I notice that you’ve provided an opening HTML tag for a verse block, but there’s no Bengali text to translate. Could you please share the Bengali content that you’d like me to translate? I’m ready to provide a thoughtful literary translation that captures the essence and voice of the original text.
Reflection: Eight Hundred and Thirteen
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One. I first came to know about Toru Dutt while reading the extraordinary creation of one of my most beloved writers, Chinmoy Guha—’Ghumer Dorja Thele’ (Pushing Open the Door of Sleep). Among my recently purchased books is ‘Toru Dutt: Collected Prose and Poetry’ published by Oxford University Press. Among those we recognize as great, there are two types of individuals: the intellectually gifted and the genuinely talented. One might become intellectually gifted through effort, perhaps, but one cannot become truly talented merely through trying. Toru Dutt was talented—a genius. What she created in her mere twenty-one years of life is truly astounding! I have tried to write something about Toru Dutt by searching through the internet.
She holds the distinction of being the first Bengali to write a novel in French. She was also the first Bengali woman writer to write a novel in English—’Bianca or The Young Spanish Maiden.’ At the mere age of eighteen, she began translating various French poems, literary criticism, essays, lectures, and other works into English. She translated many mythological characters from Sanskrit into English, among which ‘The Legend of Savitri,’ ‘The Story of Dhruva,’ ‘Rajashi,’ ‘Lakshman,’ ‘Sita,’ and others are noteworthy. Her creations touched upon the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Puranas in many places. Her translated poetry, original poetry, novels, and correspondence are invaluable treasures of world literature, earning effusive praise from various scholars including the famous English poet Sir Edmund William Gosse. Her novel ‘Le Journal de Mademoiselle d’Arvers,’ written in French, was translated into Bengali with an introduction by the venerable writer Premendra Mitra. ‘Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan’ is a collection of her translations and adaptations from Sanskrit literature, whose publication marked the beginning of a new era in the history of poetry written in English in India. Her collection of correspondence has been published by Oxford University under the title ‘Life and Letters of Toru Dutt.’
English translations of poems by about seventy to eighty French poets—of which she translated 156 and her elder sister Aru Dutt translated 8, along with 1 poem of her own—a total collection of 165 poems titled ‘A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields’ was published, and the very next year, at the age of only twenty-one, this impossibly talented yet tragically short-lived Bengali poet Toru Dutt died of tuberculosis. It should be noted that this book was the only one published during Toru Dutt’s lifetime. The most famous poem from this book, ‘Our Casuarina Tree,’ is part of the high school English curriculum in India. The poem is so famous that it continues to be studied and discussed worldwide even today. The prematurely departed poet wrote this poem about a casuarina tree in some palatial house in Kolkata’s Rambagan or Bagmari. She had gone to study at Cambridge University, and before that, had spent a long time in the city of Nice in France. How the casuarina tree from her home garden followed her to various cities and beaches of Europe—this is what Toru captured in her poetry.
Her elder sister Aru Dutt also lived only twenty years. Together, Toru and Aru translated quite a few French poems into English. Toru Dutt’s mastery of the French language influenced personalities like Jyotirindranath Tagore and Satyendranath Dutta as well. Aru and Toru Dutt—these two Bengali daughters’ names were once uttered in the same breath in English and French literature, much like the Brontë sisters Charlotte and Emily in English literature. Two things—short life and the erasure of time—played the primary role in consigning Aru Dutt’s literary work to the depths of oblivion. In reality, a large portion of her literary work or poetic creations has already been lost or published under her younger sister Toru Dutt’s name, though in some cases it has been possible to correct this error later.
Many critics believe that the poetry of Aru, who died young, was in many respects more vibrant than that of Toru. The only brother of these two sisters, Abju Dutt, was also short-lived—he died at the mere age of fourteen.
Toru’s mastery of French and English was truly astonishing and incredible, researchers tell us. If Michael Madhusudan Dutt was the pioneering Bengali man to create literature in foreign languages, then among women it was Toru Dutt. What she accomplished in her brief life still amazes researchers today. Besides Bengali, English, French, and Sanskrit, Toru Dutt also knew German.
Two. There are certain people who are simultaneously supremely gifted and supremely arrogant. Many of us feel deeply uncomfortable around them. We cannot quite place them in our hearts, yet we cannot look away from them either. When we speak of them, we consider it our ‘moral duty’ to expose their fourteen generations of faults, yet we cannot help but watch their work, even if secretly. We are their haters, we are their followers; therefore we are their fans.
Pride is something that suits only those who can ‘carry’ it. When the incompetent act proud, they look like goats; you’ll see countless such goats on the streets.
This world accepts only the pride of the capable.
