Dateline 3 February 2015
Witnessing the first light of dawn is one of the most blissful and sacred experiences on earth. Once upon a time, someone taught me to watch the sunrise. Back then it felt like I could endure a thousand sleepless nights just to see a single dawn break. The spark of light tears through the darkness. The distant houses, rooftops, gleaming pitch-black roads, the gentle tooting of rickshaw horns, morning birds, the bright-white figures emerging for morning walks, old walls with plaster peeling off, flower buds waiting in anticipation to bloom—all of them bathe in that soft stream of light in this awakening city. Of course, compared to the dawn in the mountains or forests, the city’s dawn is rather childish. Those whose scales of virtue are heavy can effortlessly wait for such a dawn. If not in life, then after death they will surely witness that dawn in paradise. And to those who, like me, are uncertain about their share of virtue, I say: while you’re still alive, set aside some accounts in life’s ledger of the unaccountable and take a trip to the hills of Bandarban or the forests of Sylhet. Go in such a way that at least one dawn of your life unfolds there.
I think about how much suffering there is in dying. Dead people cannot see the dawn. If for nothing else, one could live just to witness such a dawn. Today’s dawn at PATC felt particularly intimate. Haven’t I immersed myself in the light, breeze, and enchantment of such a dawn before? Just once, or was it only once? Today’s surreal dawn keeps swirling in my mind. At this moment, looking across the field, I saw dense fog gathering here and there, moving about like shadowy figures. They are bodiless, winter’s sleepless sentries. Ah, they die just at the touch of dawn. They begin to die bit by bit while we move forward along a half-paved road that gleams, bathed in the light of dawn—a road I want to run to, walk on, and touch. The birds have started quarreling. They’re chirping and squabbling over something. Quarreling? Or is it playful banter? Thinking these thoughts, I stopped at the tennis court.
After breakfast, on my way to class, I saw the chrysanthemums sparkling in the morning light in the garden beside the corridor. It’s hard to ignore the morning beauty of the crotons carefully scattered around the coffee corner and leave them behind. Loving this difficulty, I moved forward. Common session in the auditorium, all sections together. Sitting at the back of the class, I began to feel that a girl in front looked extraordinarily beautiful from the side. But as far as I know, there’s no beauty in that section. Damn! I can’t make sense of it. At this moment someone announced that there’s apparently an exam on Etiquette and Manners next Monday. Some people have already done a round of group study for the exam! Collective studying about proper conduct! I said, what else would they do but study? Not doing group study for an etiquette exam would be quite improper conduct indeed! Why should everyone be impolite?
Looking at some classmates, I realized that it’s not always true that iron floats due to bad company—sometimes iron sinks due to good company too. What does this mean? Can’t say. (My intelligent batchmates, give it a try!) The teacher kept teaching and I kept not listening to anything. I began noticing some amusing things. Someone started snoring in their sleep. When the person next to him nudged him awake, he said, “Where’s the bird?” Someone leaning against the shoulder of the person next to them while sleeping. The neighbor said, “Boss, lean on me, no problem; but come with some perfume next time.” One sleeping person, with mouth open, head tilted up at 45 degrees, leaning right, was about to fall with his chair when the lady next to him poked him with a pen and straightened him up. I’m watching all this and thinking, when I sleep in class, someone surely watches me and has fun too. It would have been great if we could bring mobile phones to PATC classrooms; we could have taken pictures. If anything from these classes remains in memory after many days, it surely won’t be the lessons. I saw one assistant judge looking so serious and intellectual! My neighbor commented, “He’s had it! This guy would probably give a 200-page judgment on a chicken curry case.” Worth mentioning, he’s also an assistant judge.
Physical beauty doesn’t make a person great. There must be inner beauty. My experience tells me that many beautiful people have ugly mentalities. Believe it or not, in all the anti-smuggling operations I’ve been involved with so far, in 80 percent of cases the smugglers had impressive physiques and looks. Proper gym-built figures. Some were taller than me (even more than 5 feet 11 inches). Their conversation was also quite charming. There aren’t many beauty-indifferent girls born who wouldn’t get crushes on such extraordinarily handsome men. That’s not the point. The point is, physical ugliness doesn’t make a person great either. And just because someone has physical beauty doesn’t mean they won’t have inner beauty. Why did I say this? Just because. (Just because means, can’t say.) Today in the room, I tried hard to mimic a teacher’s Mr. Bean style of walking, talking, hand gestures, running, speaking with eyes-nose-mouth… I couldn’t do it. I’m not good at mimicry. I’ll have to learn this skill from my younger brother.
