, with proof. From his own account. Then he’d be forced to tell me everything. Nihal called me “Drinchi.” At first he’d say it to tease me—that in Khulna only shrimp farmers live, so we’re shrimp farmers too. Later he’d call me “Rose.” We have a joint Facebook account. My recovery email still has Nihal’s email ID in it. My email password is still the old one he knew. I run my current Facebook account through that same email.
Nihal never went to any university program. The boys and girls at private universities are smart, they maintain a standard—he’s not like that. When I look at him, I think he’s a simple, rather foolish sort of person. He tells everyone he has no girlfriend. He doesn’t even go to his own university’s rag day. I give donations for Saraswati Puja at my university like everyone else, and to other programs. Even my donations for the puja upset him enormously. He says it means I’m changing my religion. And yet he himself never prayed a single prayer in his life. I’d have to beg him on my hands and knees to make him pray.
# Third Year
In third year, I played volleyball with the girls’ team because of some situation I found myself in. She absolutely destroyed me for it! Said I wasn’t a woman, I was a *hijra*, that I had no character—and all that nonsense. In 2017, we went on a department trip to Cox’s Bazar. We—our batch, I mean—arranged the whole thing. We were the senior-most batch on that trip. Everyone else was junior. Still, her refrain was always the same: you can’t go. Later, after a lot of convincing, she let me go, gave permission. After the trip, she stirred up another row. Said we shouldn’t have any relationship. She claimed that going on that trip had ruined my character!
She was tutored privately as a child by her family and relatives. Her younger sister and brother-in-law make all her decisions. Because putting Nihal through private tutoring meant her family went into debt, it was hard for her to go against what the family decided. And the biggest thing was, her brother-in-law was always threatening to divorce her sister, so whatever he said, the whole house listened. On the other hand, the younger sister exaggerates her husband’s salary to everyone and claims he’s the manager at an Apex store, when actually the brother-in-law is just an employee there. The brother-in-law himself had been in a seven-year relationship before. He threw that away and suddenly married Nihal’s sister just because her father approved. And he still sees that other woman sometimes. Apu knows about it but doesn’t say anything, or doesn’t have the nerve to. When I’d talk to the brother-in-law, I’d hear all this.
One day, a distant cousin of my mother’s came visiting our house. After hearing about my situation, he said to me, ‘Don’t take it to heart. How can any sane person live with such a shrew? How did you manage? Or how are you still trying to? She ought to be kept in a zoo. Or a madhouse. If you told anyone your story, they wouldn’t believe it even happened! Everyone would think it was just a tale!’ I said to him, ‘Aunty, the level of sacrifice I’ve made is very high. So why did I do all that? Why did I spend all the golden chapters of my life on her? Why did I accept everything day after day? Don’t all these sacrifices mean anything? I can only think about all of this, which is why I can’t forget. I’ve had to make so many, so many, so many sacrifices—just waiting for better days to come.’
I love Nihal very, very, very much. He seems like the best person in the world to me. Being a girl’s first love is such good fortune. To a girl, even her first boyfriend’s blows can feel like love. Girls these days aren’t like that anymore. Looking at my simple, straightforward way of moving and speaking, ninety percent of people can’t tell that I’m a BBA student at Khulna University. Of course, he’s simple too. That’s why the relationship took root.
She told me in the end, ‘We’re not really cut from the same cloth, but somehow—I don’t know how—we ended up married by mistake, so it fell apart.’ Yet she was always saying, ‘We’re together by Allah’s grace. Otherwise, what’s Khulna compared to Noakhali!’ His friends had all shacked up with multiple girls. But he wasn’t like that, or so he claimed. He’d had a six-year relationship with Sonia—I found out three years later, with proof. But he never admitted it himself. And his rambling uncle told me that Nihal had been deeply involved with several of his cousins’ wives. One day the uncle saw him in the room with his cousin’s wife in a compromising position. Since fourth grade, he and his friends had been watching porn together. When I went to his hostel room, I found a telescope. I asked about it, and he said he’d bought it to see directly into the neighbouring house through the window.