When Cristiano Ronaldo wears torn jeans, you’ll call it ‘style.’
But when I wear torn jeans, you’ll call me ‘beggar’s son’!
The exact same T-shirt. On my body you’ll say it costs at most one hundred taka; on Lionel Messi’s body you’ll say it costs at least a thousand dollars.
You have to understand, why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di! If you can’t understand, you’ll have to eat puffed rice soaked in Sprite. Nothing to be done, dear brother!!
Three. What is self-confidence?
Whatever you can do, you do it so well that when you speak of it, it sounds like arrogance to others.
I once asked a friend, “What tasks in Microsoft Excel can’t you do?” He replied, “Whatever cannot be done in Excel, those are the only things I cannot do. Excel’s limitations are my limitations.”
Understand how well one must know something to speak like that! This isn’t called arrogance, it’s called self-confidence. Someone who doesn’t excel at any task to the degree where they become nearly unbeatable at it will never experience the joy of thinking this way. For them, digesting someone else’s self-confidence is extremely difficult, so they mistake self-confidence for arrogance.
Pride is not the root of downfall; rather, baseless pride is the root of downfall.
Thought: Eight Hundred Fourteen
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One. From the day we forget how to cry, that is when our endless sorrow begins. Yes, there comes a time when we can no longer cry, no matter how desperately we want to. The tears accumulate and keep building up, but cannot emerge at all. What is heavier in this world than frozen tears! There is no greater misfortune than the compulsion of those tears to flow!
When a beloved person leaves us, when a cherished pet dies, even when a favorite framed photograph falls and breaks—one day our eyes no longer shed tears. As age increases, tears dry up.
We who once wept and sobbed when our favorite mug slipped from our hands and broke—that same we can no longer cry when life’s greatest dream shatters with a snap. How far can a bird fly on broken wings!
The beloved toy doll that once made us weep our hearts out in childhood when someone merely touched it—one day we ourselves watch that beloved person walk away hand-in-hand with another before our very eyes, and we can no longer cry. We discover that our life never truly resides within another’s body.
It doesn’t take long for this indifference to begin. Many things that once mattered deeply no longer touch us at all. Many intense feelings gradually grow dull. Many beliefs gradually fade away. Much anger gradually subsides.
In childhood we dream of growing up. After growing up, we die of regret at our failure to become small again. Age teaches us that the inability to cry is also a failure.
Life is like this. We keep growing older, the ocean trembles ceaselessly in our eyes—but no one can see that deep current of water. Our eyes burn, yet the monsoon rains no longer descend upon those scorched eyes. Our daily existence expands, and with it expands the existence of suffering.
Sometimes, after many days, we suddenly break through the still darkness of midnight and sob uncontrollably. Why does this happen?
We ourselves cannot quite understand the reason. Who left us, what broke within us, where in our chest something burned to ash… though we find no answers even after much thought, we can guess, we can feel, that the person within us is dying a little each day. We feel great tenderness for that person traveling toward death. This tenderness we feel for ourselves—this tenderness is so pure, so genuine, so solitary.
Perhaps it is for that most trusted friend that we break all the night’s silence and weep loudly for no apparent reason. Crying brings lightness to the chest. Those who cannot cry even at their own death are not so much human as they are heavy stones!
Many of those we think of as human are actually living stones.
Two. As far as I know, among the Bengali translations of the Vedas available, those by Debendranath Tagore, Rameshchandra Dutt, Satyabrata Samashram, Sri Aurobindo, Durgadas Lahiri, Swami Jagadishwarananda and others are the finest. Regrettably, these translations are not easily accessible. Of course, good things must always be sought out and discovered.
A complete translation of the Vedas into Bengali has not yet been accomplished; only translations of some Vedic Samhitas exist. Recently, with the support of the West Bengal government, the Ramakrishna Mission authorities have undertaken this great endeavor. They are working to publish a complete translation of the Vedas in 60 volumes. I believe 44 parts have already been published. (This information may be incorrect. If so, I would be grateful for correction.)
Today some more books were added to the philosophy of religion section of my personal library. I didn’t get all the published parts of the Vedas; they said they would bring them.
Let me help you a bit with book purchasing. Based on my experience, almost any book on philosophy of religion (not religious practice or devotional sentiment) from these few organizations can be bought with eyes closed:
Rishi Sri Aurobindo’s Pondicherry Ashram
Udbodhan Karyalaya & Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture
Gita Press, Gorakhpur
Motilal Banarsidass Publishing House
I’ll end with a quote from the Shukla Yajurveda: Yadbhadram tanna aasu. Its meaning: May good thoughts come to us.
