Read through these words and tell me—are they true?
Please forgive me if I've written anything wrong (it may be of grammar, spelling, word, expressions...) because I've never written any of my feelings and thoughts in English before to you or to myself. I don't know English well.
Yes, I am the luckiest person to have received your unconditional love. I cannot say how many beloveds you hold in your heart, but of this there is no doubt: I am one of them, am I not? For me, it is an extraordinary grace to be your beloved, and I am deeply thankful to you—for giving me this place, and for letting me speak to you of my thoughts and feelings. You have granted me the freedom to express my love, my heart, my inner being to you. Yes, there is no one but you to whom I can tell everything without hesitation or fear. You alone are the one before whom I can unveil myself without a single question, and your patience—your gentle indulgence—gives me courage to do so, again and again.
Now I believe in the language of love, though once I thought it the most difficult and mysterious language in the world. I do believe that humanity itself springs from love. And you are the one who has helped me, encouraged me to speak that love aloud, to be truthful, to nurture that sacred feeling. When you tell me that you love me, I feel a tremor in my chest and whisper to myself: Ah, if only I could hold time still, make this moment eternal! Sometimes when you tell me not to rush, to quiet my restlessness, I grow impatient and cannot escape it. I know you say these things so I might think more clearly, yet restlessness still seizes my soul—you understand this better than I do myself. Now you know something of my past, of those dark chapters. I chose to walk through the darkness so as to understand the light more deeply, not to dwell there. It was a conscious choice. That was a time when nothing seemed to hold meaning: not my life, not my beliefs—when I felt trapped and lost. Those were days when the ground beneath me was treacherous, ready to give way at any moment. And then you came to me.
I received your love, your presence... and when I received your love, I was suddenly flooded with ecstatic emotions—bliss, euphoria, freedom. Yet at the same time, I felt that pain was still there. Perhaps it was because these new emotions were entangled with my past, which I had to confront within myself. Now I can see how you have transformed my thoughts, how gradually, patiently, you have changed me.
And last night when you told me that you do respect each of my words, that was the moment when I thought I had achieved something precious. It is one of the best gifts of my life. Because I got the gift from the one whom I respect and love… Yes, I took it as a gift. When anybody doesn’t give me the respect that I think I deserve, then first I look at myself and think if I did anything wrong to them and then I look at the person from whom I am asking for it. And if anyone shows respect to me, first I look at them to know who they are. And if my words or feelings or thoughts get respected by anyone or someone special, that means a lot to me, and I can feel that respect. Yes, sometimes I feel afraid when I think if I lose you, what would happen to me! That’s why when you are busy, don’t get time to talk to me, I feel someone will steal you from me but I also know that it’s nothing but madness. Let me love you, take my love, be my love… I love YOU, my sonapakhi!
Nothing pleases me, you know? Why do I feel so alone? Perhaps almost everyone feels it—some say it, some don’t. Is that it? Why don’t they speak? Oh, I see—not everyone has someone to tell, like I do, right? Do you ever feel alone? Probably not. If you do, tell me, and then I’ll give you so many kisses the loneliness will vanish. And the next time you call, tell me about it. Why does everyone sometimes feel alone, or do they all feel it? Who feels it, who doesn’t? Why it comes, why it doesn’t. Tell me everything. Right now, my greatest work is to torment you. The more I torment you, the better I feel. So I’ll keep tormenting you until I eat your head off. That’s my decision. Tell me the name of a book. Tell me the name of a book you love. The life-bird is mine, the soul-bird is mine, I love you. I’m going to sleep. And I’ll kiss you so many, many, many times before I do.
Lakshmi, have you gotten tired of me and stopped coming to Facebook? I keep messaging you all the time… So I won’t do it anymore. Why don’t you say something? If that’s how you feel, tell me, and I won’t message anymore. I’m really nothing but a goat. Unless someone explains things to me step by step, I don’t understand much. Everything seems clear to me. It never crosses my mind that there might be something hidden, something behind. I can’t grasp anything twisted or complex. Oh, I can’t even talk about these things. You think I misunderstand you a lot… Where will I go…
Life-bird, how are you? Very busy? You didn’t even reply to one of my messages today. Why? I’m not asking for an excuse—I want to know. I know that even if I asked for an excuse, you wouldn’t give one, because you’re not obliged. Besides, I’m not someone who deserves explanations from you. I am your unnecessary person, a refugee in your life.