I went to the sports field in the afternoon. Today’s session was volleyball. I saw many people playing very seriously. And I’m thinking, at the age when players retire and sit down to write autobiographies, that’s when we’ve all started learning to play. Why take so much pain! Our comedy during volleyball was worth watching. While trying to punch the ball, I’m hitting the hand of the person in front. When hitting in volleyball, you have to shout ‘Leave!’ Those among us who kept forgetting to say this, the instructor made them do 3 push-ups each. I forgot to say it twice and did the push-ups too. The next time, while hitting the ball, instead of saying ‘Leave!’ I shouted ‘Push-up!’ For some reason, today’s session kept reminding me of ‘The Three Stooges.’
I can’t resist the temptation to share an interesting incident. Today I went to the field 15 minutes early in the afternoon. I was chatting with an apa. Rudyard Kipling wrote in one place in his story ‘False Dawn’: “Never praise a sister to a sister, in the hope of your compliments reaching the proper ears, and so preparing the way for you later on. Sisters are women first, and sisters afterwards; and you will find that you do yourself harm.” I saw that today too. Women can’t tolerate praise for even their closest friends. I learned from this that my ability to ‘judge’ women is limited. Of course, not all women are like this. But the funny thing is, all women can be made this way through strategy. Ha ha ha . . .
I’m ending this writing by sharing some thoughts.
How simple death is!
Sometimes death even makes living simple.
If today’s me becomes ‘nothing’ tomorrow, isn’t today’s existence a vivid truth? How serious we are about life, yet this life doesn’t care about us at all. In hopes of getting distant people, we push away those close to us. We change colors in an instant. Who got hurt—we don’t even have time to think about that. We may not be able to give anything else, but we give pain. No one returns empty-handed. They take with them either love or pain. We sit making hundred-year plans, forgetting this moment of being alive. Do we ever think about whether we’ll live the next hundred seconds?
Three funeral processions. A colleague’s 10-month-old daughter and two colleagues’ fathers.
Who can stop death? Love? Or hatred? At whose constant beckoning does it come? Hatred’s? Or unlove’s? Only death is true in this world; yet we forget it. Everything else is illusory; yet we stay lost in them. Always. I’m not in that procession. Why not? Or am I there yet not there? I’m kissing in deep embrace, yet not touching. Is this it? I haven’t tasted touch, only taken love or hatred, neither of which death bothers about. In the montage of dead thoughts, the living me survives by the mercy of the dead. In that procession? No! Still hidden. What joy! Ah!
Asaduzzaman Nur gave Humayun Ahmed the news of Jahanara Imam’s death. About the feeling afterward, he writes:
“Mother sat on the prayer mat.
And I sat alone on the veranda. A kind of emptiness began accumulating inside me. I kept feeling that some great mistake had occurred. How much respect and love I had for this person—I never let her know. My only consolation is that from the world beyond death, today she must surely be feeling my immense respect and love.”
I was shaken reading this. It kept coming to mind—what if I couldn’t return home today? What if…I called Mother. Then Father. I also asked my younger brother how he was, what he was doing. Why? There’s really no reason. But I felt they were happy. Why? There’s no reason for this either. Nature likes mystery in some matters. Especially in matters of love. Exactly! We don’t tell Father we love him. How many days do I not kiss Mother’s cheek and say I love her. To my younger brother, that he’s a very extraordinary person—this has never been said either. Why not? These things apparently can’t be said. Yet they’re the only ones in the world who would simply believe it if I said I love them. Others would look for reasons. What if I could never say it again? What if I left before that? Or…no, I can’t think anymore. I’ll go home.
When God sent humans to earth to punish them for their misdeeds, He mercifully bestowed upon them the capacity for love. Nature is so ruthless—those who least deserve to have their hearts broken are given all the world’s sorrows to bear. Sometimes there come moments when being held close by someone dear brings more peace than the most beautiful language in the world. When emptiness wraps itself around every corner of thought, when you reach out your hand but no one comes to take it, then the urge to weep becomes overwhelming. Yet still, you don’t want to cry. Perhaps tears that would die meaninglessly dry up even before they are born.
The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan was once asked: what is the heaviest thing in the world? His answer was—a child’s corpse on a father’s shoulders. God made one of our brothers bear that burden with merciless cruelty. I feel like asking God: O Lord! That innocent child who never even had time to commit any wrong—for what sin did You take him away?
We continue our training carrying the sharp anguish of three deaths in our hearts. We pray for the peace of their souls.
At PATC, birth and death walk hand in hand. Today one of our colleagues became the father of a beautiful baby girl. We pray that she may live, that she may stay healthy. Just staying alive is enough. Being alive is the most joyful thing in the world.