Three. Generally, three kinds of people’s sorrows touch us:
The sorrow of someone for whose sorrow we are responsible
The sorrow of someone whose sorrow resembles our own sorrow
The sorrow of someone who is dear to us
With everyone else, we merely pretend to feel sad.
Most people are either irritated or pleased by another’s melancholy. Melancholy is a precious thing — better not to squander it carelessly.
There are some extremely cruel people who remain untouched even by the first kind of sorrow. Nothing could be more foolish than to remain melancholic for their sake. Your melancholy only gives such people victory.
Four. For the sake of living, when life brings whatever circumstances it may, it’s best to accept them as they come. This brings peace and comfort easily. If acceptance isn’t possible, then one must try to escape that situation. Otherwise, learning the art of accepting the moment and making the best use of it brings great advantage. The moment we cannot bring ourselves to accept or bear may never return to life again. Perhaps every moment ahead will be worse than the present one. Who knows! Let us remember that death is a perfectly natural event. If death arrives before the next moment comes, we’ll have to die with the failure of not being able to accept this moment with an easy heart. Keeping thoughts of death away from the mind doesn’t keep death away from life.
Let us live for today, not for tomorrow. Who can say what tomorrow will be like, or whether it will come to life at all! Many things appear different from a distance. In thought or speculation, many difficult things seem easy. Can the actual situation truly be known in advance? We make the difficult easy and the easy difficult — as a result, both slip from our grasp.
Consider this: countless people alive at this very moment will leave this world before tomorrow arrives. At this moment, at that moment, in the next moment, thousands are dying, will die. Any of us could be among them. Humans create mortality’s probable lists while excluding themselves. What folly! Who knows when anyone might slip into that great roster of time! In the time it took to read this piece up to this point, somewhere, someone has left us behind. The list of the living is terribly ephemeral. We never know when our call might suddenly come. The conviction that tomorrow’s morning will come and I will surely, surely see it — what disregards this is not called death, it’s called dreams. Death is far more powerful than dreams.
We waste today hoping for tomorrow. We spoil today’s joy dreaming of the day after. Who can even begin to guess when life might suddenly turn to dust and ash! To fulfill the debt of birth, one must be born anew each moment. To push moments toward death means to live by removing oneself from birth’s joy. This is how immediate happiness is lost to dreams of the future.
Do we suffer more when dying or when living? No one can answer this with certainty. If the first is true, then what’s the point of keeping ourselves in misery while alive! If the latter is true, then what’s the point of increasing that suffering with our own hands! Immersing ourselves in life’s mystery, the very name of living is to pass through life celebrating each moment — laughing, playing, singing, dancing. Making moments beautiful makes life beautiful. After all, it’s quite possible that this very moment is the meaning of our entire life!
If tomorrow’s morning will never come to this life again, then what meaning do all those millions of dewdrops we’re saving to anoint our eyes with that dawn actually carry?
Rather, let me open my eyes today and truly see how the flower blooms in just that way, how the black mark on my pet cat’s forehead stirs such tenderness, how it feels to walk barefoot on grass and reach up with both arms to touch the sky! Ah, how many people long to live but lack the means! And here we are, you and I, with the means to live, yet we won’t even let the longing touch our hearts! Does this make any sense? What greater wealth is there than good health! Even such boundless good fortune we’re merrily squandering, while we keep thinking and thinking: not here, but somewhere else; not this moment, but another moment!
Every moment, death rushes past right beside our ears, and we don’t notice. To fulfill all the obligations of living before we notice—that is what it means to win. Time flows on and death’s heavy breathing on our necks grows ever heavier. Nothing more or less than this ever comes to anyone’s life.
Thought: Eight Hundred Fifteen
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One. There’s no shortage of pretentious people in this country. They don’t even have a lungi to wear themselves, yet they’ll come to teach you how to buckle a belt on your pants!
Two. We’re growing up these days.
Even when someone looks us straight in the eye and lies with perfect acting, we understand everything yet keep nodding our heads and say with a forced laugh, “Yes, yes, you’re absolutely right!”
When you grow up, you must learn to give others the freedom to lie. It may even happen that when a lie doesn’t affect us at all, we forgive that lie.
The person who has been deceiving us day after day—we don’t even let that person know that we’ve been catching this deception for a long time. Without any protest, we can tell them, “No, no, you could never cheat anyone! Such a thing simply cannot happen!”
We’re truly growing up so much! We’ve learned to let win the person whose life has no other achievement or gain besides cheating us.
Even knowing the person no longer loves us, we can routinely respond to their “I love you!” with “I love you too!” without our voice trembling at all!
Because we’re growing up, we’ve come to know that with someone who no longer loves well, no more words should be wasted on the subject of love.
We keep growing up, and we keep losing ourselves within ourselves.
