This evening I read a post on Facebook, shut my bedroom door, stood on the balcony, and wept loudly. An unnoticed childhood scar. They say tears of deep sorrow run very warm—I felt it today. Why did I cry?
I had just started school then. I was in first grade. I spent my days laughing and playing. I wanted to draw pictures. I’d recite little rhymes from memory and amaze the grown-ups. I’d put ants in my mouth and chew them up. I got my finger caught in my brother’s bicycle chain and cried at the top of my lungs all day from the pain. I wanted everyone’s affection, and if anyone scolded me, I’d burst into tears. I was always the apple of everyone’s eye.
One day something happened. I used to call the man Uncle. He lived in the house next door. I immediately ran to tell my mother everything. Back then, whenever anything happened, I’d tell my mother. I was very talkative as a child.
My mother slapped me hard. I didn’t understand why she did that. I never learned what wrong I had done. My little cheek swelled up terribly that day. I was so angry at my mother. Then some things happened very quickly. Due to those family incidents, our entire family had to move to the neighboring district. My brother had his SSC exams coming up. Only he stayed behind at our grandfather’s house. My father was a lawyer. Just when his career was at its peak, this sudden change of bar caused a massive collapse in his career. Our family fell into terrible financial crisis. Eventually we had to sell our house. Everything happened in the blink of an eye. My father sold the house for next to nothing. We left. My brother stayed behind. I couldn’t be close to my college-going brother anymore. Then for his undergraduate studies, he went to Japan. He’s been abroad ever since. The distance that developed between us became like the kind that exists between fathers—distant and formal. I gradually grew up alone in the new environment.
In my little mind back then, I understood one thing very clearly: everything that was happening was because of me. Children understand everything, you know. We were living through severe financial hardship then. Sometimes my father would get very angry with me. He would blame me for everything. I even had to hear things like, “Should have strangled you at birth!” I would withdraw into myself. My parents would always say, “Don’t tell anyone anything, if you do we’ll beat you to death!” They didn’t tell anyone either, only my maternal uncle knew. I kept my word too. I didn’t tell anyone. I haven’t told anyone to this day.
Those events left deep scars on my young mind. My parents had told me not to tell anyone, but questions kept flooding my thoughts—why? How many whys came and went in those days! If children could escape the tyranny of why, they could live so much happier. The needless scolding from parents doesn’t sit well with little ones. I would suppress all my questions out of fear. Eventually, I forgot about the whole thing. I grew up like any other child, with just one difference—I wasn’t allowed to mix much with others. I desperately wanted to mingle with everyone, to play, to roam around. But I was strictly forbidden from home. Even in that tender age, I had grown up far beyond my years. Not mixing with anyone, not mixing at all, I had somehow become terribly serious. A little boy, carrying himself with such gravity, having to grow up that way—it was heartbreaking.
When I was in fourth, fifth, sixth grade, I felt utterly insignificant. Such feelings are deeply painful. I felt like some terrible sinner. When I was in ninth grade, I learned about the mysteries of human birth from friends. I felt nauseous the first day I found out. But even then I didn’t understand what had happened to me. How foolish I was! I only understood what had happened to me in my childhood after starting college. I still remember that day. I cried through the entire night. A college boy crying all night—do you understand what that means, dear society? No, you don’t understand. You never will. All the pain, all the tears, all the regret—everything is so personal! The eyes that see are the ones that weep; for others, it’s merely something to witness. And society? It’s nothing but a hypocritical, tyrannical, thoughtless entity! There’s no organization more deceitful than society. Anyway, after all these years, every incident from my childhood became clear to me. Why we had moved to the neighboring district, why the house had to be sold, why my parents had said “we’ll kill you if you tell anyone,” why a lifelong invisible distance was created between my brother and me, why I wasn’t allowed to mix with anyone in childhood… I understood everything. Everything!