He said all this so casually that I thought perhaps it was common among boys. And if this simple, plainspoken man I loved had such an ideology, God knows how far the other boys went! But people aren’t perfect, are they? Or stay the same forever! Back then he didn’t have a wife. Maybe that’s why he went wrong. I thought I could set him straight through prayer and the Quran, guide him back to the right path—and I still think so. I can’t accept that Nihal is with another girl. How do I separate him from her? Won’t someone come and tell me, show me the way?
He’d speak badly of Khulna. The water’s bad here, it’s a bad neighbourhood, he’d say. He’d complain about Khulna University every other day. But now he’s gone and married a girl who studies at a national university! Once we were waiting together at the TSC to take an exam. His friend called him looking for a safe room to take his third girlfriend. He couldn’t bring her home—someone in the neighbourhood might tell his current second girlfriend. Nihal rattled off a hotel name in a second, then texted a number. In front of me, he’s helped three or four friends like that, even bought emergency pills once. I’d ask him, ‘Are you going to marry her?’ He’d say, ‘No, of course not!’ ‘Then what?’ ‘What do you mean, what? They both went into it with open eyes. So what’s the problem?’ Nihal would say, ‘Listen, these guys are good people. Really helpful. If I need a room right now, they’ll hand me the key and disappear for a couple of hours. There’s only one issue—sometimes he changes girls. Apart from that, no problem at all.’
Listening to him, I’d think, ‘This is where good and evil truly live! What does Nihal know?’ I had never been close to another boy like that. So I didn’t know these things. Seeing all this in him, I thought it must be something common among boys! I still think that. I don’t know if it’s true or false. Because of this fear, I’ve never even answered calls from boy friends, let alone cousins. Whatever it is—good and evil, light and darkness—above it all, I love my Nihal. How can I get him back? I had done nothing wrong. But why did he do this to me? Did he only hurt me? He broke the spine of my entire family! My mother says, ‘You haven’t lost anything yet. If you stay with him, you’ll destroy yourself bit by bit.’ But I’m still being destroyed! I’m being consumed piece by piece, the memories chewing me up and swallowing me whole. Nothing is right with me! The problems only keep growing.
I’m waiting, hoping that someday I can turn this grief into strength. He wouldn’t let me show our pictures to anyone. If I posted something on Facebook, he’d start a terrible fight. He’d burn up like oil on fire. Though he didn’t talk much about me to others either. When he was in a good mood and I’d ask him calmly, he’d say, ‘We won’t show these pictures to anyone. We’ll show them after we’re married and say, look, these are all old pictures!’ Everyone would be amazed. And when I’d ask him to give them to me later, he’d say, ‘Not now. When we’re old, we’ll look at them together with our grandchildren and tell them our love story.’ I accepted everything he said. I loved him—there was never any other path before me but acceptance. He knew this very well.
Gathering all the strength in my heart, fighting with myself all this time, I’ve written this story these past few days. So much remains unsaid. I don’t even have the courage to say everything. I wrote this story because I need to keep it. Let this ocean of weakness become my strength. I will try to survive. And since childhood, I’ve seen it—the wars in my life never end. As a child, I studied by asking for books from others; grown up, I’ve lived by asking for sorrow from others. Still, I want to make this effort. And my life’s goal was always to build an orphanage. I want to do that. But before that, I hope I don’t fall victim to suicide or a stroke! I’ve decided—from now on, I’ll listen to everything my mother says. My mother always tells me to keep a diary. She keeps one too, always writing everything down. Lately, of course, she’s stopped writing. From now on, I’ll write down the history of the rest of my life as well. If I live to old age, I’ll open these pages and look back.
সবকিছু পড়ার পর এটাই বুঝলাম, কারো কাছে কোন বিষয় নিয়েই এতো দুর্বলতা দেখাতে নেই,হোক সেটা ভালোবাসা।
কারো দুর্বলতাকে খুব সহজেই পুঁজি করে মানুষকে ঠিকঠাক জায়গায় এবং ঠিকঠাক সময়ে আঘাত করা যায়। 😞
আল্লাহ বোনটিকে এমন শোক কাটিয়ে উঠার তৌফিক দান করুন, সাথে এই ভালোবাসার পাগলামিগুলোকে শক্তিতে রুপান্তর করুন এই শুভকামনা 🌼♥