We’re learning to act. Life isn’t big enough to spend in quarrels and troubles. We now know how to hide ourselves. Showing everyone what I am only means adding sorrow to life. We understand this very well now.
No one loses us anymore. We ourselves sit there, having lost ourselves!
What we don’t need, what we don’t like, what isn’t harming us—gradually we have less time to think about these three things. This is what happens when you keep growing up.
To live oneself and let others live—beyond this, we no longer have time to contemplate any other meaning of religion. What feeds us, clothes us, and keeps us alive without harming anyone else—that is religion. Whatever else there may be beyond this, worrying about it is called “endless leisure.” We understand very clearly that no one has given us the responsibility to save others from hell or damnation. Thinking about the consequences of others’ actions that I don’t have to bear and never will—that’s called unemployment. The days of unemployment and the days of growing up—they are not the same.
Three.
Rabindranath Tagore himself placed his trust in a particular translation of the Mahabharata—a translation that demands profound contemplation.
Mahamahopadhyay Haridas Siddhantavagish began his Bengali translation, commentary, and exposition of the Mahabharata at the age of thirty-five, completing this entirely solitary endeavor thirty years later in 159 volumes, including the original Sanskrit verses, under the title ‘Mahabharatam’. Such dedication finds few parallels in world history. It is only fitting that this scholarly translation became Rabindranath’s constant companion.
I had collected this translation, published by Vishvavani Prakashan in 43 volumes, long ago. I felt moved to share it with you.
Let me also mention that the most acclaimed English translation of the Mahabharata is K.M. Ganguli’s ‘The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa’, published in 18 volumes.
Four. Before inviting someone, find out what they like to eat. What you enjoy eating, they may not. For someone with allergies, lentils and mashed potatoes make a more agreeable meal than seven courses of lobster curry. Without this elementary wisdom in your head, you’ll achieve nothing but waste of money, time, and effort. As a bonus, you’ll become known as an annoying and senseless person.
Five. Talking with people reveals many unknown facts about yourself. For instance, you might suddenly discover one day that you regularly take pethidine. And there are many juicy stories circulating in the market about what you do after pushing that injection into your body—stories you had never heard before.
You learned something; your knowledge increased. Then you returned home, stood naked before the mirror, and searched every inch of your body without finding a single mark or hole through which you might have administered that injection. So you went to those very people who had first informed you that you take pethidine. Finding you there, they all joined together to give you a thorough beating, because bringing a lying drug addict back to healthy living is everyone’s sacred duty. Under the blows, you were forced to say, “Yes, brothers, I do take pethidine. I promise before you all that I’ll never take it again.”
This success in setting you on the right path brightened their faces. You, who had never even smoked a cigarette, became known to everyone as someone addicted to various drugs including yaba and pethidine. That you consumed drugs became established as fact.
Keeping your eyes and ears open reveals many astonishing and bizarre facts about yourself. Others believe and spread such strange stories about us that if we knew them, we’d stare at them wide-eyed, thinking… Brother, oh brother, you do all this—do you get paid for it!?
Five. I’m sharing with you photos of some recently purchased books.
‘The Noble Quran’, published in 9 volumes with relevant annotations from Sahih al-Bukhari and extracts from the tafsirs of al-Tabari, al-Qurtubi, and Ibn Kathir, is among the most acclaimed tafsirs worldwide. This tafsir is approved by the Islamic University of Medina and distributed free of charge annually among Hajj pilgrims under Saudi government management. Notably, the King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Quran prints ten million copies of ‘The Noble Quran’ each year. This tafsir is among the books in the photograph.
I haven’t shared the joy of book-buying with you for quite some time.
After sharing the photographs of books purchased to mark nine years in civil service, I felt that many of you were inspired and benefited from that post. I received quite a few emails and messages, some of which included requests that I occasionally share pictures of books I buy. Learning the name of a good book is undoubtedly a kind of good fortune. Before purchasing, one can read other readers’ evaluations of any book on several websites, among which my favorite is: Goodreads.
Joy—multiplies when shared!
Reflection: Eight Hundred and Sixteen
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One. From 3-6-12 to 3-6-21. Nine years have passed, the tenth year begins. Yes, exactly nine years ago on this very day I joined the service. That day began my journey from being a nobody toward becoming somebody.
Have you noticed, the joining date for the 30th batch isn’t very auspicious!
I’ve reduced book-buying considerably compared to before, yet still an average of 60-70 books get purchased each month! Among the few strategies I know for keeping myself happy, book-buying is one. I buy and keep them; reading doesn’t happen much. My library has roughly 7,000 books, new books accumulate daily, though not much accumulates in my head. Still, buying books reduces my regrets bit by bit. The sorrow of not being able to buy a favorite book equals several hundred deaths!
