Self-Immolation

I remember calling you "aapni" at first, all formal and distant, and how after a year and a half of trying, I finally managed to say "tumi." Do you remember how you convinced me to call you "tumi"?

In the beginning you kept shouting about love, love, love. I believed you too. Buddhadeb Guha's words echoed in my mind: when a woman gives her heart to someone, giving her body is nothing. What is there in this body anyway? Yet how strange! To ninety-nine percent of men and to those who've built our society, this body alone has value. The heart has no worth at all.

When I gave you this body that first time, what I felt wasn't pleasure but fear—I was so unprepared!

I saw that you made me take a test to see if I would truly give you my body so quickly. And I did take that test. First test, first day, first time, first love, first fear. You observed everything very carefully.

That day you first understood the depth of my capacity to love. What woman would unfold her body's secrets so readily without truly loving?

You gave the test, yet I got the answer. How strange, isn't it? Even foolish me understood that day that you began to love me only after touching my body. I mean, seeing my love is what made you decide to love me that day. I gave my body and received a heart, but what you gave and what you received that day, I don't know. Still, thank you for giving me the chance to choose truth from a basketful of lies.

But if you loved me that very day, then what were all those words you spoke to me before? Do people lie even about love like this? Can they manage to be so filthy?

We stayed together anyway. Even knowing everything, I couldn't separate myself then. Why I couldn't—I still search for that answer today. I keep forgetting that with effort you might find the question, but answers aren't easily found just by suffering or wishing.

A few months later I began to see you differently. You seemed scattered to me, somehow melancholy. It felt like you were passing your days in careless drifting.

I heard from several people that you were looking for a "better option"! Ha ha ha... I've seen so many people become beggars searching for this "better option"! Are there good, better, best grades in love too? Do you know the synonym for "better option" is actually "greed," whose consequence is death? Of course, once greed touches someone, do they ever realize when death approaches?

Forget all that! So after much thinking, you went back to your "better option"—meaning that old person of yours. Truly, leaving the comfort zone is always painful. I agree with you.

Some time later I suddenly heard through people again that according to nature's inevitable justice, your "better option" had gone to what was his "better option."

Many days have passed since then, the world has grown busier. I too have become so busy; maybe you have too—I don't really know, I'm just guessing. I heard you've become very quiet, don't go anywhere, don't really talk to anyone much. Though I didn't particularly want to talk to you either!

A little while later I heard about your self-immolation. Will you believe me? For some reason, I wasn't surprised at all. "Greed leads to sin, sin leads to death."—I used to say this maxim only with my mouth, but did you have to prove it as ultimate truth and show it to us before leaving?