# Octets The mind is a strange country. We think we know it, yet it remains forever foreign to us. We are explorers of our own inner landscapes, forever finding new territories, new chasms, new peaks shrouded in mist. There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes with consciousness itself—the knowledge that no one can ever truly enter the chambers of your thought, that the world you perceive through your eyes is yours alone, inimitable and absolute. Two people may stand before the same sunset, but the sunset each sees exists in a realm of one. I have often wondered whether words are a bridge or a barrier. We fling them across the void, hoping they will carry the texture of our inner worlds, the precise weight of our longing. But something is always lost in translation—not merely from one language to another, but from the silence of the soul into the noise of speech. There are eight consonants, we are told, that form the very skeleton of Bengali sound. The tongue must find its place precisely—against the teeth, against the palate, in the throat. Each position yields a different truth. So too with thought: the angle at which we approach a question determines the answer we receive. Shift the pressure of the mind's tongue by the merest fraction, and an entirely different world emerges. We are made of contradictions that no logic can reconcile. We love, yet remain strangers to the ones we love most. We seek certainty in a universe that offers none. We build monuments to permanence in the knowledge that all things dissolve. This is not a flaw in existence—it is existence itself. The unexamined life, they say, is not worth living. But I wonder sometimes whether the fully examined life might crush us beneath the weight of its own clarity. There is mercy in the fog we inhabit, in the half-truths we cherish, in the selective blindness that allows us to go on. Time flows in one direction, yet memory moves in all directions at once. We are beings suspended between what was and what might be, never quite present in the moment that is. Even now, as you read these words, they are already past. The present slips away like water through a clenched fist. And yet—and yet—there is something in the human spirit that refuses to accept meaninglessness. We are meaning-making creatures, spinning significance from the indifferent threads of existence. Whether this is wisdom or beautiful delusion, I cannot say. Perhaps it does not matter. Perhaps the making itself is all that matters.

One. Cooking is undoubtedly a great art. But do you know, for some people it is the only art in the world? Singing, writing poetry, painting, sewing—they don't consider any of these to be art at all. Why not, you ask? Because you can't eat a song, a poem, or a sewn cloth. That's why. Truly, according to their thinking, what cannot be eaten is worthless—what use is it, really? We often say something like this when we encounter something unfamiliar: 'What on earth is this? Is it food or does it go on your head?' The very way we speak like this reveals how much importance we place on food! And you'll say food deserves that importance, won't you? Yes, I agree. But exactly how much importance do we give it?

Do you know some people exist only to eat? For them, food is happiness, and the lack of food is their only sorrow. Eating more means winning, eating less or getting less food means, to them, losing. You don't need to put a pistol to such people's heads or blackmail them. Just dangle food or the promise of food before them and you can snatch away their dearest loved one, make them do anything at all, with nothing but that hunger. If you return from a beautiful place and try to describe its beauty to them, they'll skip past everything and ask: 'Well, what did they feed you there?' Or: 'And you came back empty-handed without bringing me something to eat from there!' Ha ha ha...

Two. One of the men's favorite questions to ask women is: 'Are you a virgin?' Well, never mind that. Suppose you—whether boy or girl—are a virgin. You've gone through such trouble to keep yourself that way, haven't you? Very admirable. I respect you for it, because it's certainly difficult these days, at least in this Facebook age. You boast about your virginity quite often, and you even want to prove it at every turn! (I mean, how can you prove your virginity without losing it! Medical science says you might not even be able to provide that proof even after losing it. In other words, you could lose your virginity the first time and still not be able to prove with certainty that you were ever a virgin!)

But you—you're constantly raising your hand against the house help, you're firing your driver with empty threats every day, you're making lewd comments about women on the street, you're calling your teachers 'bastard' behind their backs, and yet when will you publicly feel shame about these things? Or is virginity the only thing that keeps the world right?

Three. The faint scent of sweat on your lover’s body makes you judgmental in an instant, yet you rarely seem pleased that this same person has shown up to see you—exhausted as the ocean itself—after tutoring sessions or finishing a grueling day at a newly begun job. Oh, and while we’re at it, know this: many of you have unemployed lovers who dab on cologne bought with daddy’s money before coming to meet you. So which will you compromise with—the hardworking partner who sweats, or the scent of that sweat? (And I see no fault in calling the sweat of a diligent person a “fragrance.”) That’s your choice to make. But if you cannot bear the sweat on the body of someone you claim to love, then you have no right to love them at all! Just think about it yourself—what kind of love is this of yours?

One more thing. Unemployment has a gender beyond just the boyfriend. How? When a girl, despite having ability and opportunity, sits at home doing nothing all day watching serials (I mean, even re-telecasts!), quarrels with her parents over trivial matters, lives off her boyfriend’s money, maintains four or five Facebook accounts to conduct six or seven romances simultaneously—can’t such a girlfriend be called utterly useless and unemployable? What kind of conscience do you have, that you cannot speak this truth yourselves?

Four. If your ex posts a picture with their current partner with a caption like “I CAN’T DESCRIBE HOW MUCH I LOVE/MISS YOU!” and it robs you of sleep, then let me whisper something in your ear: many, many exes post such pictures for one reason alone—to burn and destroy someone like you! Let me say it differently. Suppose your ex is a film director. They make films every few days solely to show to you! (It’s absurd, but true—this actually happens, pay close attention.)

So when a picture has been made with such effort, just for you, with no shortage of smiles and happiness in it—what will you do? You’re the picture’s only audience! Why see it at all? What’s the point in watching some old ex—call them X, Y, or Z? Forget the alphabet when it comes to such pointless matters!

Don’t go looking to see their happiness, and don’t go looking to see their sadness either. Take some time. Then will come a stage—and it will come—when watching such things won’t set your chest ablaze; instead you’ll think, “What madness we did when we were young! Ha ha ha…” That stage will come, maybe you’ll have to burn some bridges to get there, so be it! When that director—your ex—can sense this stillness in your mind, believe me, they’ll stop making such films altogether. Then you’ll show the real film—by *not* making one at all! Until that time comes, just grit your teeth and endure a little, will you? You’ve done so many experiments in life—why not try this one and see what happens!

Five. As long as you keep calling your own minor sadness “depression” and dismissing others’ depression as mere “bad mood”—as long as you continue to misuse the term “depression” thoughtlessly, applying it anywhere and everywhere at your whim—know that you are gradually laying traps for yourself, traps in which you will ultimately become ensnared. And for as long as this continues, whenever mental suffering arises in conversation or in listening, you will remain nothing but an ignorant child.

Six. Why have you kept in your life a person who straddles every matter between “yes” and “no”? Better to walk alone than to journey with such a fool.

Seven. Imagine you and another person find yourselves in danger while passing through a forest. Both are trapped. You remain captive, but you are in different places. Meanwhile, you naturally keep trying to escape. After much effort, perhaps one day you finally break free. You assume your old companion has done the same by the same means. You return home only to discover that your companion, despite having the chance, never came back—waited there like an idiot for you instead! You still haven’t grasped that you made a mistake by leaving such a person behind, have you? Fine, excellent! When the reckoning comes, you will have to pay the price for your error!

Eight. No matter what befalls your life, never remain with a psychopath. The worst thing that can happen in our lives is death, isn’t it? That’s what we think. But the infinite suffering you will endure every moment spent with a psychopath makes it infinitely better—even necessary—to face death itself rather than stay. Keep yourself at a safe distance from such a person. If you must die, better to die once than to die again and again. The moment you realize your friend or partner is a psychopath, do not hesitate a second time. At any cost, abandon their company to save yourself.