To celebrate today, I gifted myself several books on philosophy. Buying these books brought me great peace. I generally don’t share pictures of books in my collection—it feels somewhat embarrassing! But today I felt like sharing.
Two. If you speak ill of someone behind their back, and they later come to know of it and feel hurt, then the Creator will remove or lessen one of their other sorrows. As a consequence of the wrong you committed against them, God will forgive some of their mistakes. Why would He do this? Because the new pain they experienced was not their due. Therefore, removing or reducing a pain that was their due undoubtedly establishes justice or balance. But since removing or reducing their deserved suffering might wrong someone else, the Creator will then write that pain or punishment in your fate’s ledger, since you are responsible for this entire affair.
Speaking ill of others or trying to harm them will make you face suffering or punishment yourself. This is nature’s own justice. No matter how much you try, you cannot escape that consequence. Even if you don’t suffer the punishment, your child or someone dear to you will suffer that punishment innocently before your eyes. For the person you speak ill of or try to harm, God will forgive some of their sins while increasing yours. You must face the punishment for those additional sins before death. The decision is now yours.
Three. The person you can embrace and cry openly without any inhibition—that person is truly your closest companion.
The person into whose eyes you can look and pour out all the turmoil in your heart without any hesitation—that person is the one you trust most completely.
Sometimes you’ll notice that a vast mountain of pain has accumulated inside your chest, yet not a single drop of tears comes to your eyes. Your inner world is in turmoil, but your entire face is wrapped in centuries-old silence.
Why does this happen? It’s because no matter how hard we search, we cannot find a trustworthy chest to cry upon and a pair of gentle eyes to open our hearts to.
Because we cannot find such a person, day after day we carry huge stones of suffering in our chests and go about our lives as if nothing is wrong. These stones gradually pile up to form a mountain. I can be seen, yet the towering mountain inside me, much taller than myself, remains invisible. Because it cannot be seen, we cannot truly discern among the living, breathing people walking before our eyes who is dead and who is alive.
Hoarded words or crystallized pain should never be suppressed within. The more these two things are kept pressed down, the more terrible the agony becomes inside. If lightening oneself through an argument with someone is possible, then it’s better to do just that. Yes, in this life one needs such a person upon whom all the anger and sorrow of the heart can be poured out. If you have such a beloved person with whom you cannot quarrel to your heart’s content, then I would say perhaps you’re mistaken somewhere; that person doesn’t really love you!
In life, one needs such a chest that can be flooded with tears at will. In this life, one needs such a pair of eyes into which one can gaze and speak everything, thus lightening oneself. The person with whom one doesn’t need to act, before whom one can present oneself as one truly is without hesitation—that is what we call a beloved; the rest are merely necessary or unnecessary.
Sometimes, we ourselves cannot quite understand who among us is close, which chest is our ultimate refuge. We then feel utterly helpless and defeated. One who has everything yet doesn’t have a single person to embrace and weep torrentially—that person actually has nothing. They are the poorest person on earth!
If you ever discover that you’ve found someone close whom you can embrace and cry your heart out to, then know that you’ve found the person most necessary and closest to you in your life. From that day forward, you have someone in your life who can be trusted, on whose shoulder you can place the burden of your life and make yourself light as a feather. Never let that person go for anything. Never! Whether they be friend, lover, parent, sibling—keep them close. If you need to negotiate with anything for this, then do so.
If maintaining your well-being requires being in a relationship that is undefined or nameless, that too is fine! Wellness is more important than recognition. What those who cannot keep you well say doesn’t matter at all.
The most precious treasure, more valuable than the entire world, is your own well-being. You can certainly love someone who cannot or will not keep you well, but it’s better not to decide to spend your entire life with them. Living with someone who keeps you well is more joyful and peaceful than living with someone you love.
Four. : Brother, did you keep dogs?
: No, brother, I didn’t.
But once upon a time a dog used to keep me. Now it keeps someone else.
: Good heavens, what are you saying?
: I speak the truth, brother! In this world some people keep dogs, and dogs keep some people. It’s all fate!
Reflection: Eight Hundred and Seventeen
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One. Among the few sufferings of this world that we must silently and compulsively endure, one is watching our parents grow old before our eyes.
The strong hands that taught us to take hold of this world’s reins slowly begin to soften before our very eyes.
The arms where we would rest our heads and fall asleep—in time we watch their skin wrinkle before us.
The person who taught us to walk upright in childhood begins to stoop before our very eyes.
In my view, one of the harshest scenes in the world is watching parents grow old and frail before our eyes.
The more we grow, the more our parents age. One day, at some untimely moment, we discover that those who made us heroes—those two superheroes—are slowly moving toward their final journey.