# Refugees have no right to ask for explanations; they must accept with “yes, sir” whatever is given to them. That is where I stand. You won’t ask me today what I did all day? How I spent my time? Of course it doesn’t matter to you—I could do anything I please, and you wouldn’t care. You have no desire to bind me. This is painful for me. Yet if I did not love you so deeply, your indifference toward me would perhaps be a mercy. This morning I asked you the name of a book—one you loved. There is reason enough for wanting to know what books you love. Not all books please me. Books I don’t enjoy even after reading several pages, I simply abandon; and I apply the same principle to people. If after some time talking with someone I see there is no reason to take the relationship further, I stop keeping in touch. I do this with any relationship. If conversation doesn’t flow with someone, I don’t force it. This doesn’t make me a calculating person, I think. What I mean is: there are many books that only begin to please you toward the end, or partway through, and so you get a sense of them. But often I lack the will to go that far, so much remains unread. Besides, I know that not all your favorite books will please me. Yet I know this: if a book is yours, there is something unique in it—either joy, or sometimes tremendous sorrow, something that cannot possibly hide in the middle pages. The book must be read to the end. That’s why I love reading your favorite books, and why I read them. I went out this morning; had you told me the book’s name then, I could have bought it. My new books are running out, and you—you hardly have time to give me time, so what shall I do with the hours left to me? I read other books then. Of course I’ve bought a few new ones—I don’t know what they’ll be like. Sometimes books and food seem the same thing to me—as long as they’re before my eyes, I feel a hunger, a hunger that won’t leave until I’ve finished them.
You’re laughing, aren’t you? Everything I say makes you laugh—I know that. Everything about me astonishes you. When I’m angry it amuses you, when I sulk for reasons or no reason you’re bewildered. (Of course to you all my reasons are terribly unreasonable!) You’re startled when I laugh, startled when I speak, startled when I’m silent. I’m a marvel to you, that’s why everything I do fills you with such wonder. Do you truly think me a child? If not, how can you brush away all my feelings with such a gesture? Whatever I do, you think: *Oh, she’s just a girl, she understands nothing. Let her do as she pleases. When she grows up she’ll understand how much one must speak, when to keep quiet…* Why should I think so carefully about what I say? I love you—why should I speak with such calculation?
# Letter on Love and Balance
And does anyone calculate love this way? Look into it a little—those who love spend their whole day checking on each other, missing one another every moment, talking. You do none of these things. Does anyone love like that? Show me, just once! You yourself say life runs on balance! Then when you give me so little time, when will those scales ever tip? You know that better than anyone!
—
I went shopping today. Every time before I visit Dhaka, I buy something for my sister’s son—some toy or other—but this time he’s got into the Cadet College, so I have to give him something bigger. Besides, he’s growing up, and each time I go to buy him a gift, the anguish I feel—I can’t even put it into words. Nothing pleases him. I can’t figure out what he likes. Whatever I buy, he’s already played with it, so what new thing can I give him? My sister’s entire house has become a toy factory! And yet, there was one time I didn’t bring him anything. The moment he saw I hadn’t brought a toy, he kicked up such a fuss—said I had to take him out right then and buy him something, asked why I forgot his toy, whether I don’t love him anymore, and on and on. It’s like that sometimes—you don’t really understand what you have until one day you don’t get it, or that’s when its worth suddenly becomes clear. I used to think his house was so packed with toys that he wouldn’t even notice if I came empty-handed once. But every time he hears I’m coming, he waits with such eager anticipation: *Aunt will bring toys, new toys.* Of course, everything Aunt brings is precious to them, whether it’s new or old. And when Aunt’s gifts get old, practicing little kicks and tantrums at Aunt is hardly out of the ordinary.
—
You must have been very busy today, otherwise you wouldn’t ignore my messages—that’s never happened before. Of course, you could very well choose to reply less. That’s not unusual. Perhaps you’re thinking that if I got attached any more, if I paid you any more mind, I’d become weak for you… But my dear, isn’t there already more than enough? Why, when, what you’re doing—I want to know everything! Of course, you understand yourself best. I see what I see, but you see so much more than that, so everything you do is right. But I understand this much: sending a message or speaking it out is as easy as it comes, but it’s infinitely, infinitely harder to ask for a reply or to deliberately withhold one. (Though only if the other person is someone you love!) When you know the answer, yet you can’t—for whatever reason, conscious or unconscious—write it down, then it feels different. A terrible unease settles in. Sometimes there’s great pain too. It’s something like that. To hold yourself like stone, not replying to the messages of the one you love—it’s truly excruciating. Though I must admit, you possess an infinite cunning in the art of evasion.
Sometimes, even when I understand it and it hurts, I convince myself that what you do is perhaps necessary, and that is why you do it.
