The Envelope of Mist/Five

You’re going to get a new name. Drumroll, please! Ta-daaaaa… the name is—Tultul. How’s that? Adorable, isn’t it?

Tultul! Please Tultul! Forgive me, Tultul! I take back all my curses, Tultul! Don’t do this to me, Tultul! If you act like this, people will call you cruel, Tultul! I just want to talk once before I die, Tultul! I’ll leave after that, Tultul! I just want to talk, Tultul! Nothing more than that, Tultul! I promise, I won’t bother you anymore, Tultul! There won’t be any stain on your character, Tultul! I won’t be jealous anymore, Tultul! Until my marriage, I’ll only think of you, Tultul! I’ll never send stupid messages on Facebook again, Tultul! I’ll find you a bride who’s beautiful+ smart+ Hindu+ doesn’t make spelling mistakes+ knows English+ the kind who reads poetry like “Look, there’s a palm tree”+ good at flattery+ good height+ lives in Rajshahi+ can sing+ can dance+ can recite+ can cook+ says ‘yes’ to everything, Tultul! Please Tultul, please please please! Now say yes, Tultul! I’m crying, Tultul! Look into these two eyes—real tears, Tultul! I’ll never ask for any gifts again, Tultul! From now on I’ll be good and just study, Tultul! I’ll never fool around with anyone else in this life, Tultul! Spending money on the modem just to chat with you will drain my entire salary, Tultul! Tell me what should I do, Tultul! How will it work if you don’t say anything, Tultul! My mobile phone has no network, Tultul! I don’t need anyone else, Tultul! I only know Tultul, Tultul! Say something, Tultul! How will I understand if you don’t say anything, Tultul! Tultul, please Tultul! How much longer, Tultul! I’ll never be a middleman again, Tultul! I’ll never act like a big shot either, Tultul! For you, I’ll sit with my mouth open every day without breakfast, Tultul! I think I’ve truly fallen in love with you, Tultul! But I swear by Allah, if you just say it once, I’ll stop thinking about you forever, Tultul! With my Creator as witness, I have no ulterior motives, Tultul! I just say whatever’s on my mind, Tultul! I won’t bother you anymore, Tultul! I feel like crying, Tultul! You’re such a meanie, Tultul! Now I’ve got a job, Tultul! Now I want to live happily alone, Tultul! Why don’t you understand anything, Tultul! Why are you torturing me like this, Tultul! Did I ask for too much, Tultul! I’m sorry for bothering you, Tultul! Do you read my emails, Tultul! Sorry for wasting your time, Tultul! I can’t just exist thoughtlessly even for a moment, Tultul! What harm would it do to keep that ego aside for a bit, Tultul! Fine, do whatever you want, Tultul! Alright, I love you, Tultul! Don’t be so complicated, Tultul! Learn to take life simply and lightly, Tultul! And stop showing off things you can’t give, Tultul! I miss you so much, Tultul! Why don’t you think about me at all, Tultul! Am I not worthy of you, Tultul! What should I do for you to give me a little space in your life, Tultul! Stop thinking about other girls, Tultul! Don’t give time to any girl except me, Tultul! You’re really very hard, Tultul! That’s why you’ll achieve much more, Tultul! Not everyone can be this strong, Tultul!

Why can you, how can you manage it, won’t you teach me a little, Tultul! I’ve ended up addressing you so familiarly, Tultul! Please forgive me, Tultul! Sorry Tultul!

Abbaaaa! Your humble servant is here! Just arrived without any hesitation! Had a few things to say! If you’re short on time, you don’t have to read it! It’s nothing much! Just something that happened recently, that’s what I’m writing about! Not too urgent! Just like that……

Tultul beta, Assalamualaikum. I know you’re well. Scoundrels always are.

Look how awful you are—you never took me to the Boishakhi fair after all! What were you thinking? You’d go gallivanting around while I sit here laying eggs? Ehhhh! It’s not that eaaasy! I went too. Huh! I had three others with me though. The Dhaka fair is so much more beautiful than the Rajshahi fair!

I told you to bring me babies of any kind—doves or pigeons or chickens. Even rooster chicks would have been fine! If you had to buy them and didn’t have enough money, I even said bring fox cubs. That wouldn’t cost anything, and chasing after them would have helped trim your belly for free! But you didn’t bring anything! I never knew writers could be this awful! They say writers have big hearts, but yours? The puddle that forms next to our house when it rains is bigger than your heart! Why don’t my tears make any impression on your heart? Or is your heart already full of holes like a sieve, so all the water just drains out?