We understand these fragmentary truths, yet somehow we cannot accept them.
We can easily accept our own hundred deaths and death-agonies, but still—
Let the world crumble and collapse, let everything be destroyed, let planets and satellites and the entire universe turn upside down, yet the thought that parents will leave us, that even the slightest touch of infinite death-agony will reach their bodies—such thoughts never enter our minds, this inevitable understanding we simply cannot accept. Never! Not in any way!
Two. When something you say doesn’t suit me, I don’t feel anger or amusement; instead, I usually begin to think about your statement or opinion. Even when I hear something that goes completely against my beliefs and experience, rather than protest I quietly contemplate what you’re really trying to say or how much truth there might be in what you’re saying. I’m not your provider, after all, that I should hang you for the ‘crime’ of speaking unpleasant truths!
Within me works a kind of fear of ignorance or desire for transcendence that encourages me to learn something about a subject from you and others. I want very respectfully to know about your thinking, even if it walks the opposite path from mine. It’s not that this doesn’t cause me any pain. But however much pain I feel, for the sake of settling and understanding things with myself and my work, I prefer to understand and think through opposing views. If you criticize me after knowing and understanding the truth, without holding anger or affection toward anything, then I will bow my head and accept even your harshest reproach.
But when I see that someone is making a fuss not about my work but about me as a person, sometimes trying to spread such slander about me that is entirely untrue, or reaching wrong conclusions about me based on hearsay or their own assumptions, then I feel intense mockery and anger toward them. However much you assume about me, I hold that much more knowledge about myself. My understanding of myself is more infallible than your assumptions.
I can endure unpleasant truths, but I don’t have time to tolerate unpleasant lies—or if I do have that time, I won’t waste it on someone who serves no purpose in my life. I’ve observed that those who come uninvited to offer advice or counsel are mostly interested in showcasing themselves while making me feel low. Anyone who makes me feel diminished is never essential to my life.
Yes, I do tolerate unpleasant lies too—I have to endure them with gritted teeth when they come from my boss or someone I need. Bearing a boss’s falsehoods and venom is simply part of the job. For instance, though I’ve never touched a cigarette in my entire life, if my boss or someone important to me chooses to judge me as a drug addict and feels victorious in their mind, I won’t object in the slightest. Let the fool find happiness in their delusions—what’s the point of provoking them? The capable triumph through truth; the incapable through lies.
I’m always ready to accept honest criticism of my work, because it benefits me most—I can improve myself. But I truly lack the patience or time to absorb your anger, jealousy, or bile about me or my professional, personal, family, or any other circumstances. I’m not weak enough to endure or feel compelled to endure some worthless person’s false narrative dominating my mind. Besides, only the incompetent turn criticism into slander. If you accept the company of the incompetent, seeing yourself in their place gradually becomes inevitable.
Three. Often people fail despite tremendous effort, while others succeed without much trying. The question is fundamentally about failure and success, not about being industrious or idle. When success arrives, even past laziness receives affection, yet no one even mentions a failed person’s perseverance!
Four. Happiness and love—these two matters are profoundly, profoundly relative.
One man finds strange comfort puffing cigarette after cigarette, while another can’t bear even the smoke of the same thing.
The thief who is a criminal in people’s eyes, an utterly despicable character, is someone’s beloved, someone’s godlike revered father, child, brother.
The person who endures scolding and mistreatment daily is the same individual for whom someone secretly sheds tears every day.
Every human being on earth has different emotions and feelings. Each feeling and its expression belongs to a different house when judged by relativity.
The person you love with your entire being may not love you back, but love someone else with their entire being. You can’t understand why that person places no value on your love. When you see pure love rendered worthless, accepting it silently isn’t easy. Ironically, the person they love with their whole heart perhaps loves yet another. So the object of your love sits in a waiting room of uncertainty just like you, in endless expectation. This matter is terribly complex, tangled, an unsolved mystery in the world.
Yet people love, yet to live, people spit on all the world’s logic and keep searching for happiness.
In the calculus of having and not having, ground down in the mill of joy and sorrow, an entire life gets wasted without our even realizing it.
At some final twilight of life, we suddenly discover… alas, we have gained nothing from this existence!
Again, at another dusk or beneath moon-fractured light, we understand perfectly well… that the feelings of joy and sorrow in this life are nothing more than an incomprehensible riddle composed of zeros arranged side by side.
Thought: Eight Hundred Eighteen
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One. Even at life’s end, where one finds no love, people still do not truly wish to witness love being given and received. To understand why they don’t wish this, one must look back at those days they spent in complete lovelessness. Those who receive no love cannot easily bear to see others receiving love.