I have thought it over for some days now, and I have decided that the next time I see you, when we spend time together again, I will wear a sari. I have never worn one before you. I love saris dearly. Though I wear them so rarely. But I cannot decide what color to choose. Besides, I have never really understood what color suits me. Stand before the mirror in any color, and it seems that one alone becomes me. I suppose I have no qualities of my own. What color sari do you prefer? I will wear cotton. Though I know you have no interest in such things. Tell me, do you see women only as things of utility? Pull them close when needed, only for physical want, and once the need is satisfied, forget them? Of course, I do not expect anything beyond this from you. Because between you and me there is nothing—no physical matter, nothing of your preference—and so we hardly speak of anything else. How then can I understand more than this? Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps you are something else elsewhere, but I have never seen that side of you. You have never shown it to me. And what is there between us anyway that you would speak of such things? Why do I say between us—is there even an us at all? You know the answer better than I. You never ask me about myself, nor do you share your own feelings with me. That troubles me. I always make sense of you in my own way. I have to. That is all I have come to know of you in all this time. Perhaps, slowly, if I get the chance, if time permits, I will come to know more.
You have perhaps begun to understand something of my nature by now. A friend of mine asked me, who will marry you? Your moods shift seventy times a day. And she said there is no romance in me. Is it true? What do you think? Sometimes I feel—I know it is easy to discard, so easy to throw away. I know too that whenever you wish, you can throw me away. That is why I do not want to be something anyone else can discard. Tell me, do I judge you too harshly? No, no, I do not judge you at all. I lack even the right to do so. I simply speak my thoughts clearly to you. I may well be wrong. When you explain something to me, I understand it well enough. After you have explained something, have I ever done it a second time? One more thing. Does my message frighten you? Am I a box of complaints? Where do you go all day? Are you sad? Should I message you less? How much more can one head endure! Why do you help people for nothing? What if they harm you? Though, truth be told, they are incapable of more than that! All they know is one thing—to hurt others. What fault is it of theirs?
You take care of yourself, won’t you? Whether anyone else does or not, what do you say?
Life is not a walk, not a romance,
Not an eternal rest of contemplation,
Destiny has one flaw —
It gives us trials.
Half-life — battle, half-life — pain,
And only the joys of the moment,
From the spiritual wounds, you can’t wash off the salt,
But in these wounds.
While they burn in you
And make your heart beat,
Your eyes will not become cold
And your spirit will not turn into stone.
Years run, they are not sorry for us,
We are all in power at the time,
Despising the suffering and sadness,
To see a ray of happiness in the darkness.
Pass through evil and smile,
Believe me, art is not simple,
Do not get dirty, do not bend
And keep a holy light in your soul!
I read your email from yesterday. You’ve made a really good decision there. I’m genuinely happy about it — makes me feel festive, like Eid itself. Though these days when Eid comes around, happiness is the last thing I feel; I’m drowning in tension and pressure because for me Eid means managing 20 or 25 guests minimum for at least 15 days, all alone. That’s why I don’t look forward to it anymore — just hearing “Eid” gives me a fever. Those Eids from childhood, with all their joy and wonder, they’re gone now. Wherever I look, whatever I do, it’s just work and more work, responsibility piling on responsibility. But your decision brings back that childhood Eid kind of happiness. Listen, I’ve gotten myself into a real fix. Could you help me think through it? Let me write out what’s happening, and if you get a chance, send me your thoughts.
Say an old friend from your childhood keeps pestering you against your wishes—calling you at odd hours, messaging constantly, day and night. When you don’t respond, he only pushes harder, growing more insistent, demanding to talk to you. And he threatens you too, says he won’t think twice about hurting you if he gets the chance. And this has been going on for nearly two years now. You’ve tried to tell him calmly and clearly that you don’t want this, that he should live his own life. But he refuses to let go, keeps finding new ways to bother you, different times, different numbers, relentless. So what do you do?
The thing is, you know you can’t take any serious action against him. He’s an old friend, a childhood friend. He’s close to your other friends too. Your own family knows him. If you do something drastic, the whole friendship falls apart—and not just with him, but it ripples everywhere. You don’t want unnecessary enemies either. You haven’t done anything wrong to him, you haven’t deceived him in any way. He’s the one who’s been a nuisance, one-sided, from the beginning. He keeps telling you he’ll never let you go. In a situation like this, what action would you take? What should you take?