Whatever! In my heartbreak, I bought 4 baby birds from the fair. Oh my, so beautifuuul!!! Believe me, absolutely adorable! Only 10 taka each! I’m sending you pictures. Took them with my mobile, came out nicely. Look—in the first two they’re striking poses, and in the last one they were chattering away, so I captured that. Actually, they don’t really chat, they just quarrel. And constantly gossip. When I told them about your cruelty, oh my goodness, how furious they got! Good heavens! I was scared. They were seething with rage, but the sound that came out was cheep-cheep-cheep. And don’t even ask, Tultul, what trouble I’ve gotten into bringing them home! Constant chirping and chattering! Ugh! The little devils have completely ruined my ears! They won’t let me sleep at night! Sometimes I think I should lock them in a wooden box. But I can’t! I feel sorry for them! Pity—such a stubborn, wicked thing! While I’m writing this, aren’t they whispering among themselves? I can make out bits and pieces. Listen to what they’re saying: “Why is Shanaya khalamoni acting like such a fool…chirp chirp chirp…no one else in the world…chirp chirp chirp…Tultul kaka is…people are so awful…chirp chirp…khalamoni is just obsessing…chirp chirp chirp…kaka won’t even…chirp chirp…read it, and she’s still…chirp chirp…Dhuuurrrr!” So hard to make out! See? How naughty! I told them to sleep a little! Oh yes, they kept calling you by name, so I scolded them. I don’t like this name-calling business—let Western culture stay in the West, I won’t tolerate such impertinence in front of me. So then they started calling you Tultul bhaiya! Such little devils! They call me khalamoni but they’ll call you bhaiya! I grabbed their ears and taught them all to call you kaka/mama/chacha—something respectful—and they liked the word kaka best.

Listen, with all their commotion I couldn’t write properly at all! What am I supposed to do, tell me? Ugh! Now they’re badmouthing you! They’re scolding you! I can’t make out everything clearly, but……oh my God! They’re saying your name again! I see they’re even calling you Laddu! Look, don’t they realize that I’m awake, that I have ears? Wait, let me go slap all of them!

There, now they’ve quieted down. Phew! Peace! Oh God! What’s that cooing sound? Are they crying?! I feel terrible, Tultul! This happened because of you! Damn it! You’re the root of all trouble. Listen, I was only telling you about four budgies, right? But I bought another big shot bird from the fair. He’s quite the scholar. I’ll show you his picture too. He stays very serious and speaks very little. Grandfatherly type. Wise grandpa. (Like you! Hehe!) Whether he suffers from a superiority complex like yours in trying to be as learned as you, or because he was made two-dimensional and I bought him for just 20 taka, whether he might start suffering from an inferiority complex like me—God only knows! Whatever he suffers from, he always stays mysteriously silent for some reason. That same grandpa just scolded me now. He said, “Because of a rotten kid like Tultul, who won’t even talk to you, let alone listen to you, why did you hit my budgies for such a worthless brat? If you can’t take care of them, if you have so little patience, then why did you buy them? Go on, throw us away.” Tultul, believe me, I didn’t hit them, I just shook the cage a little bit! And threatened to throw them off the shelf……Tultul, you were already mute from before, you never talk to me, and now the budgies are sitting there with puffed cheeks, and grandpa has turned his face away after saying those things. What should I do now? Where should I go? Who will I chatter with to survive? Tell me, Tultul! I’m feeling so terrible!

Tultul, didn’t I tell you what I was going to write about? Remember? That thing about my problems and how I wanted your advice? Remember? I’m just not in the mood to write anymore. I’ll write later, okay? Actually, I don’t feel like writing anything serious at all. On top of that, I’m feeling a bit guilty about troubling Montu and the others. I’ll write later, yes? But please do reply! Oh God! Look at these little devils! Did you hear what they whispered? They said Tultul Uncle will never reply in his lifetime. And even if he does, they’ll delete it right away. What awful brats! Devil’s spawn! (Wait, is it spawn or spun?) Should I say something to them now? Why are they being like this already? Tell me this isn’t a big deal, right? It’s not a big deal, but you can gauge big things from small ones, can’t you? What they’re saying now might not matter, but what about this streak of vindictiveness showing in their character? I really hate all this revenge business. Why aren’t they becoming like me? Oh God! Listen to what they’re saying now! That Tultul Uncle doesn’t read any messages—good for him! Doesn’t reply—excellent! Uncle deliberately doesn’t pick up the phone—perfect! Uncle is absolutely wonderful! From now on we’ll forget that rotten Shanaya Auntie and only love Tultul Uncleeeeee…yesssss??? Jumping over horses to eat grasssss! Bunch of idiots! Now they’re saying they’ll go to you and apologize for all the nasty things they’ve been saying about you behind your back! They’ve abandoned me and joined your side! Fine…let them go! Let them! They’ll learn their lesson! They don’t know you! They want to die, so let them go! Let them understand! They need to be punished a bit. Oh my! They’re even saying they’ll find you a beautiful girl and get you married!! Wait, let me go slap each of them a few times! And put scotch tape over each of their mouths! Absolute rascals! Scoundrels! Uff! I can’t take it anymore! You go, we’ll talk later. Goodbye (for now).