Rather than debate whether this matter of love is for an entire lifetime or merely momentary, I wonder whether we truly know anything about the permanence of a whole life. What meaning is there in spending even a moment on what only eternity knows! The more miserly one is in accepting, the more one must prepare to experience unnecessary melancholy and regret in living life.
Yesterday evening at the bookstore, the girl who captivated me, with whom I wished to speak—even after her eyes conveyed consent, meaning that we could very well sit face to face for some time sharing two cups of coffee—we could not sit and talk even in public. We have learned to seek sin in coffee’s steam instead of warmth.
When we speak of bonds, we understand only lifelong bonds. Yet we still cannot properly grasp what a whole life means. The moment we felt sorrow for not fulfilling the moment’s demand—is that moment somehow outside of life? At day’s end, this question remains.
We prefer to think: we do not belong to each other! When we don’t belong, then how do we sit facing each other like this? Which two people in this world become each other’s, who knew this when and where before it happened—or even understood it after happening—we don’t wish to investigate this due to certain confused voices. Humans never belong to anyone; humans fundamentally remain their own until death.
Though friendship demands some love, in a society where love demands no friendship at all, no one bothers about—or perhaps even understands—that there might exist purely innocent desire or attraction in spreading warmth of heart. Discussing understanding in a society of the uncomprehending and foolish is quite problematic. Before such discussion can begin, declarations of silence swiftly arrive.
Where there exists the strange belief that wanting a loving relationship with someone means one must remain in physical proximity or side by side for life, there no conversation—brief or extended—can develop between people based on trust and affection!
Why must there be love in conversation? Why must conversation based on mere affection be kept at distance? We don’t really seek answers to these questions. Because we don’t seek them, in the name of bonds we receive only chains, not humans. Our domestic arrangements and understandings are with chains, not with people. Our inherited legacy is merely the tradition and habituation of wearing chains, the mood and comfort of remaining blind. Not just wearing them, but making others wear them too; not just remaining, but making others remain!
One can very well spend some time with someone who seems pleasant or has just seemed so, without expecting anything at all. This is called individual truth.
One can certainly spend some time with someone who appeals to us or has just begun to appeal to us — on the condition that this attraction be sustained for life. This is society’s truth.
Whether we can or cannot have a conversation with someone who appeals to us or has just begun to appeal to us, what we think about this, or however we might think about it, or even if none of this crosses our minds at all — what will happen will happen regardless, and the joy or sorrow of that happening is rarely determined by the present moment and its context. This is life’s truth.
If anyone, contemplating why someone was drawn to another, finds sin in it, then who is a greater sinner than they! It is sinners who go about seeking sin everywhere. Sinners see more sin with their eyes.
If the condition for spending life with someone is the unidirectionality of attraction, then such a condition is neither love nor faithfulness — it is merely a social contract that shows no regard for any truth of the individual mind or life. And because it shows no regard, it breaks easily.
The point where the conflict between the individual’s, society’s, and life’s truths becomes inevitable — that point is called survival. And this point is called the truth of the moment. The harder it is for someone to grasp and accept the truth of the moment, the more complex life’s meaning becomes for them.
We keep searching for sin only in the body, yet all sin — its dwelling, cultivation, and development — happens in the mind.
Two. There are two kinds of loneliness:
Loneliness from not getting the person we prefer
Loneliness despite having gotten the person we prefer
The second is more painful.
Truth be told, loneliness cannot be measured by getting or not getting someone. To those who think “if only I had so-and-so, there would be no more sorrow in this life,” I say: two people do not remain the same before and after they find each other.
People change once they are found.
Three. There are several of my writings that I myself lack the courage to read; one of them is “On the Death and Rebirth of the Poet.” I will upload a recitation of this poem tonight at 9 PM, performed by Monisha Maiti. On my YouTube channel, Facebook page. I’ll surely share it on my profile and in groups too.
I have written in this poem precisely about how people’s faces and roles change when you’re in trouble.
Intense emotion is bound up with this poem. What happened to the poet in this work happened exactly the same way in my own life. When you read this poem, the impression it creates about human nature — that’s essentially how people are. You feel this in your bones when you’re in trouble. At such times you won’t find any of the “so-called faithful” by your side; more importantly, you’ll see a completely different face of those who stood beside you in the guise of friends.
In festivals of cruelty, almost everyone either participates themselves or enjoys it silently. The intoxication of seeing others trampled and tormented unites people. Having seen such faces of humanity so clearly, praise or criticism from people doesn’t affect me much. I’ve come to understand that we’re mainly preoccupied with unnecessary people.
For enthusiastic readers, I’ve provided the link to the poem in the first comment.
Reflection: Eight Hundred Nineteen
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One. The very person who rolls about giggling uncontrollably among friends, that vivacious soul perhaps enters their room, turns off the light, buries their face in the pillow and bursts into sobs.