When a man loses all shame, there’s no limit to how far he’ll go. It’s frightening even to think about. I honestly don’t know what to do. So far I’ve been avoiding him completely—still am—but the irritation just keeps growing. I thought if I ignored him long enough, he’d get tired on his own and disappear. But no. He doesn’t go anywhere. After some time he just shows up again. And each time, it seems his persistence has doubled from the time before.
One can perhaps say something against an uneducated boy, but I cannot fathom why an educated boy would needlessly belittle himself before his own eyes, and throw himself into dishonorable acts. He is being constantly humiliated in my presence—I can see it, but he cannot. He does not even care about it. I do not know what I should do. I truly do not know, and it would help if you could offer me some counsel. Please, do not avoid it. There are a thousand people who trouble me without cause—I say this not out of pride, but out of genuine distress—and I do not even know why these people follow me about, when I venture out so rarely from home. The more I wish to be alone, the more it seems their urge to needlessly irritate me grows. Once, none of them sought me out like this. Everything is becoming unbearable to me! Do not be angry with me, but I always try to avoid all this. I have given no one any commitment, nor have I involved myself deeply with anyone. I am thinking of informing the police about this matter, and I will tell him too that I have informed the police.
I know you are very busy. You do not truly have time to spare for me, and perhaps there are moments when you cannot even find time for yourself alone. But I cannot convince myself of anything! I spend all day waiting for you—waiting for when you will message, when you will call, when I can speak with you for a moment, when I can hear your voice. Even in anger, I long to hear you speak. I do not expect that the person I love will always speak in soft, gentle tones. A person’s heart is not always well. You need not calculate or measure anything with me. Use me however you wish. I want your naturalness; I want to have you as you are. If I can have that, there is so much I could tell myself, though you would not understand all of it. When I suffer hurt from you unknowingly, even then it brings me such joy—I tell myself within that let this sweetness alone endure forever—let me burn, let me be consumed. I ask you again and again: do you love me? Truly, when you say with your own lips ‘I love you,’ I cannot explain what unbearable sweetness that brings. Be angry, show your anger, scold me (though you never do), show your displeasure, neglect me…and yet you still bear with me and all that I am. Give me too the space to feel anger, to take offense, to make complaints. Had you not loved me, I would never have found this space—I understand that too. I understand everything, yet I misunderstand, and misunderstanding, I suffer alone within myself, creating pain in my own heart. I know it all, I can perceive it all. The truth is, I am occupied with you all day long, I think of you constantly, you come first in everything I do…that is why this happens, why I become confused, why I confuse you too, why I remain restless. But I understand this as well: in your world there are many other things, you must navigate through so much all day, every moment. I am not your entire world, and no one truly is another’s whole universe.
But truth be told, across my entire world I think of nothing but you, and that’s why I do as I do. My world is small, perhaps there’s no vast universe like yours there, but I know I can spend my days in perfect peace with just you in it.
I’ve never felt this good even amid suffering, and so I don’t want to let go of this craving. I have no desire to step out of this comfort zone. Sister has been bothering me terribly these days, you know—calls every day and at the end of the conversation just says, when you come to Dhaka next time, do bring your biodata and photographs with you. I say yes. But she understands somehow that I probably won’t. And I don’t. Today she said, you must bring them, listen, I’m not going to marry you off right now. What are you afraid of? I’ll just keep them with me, for whenever they’re needed, don’t be scared. Every time I hear such things, a terrible fear grips me—that this is it, the end is here, that I won’t be able to live my own life anymore, won’t be able to love you anymore, won’t have time to think of you separately, and all those old dark chapters will return again… That’s why it troubles me. I want to live on my own terms. For how many more days will I stay like this? For how many more days will I torment you, irritate you, suffer myself? And now I don’t want to hang myself around anyone’s neck anymore. Until I can stand firm on my own ground, I don’t desire any of that. Living with someone’s support, being completely dependent on someone—for me, for my personal life, it’s far too complicated and painful. I know that if I can’t strengthen myself, in the future I’ll have to hear all sorts of things, and then I’ll be forced to endure them. I won’t be able to save myself from anything. I’ll have to silently bear everything with my mouth shut. Better then that I bear what comes now, so that later I don’t have to bear it anymore.
There was something I wanted to say. That girl character in your story “Where Shadow Exceeds Light”—she’s quite the whimpering type. Somehow she seems to have no self-respect, attention-seeker sort of. Everything you’ve written so far is like that. Why did you make Neerja like this? The female character should be like Neela from Himu—a bit mysterious, enigmatic. I won’t say girls like Neerja don’t exist. Perhaps they do; the world has never lacked for whiners, and it doesn’t now either. Let me point out some faults, shall I? She keeps repeating her sorrows, and only attention-seekers repeat their sorrows to people again and again. She whines “don’t leave me,” “goodbye forever,” committing fresh acts of whimpering—the kind that should never happen with a girl who has self-respect. A person of few words is honored everywhere; if you can’t leave, saying again and again that you’re leaving is calculated. She keeps blaming her mother because her mother wanted to sell her off. Think deeply—how desperate must a mother be to want to sell her own child? There is no mother in this world who abandons her child without reason.