I didn’t grow up surrounded by boundless love and affection. In childhood, if anyone showed me affection by pinching my cheeks and kissing me, or if I laughed at someone’s words, my parents would get angry. I’d get beaten terribly. I couldn’t understand why. It hurt so much in my little heart. I couldn’t make sense of anything. Why were my parents treating me this way? What had I done? What was my crime? Being forced to accept punishment day after day without knowing my offense was agonizing. When we went somewhere, I had to stay close to my parents. They wouldn’t let me play with other children. I would sit quietly. I didn’t grow up like you all. Getting beaten constantly, cowering in fear, always having to act older than my age—that’s how I grew up. I have no childhood. There are no joyful memories in my childhood. What I have are countless memories of being constantly vigilant about whether I had done something wrong. I don’t talk much about my childhood. My parents had taught me to forget it!
But after learning everything, I had erupted in fury one day. I had confronted my parents: “Why did you do this to me?” They said nothing, only wept. And that made my anger surge even more. Why are you crying? You didn’t raise me with overwhelming love and affection! I grew up always cowering in fear. If anyone should cry, it should be me! Why are you crying?
That day I saw someone’s post on a blog saying no one should tell him what suffering is. Because the terrible pain he had once endured made our ordinary sufferings pale to nothing. Perhaps he’s right! But I’m dying to tell him something. His talk of suffering makes me laugh. A little boy growing up under constant scolding from his parents, never told why he’s being scolded, always withdrawn into himself from fear of doing something wrong, yet not even knowing what would keep him from getting yelled at—do you understand this suffering, sir? Put your hand on your heart and tell me… do you understand? “What knows the agony of poison’s bite, who never felt the cobra’s sting?” I had read it as a child without understanding. Now I understand, and I’m afraid to even speak it aloud.
My parents are immensely proud of me. My relatives point me out to their children and say, “Be like him.” Of course they would! I was always in the front ranks throughout my student life. Fearing my parents would be left alone, I didn’t even enroll in Electrical at BUET despite getting admission! I studied at Rajshahi University instead.
I’m a refuge for my friends. No gathering comes alive without me. Everyone could always get notes from me. I was the one who prepared and submitted many people’s presentations. I’m everyone’s closest friend! If I don’t do it, who will?
My girlfriend is proud of me. She tells everyone, “He’s never squeezed my hand roughly, never tried to force a kiss on me, never said a single vulgar word. Boys like him just don’t exist. I don’t know what good deeds brought me such luck to have him!”
I’m not making any of this up. I really am such a good boy.
‘Unnoticed Scars of Childhood’
What happened when I read this today! For the first time, I felt someone had given me importance! Spoken about me. Someone had finally said what should have been said—that I was meant to grow up not through scolding, but through my parents’ love and affection. I have never told this story or spoken of this incident to anyone until now. Today is the first time I’m telling it. I don’t know why I’m telling it. By no measure is the author close enough to me that I should share something so private! But when I was reading the piece this evening and crying, it felt as though the author was my own, that I had no one but him, that I would tell him everything, that I would free all the sorrowful letters chained within my heart and become as unburdened as a feather. I am terribly alone. No one has ever understood me, sought me out. Many people were beside me, but they never inquired after me—instead, whenever they got the chance, they only hurt me, they always found joy in mocking my weaknesses. It is the author who first inquired after me! I’m beginning to understand why writers are kindred spirits of the soul. I love forests. How many times I’ve been lost in forest-love reading Bibhutibhushan and Buddhadeb, feeling again and again as if I was walking hand in hand with the writer through some woodland, the fragrance of wild flowers intoxicating me, my touch finding friendship with grass at every moment, some distant koel making me absent-minded every now and then, how often I’ve lost myself in the pure primordial essence of those vividly painted jungles……… I would become so grateful, feeling I should bow down to the author, at least send a letter of thanks for gifting me such feelings. I’ve only kept reading, never able to offer even the smallest gratitude—there’s never been the opportunity! Today I felt, when I’ve found the author so close, let me write something and send it. This offering is therefore the humble oblation of my lifelong pain!