The very person who says “Hey friend!
What’s the point of so much thinking! Eat, drink, be merry—the world is vast! ‘Zindegi na milegi dobara!’ So says the ‘my dear’ type who consoles others, yet perhaps that very person sleeps each night on anti-depression tablets.
The person whose perpetually cheerful face makes me think with a heap of regret, ‘Oh! If only I could be as happy as them!’—that very merry-maker perhaps cannot sleep a single night without strong sleeping pills.
We see of a person exactly as much as they choose to show us.
Beyond this lies a person’s entirely different, vast inner world—one we truly know nothing about, can never know about. Only they know what they really are! The rest of us can at best make guesses.
The person who constantly hurls unspeakable, unbearable, obscene abuse—that foul-mouthed individual perhaps stops every day on the way home to give a packet of biscuits to the helpless dog with broken legs on the street.
The person we readily label as heartless, merciless, cruel—that supposedly awful individual perhaps steps so carefully when seeing an ant that no harm comes to the creature.
The person I’ve never seen properly embrace even their own child—that seemingly indifferent soul perhaps weeps heartbrokenly when the neighborhood dog dies.
Every person has some wonderful aspect that we never discover. Within every person dwells a deity. People are one thing on the outside, another within. Humans are essentially creatures of mixed nature.
A person is never a hundred percent bad, nor ever a hundred percent good.
There are many people in this world who are rather like coconuts—hard shell on the outside, clear sweet water within.
Humans fundamentally love to hide themselves; sometimes they’re compelled to.
Humans want others to understand them not through their words but through their actions; they want someone to break through that hard outer shell and discover the tender person inside.
Yet, at day’s end, every person remains undiscovered. This is why we think those who laugh are happy. But most laughter in this world is skillfully employed as the most perfect mask!
Two. I believe children should be allowed to grow as their hearts desire. We shouldn’t interfere in anything they do. So when I stand on my apartment balcony and see children joyfully jumping on cars, throwing mud at parked cars right before my eyes, I say nothing to them. To me, a child’s happiness is worth far more than a thousand expensive cars. Besides, that car isn’t mine anyway, and those children aren’t mine either!
Three. There’s no greater punishment than dealing with miserly people!
O God! Make all those who have left me utterly tight-fisted!
Four. A fool is foolish precisely because, being a fool, they’re never ashamed.
A fool always wants another kindhearted fool who will always flatter them—like me.
Five. When hair turns gray, it becomes white. Looking at that white hair can certainly make us sad—it’s natural to feel so, and we might even refuse to accept this graying from our hearts! But what difference does that make? The hair has turned gray—that’s the truth at day’s end, isn’t it? Believe it or not, even if your mood turns sour, your gray hair doesn’t turn black again.
But yes, to improve our mood, we can dye that white hair.
The white hair will turn black, reddish, brown, or whatever color we prefer. Though this may lift our spirits, the grayed hair remains grayed—it will never become young again. What stays on our heads is still grayed hair, only now it’s grayed hair that’s black, reddish, or brown. Even if someone takes offense, their hair-graying never stops. The hair of angry people grays, the hair of calm people grays. Perhaps to avoid trouble, everyone looks at the angry person’s dyed gray hair and diplomatically declares it young to their face! Good thing it’s not just the angry ones—fools receive this “special honor” too!
Black-colored gray hair and black hair are not the same thing. Whether we accept it or not, truth remains truth!
Six. The cow that gives milk is the very cow we kick. The cow that gives no milk doesn’t get kicked by us.
This is our racial tradition.
Still the cow goes on giving milk, because apart from giving milk, there’s little else it can do. This isn’t its magnanimity—this is simply its nature. Yes, that’s precisely why it’s called a cow. And it remains a cow all its life.
Seven. Expecting the safety of a lion’s roar in a pasture is also foolishness. Cows may not be able to fire guns, but the cowherds certainly can!
Eight. When cutting weeds to clear the ground, a good plant or two might accidentally get cut as well. Still, it’s better to cut the weeds.
I believe no uncle is better than a one-eyed uncle. But if there’s a matter of gain from that one-eyed uncle, then it’s a different story. We understand, don’t we, that the cow which gives milk—even if it kicks, there’s no problem; that can be tolerated.
You would kick someone for no reason at all, and they would say to you, “Sweet darling, magical one! Who’s to stop you from kicking! Come here, honey, to my heart!”… How does this enter your head? Everyone has the freedom to express their opinion, but no one has the freedom to be rude or to harass. Nowhere in this world is there any exemption for rudeness.
Whoever harasses you deserves a kick, provided you’re not bound to them by any thread of obligation.