In this state, the girl ought to have stood on her own two feet by now. If she’d wanted to, she could have helped her mother out of such dire straits—even a girl with just a school certificate can find work. In this regard, I’d say the girl is nothing but a useless pestle, unable to help her mother at all. She keeps saying that no one has ever loved her, doesn’t love her now, that she’s unworthy of love—because if she were worthy, surely someone would love her. She’s unlovable, that’s why no one loves her. Who talks like this? Those who speak thus are trying to draw others’ attention to themselves, aren’t they? Can you force someone to love you? Force might squeeze out alms at best, never love.
She keeps trying to prove that she loves that boy so much she’d forget the entire world for him, worships at the temple for his long life! Think about it—if someone truly loves another, would they ever tally up what they did or didn’t do for them? Would they keep trying to plant these accounts in the boy’s mind? Keeping score is commerce, not love. And the girl—she just goes on talking about herself, on and on. What the boy said, what he felt matters far less to her than what she herself thought, thinks, what she’s saying—that’s what matters. You see, the boy might be saying something that could build a healthy relationship between them both, yet the girl suddenly veers away to wherever her old thoughts were, for no reason at all, and from there she just keeps grinding away on her ancient tape recorder, grinding it round and round. Who does this? Psychopaths! Can you have a simple, natural relationship with them? There are other things too, I suppose, but I’ve forgotten them for now. Don’t take my words to heart—sometimes I don’t know what I’m saying, things get muddled. I’m deeply mentally disturbed about quite a few matters. Sometimes I don’t want to live at all. It’s all very tiresome. Yet I go on living. You can live by thinking of me too. If you ever don’t want to live, and it’s nothing too personal or strictly family-bound, you can tell me—I’ll show you the simple path to living. You can tell me anything; I’m not Neerja, I’m someone who, even if I misunderstand you once, knows when to step back from it. Stubbornness isn’t the last word for me—I know when to let it go. The relationship matters more to me than stubbornness. There are some women who can even kill the person they love to save their own stubbornness. The Neerja character is somewhat like that. I’m not of that psychology. Even if you’re disturbed about something concerning me, you can tell me that too. I’m the most accommodating person in the world.
Listen, the smaller you keep your own world, the greater your chance of happiness. The wider someone’s world, the greater their circumference of suffering—yet people think the opposite! And why do you ask me why my heart is heavy? Sometimes even the Creator Himself perhaps cannot fathom the cause of certain heaviness of heart, and you’re just a human being after all. Who knows the fate of the alley where fire catches and kingdoms burn to ash except the one who burns? Who else can know?
And sometimes, you must willingly let empires burn—the scar that fire leaves upon the heart is far more colorful than any rainbow. There it is: seven colors in the rainbow, and the burned heart has but one—a grey-black. And how many can live bearing that alone, tell me? So, how are you? I realize I’ve never asked you that. It’s a difficult question, this one. No one is obliged to ask it, and yet people ask it more than anything else. Because it’s so weighty and hard, I never asked. If you ever feel mentally disturbed, share it with me. If you bottle these things up, you’ll fall into acute depression like I have—and you won’t be able to climb out even before death comes. Have you lain with someone and gotten her pregnant? If that’s happened, you can tell me that too; there’s a solution for that as well. All right, when I ask you ‘how are you,’ tell me, I am OK. People say this only when they’re actually not OK. “I am OK” is a pure coverlet of hiding something. Still, it’s OK; some things must remain locked within oneself. If you spill everything, people become terribly helpless and unsafe. These days, thinking of you drives me mad. I feel tenderness for you, I ache for you. It seems to me that something inside you is breaking you apart, but you’re not showing it, because you can’t show it. You know, I don’t need anyone else’s love in this world—if you don’t love me, it feels like no one in the world loves me; if you love me, it feels like the whole world lies beneath my feet. You are an entire world to me. Just knowing you are near fills my body with such strength.
I’m ending this with the closing lines of the poem at the beginning of this piece:
Here, buried
in the sadness of invincible
hopes and youth
in a bleak crypt—
I went out, I went out
with last consolation
of the memory at dusk
and still, I weep for you.