Tultul dear, What to do, there’s space left on the page! I put up a little picture of my niece Tultuli too, okay? Kids are just kids, right? Do children have strangers? Children are everyone’s own. But if there’s a problem, then don’t look! Am I forcing you to see? Close your eyes! Can I force your eyelids open with my hands if I want to? Where are you and where am I! So then? No fear! No fear! I have no fear! So, have you eaten? What did you have? Who cooks for you? Is the cooking good? Whenever I try to eat anything, I just keep thinking of you. Even when I drink water! When mosquitoes bite me, even while getting bitten by mosquitoes I miss you…wondering if my dear Tultul is getting mosquito bites properly? I can’t leave you out of anything I do! Hehehehe

So what I was trying to say is that after a long break, I fell in love again. With you. Without you, so many things in my life today would have been different. I don’t know how different. What I’ve received has been good. These past few months, being around you has truly been wonderful for me. That doesn’t mean I’ll spend my entire life pining for you. But these strange, wonderful things between us—I’ll remember them for the rest of my life. If we hadn’t met on Facebook, many of my evenings, nights, and dawns might have been different. Whether they would have been better or worse, I don’t know. Only Allah knows. Everyone says I’ve been something of a dreamer since birth. But having you here, or having you come into my life, has made me even more of a dreamer—I think about you. You write well—beyond that, I knew nothing about you. And even now, I can’t say I know or understand you very well. But for so long now, it’s just been you, you—meaning Granthik, Granthik—that’s how my days pass. How they’ve been passing. I know this is just my imagination and my affection, nothing more will come of it. You have no hand in this, no fault. (Well, there is a little fault, but I’m being polite by not mentioning it. If you have sense, you’ll understand; if you don’t, then everything’s forgiven anyway.) Even if I were Hindu, or if you were Muslim, it would still end here. I understand that. I know love and affection are temporary emotions that supposedly fade with time, but I’m feeling so awful, Tultul. I don’t want to stay here anymore. I want to go far away, where no one knows me, where I’m safe and it’s a little less hot. Don’t think these feelings are only because of you. There’s so much trouble in my life, brother. I’ve witnessed many kinds of cruelty up close. The fact that I’m still alive in this world is itself a matter of great fortune. I have to live with fear and tension all the time. But when I think about leaving all this behind and going far away, you remain as an influence. I don’t make love with you, yet when you flirt around with others, I feel upset with anger, jealousy, and sadness. I’m so terrible, aren’t I? I’m jealous without any right to be! That doesn’t mean I want to make love with you, or meet you, or come before you. Even when you say the word ‘kiss,’ I get angry! The word ‘kiss’ seems too crude to me. I don’t want you, but somehow there’s something… I truly don’t know what it is! I’m so terrible, Tultul! I’ll be hurt if you become someone else’s. But I won’t be able to show it outwardly. Outwardly I’ll pretend I’m very happy. (Because I’m the best at pretending, after all!) Whatever happens, I can’t hold you back, can I? And even if I could, I wouldn’t do it, I never would have. So what’s the solution? Actually, it wasn’t right to start this foolishness from the beginning. I made the mistake, so I have to face the punishment, don’t I? You know, for some reason, I feel like… no, no, I can’t say this, not at all, not even if I die!

Tultul, the single rooms in our mess are arranged 3+3 facing each other, like that. There’s a corridor in between. And the ones along the edge of the building have 3 rooms side by side with a veranda—that veranda itself serves as the common corridor. I’m in a corner room of the 3-room corridor section, which gets the most heat in the entire hostel. And tonight, wouldn’t you know it, the two rooms next to mine are empty. No one’s there. My room is terribly hot, the bathroom barely has any water, but I accepted all this when I moved into the mess. Can’t be too fussy, right? Since I’m on the top floor, I’m slowly dying from the heat! I could probably bear that too, but Tultul beta, there’s a broken glass in front of me toward the corner of the veranda. I’m absolutely terrified! For some reason I keep thinking your old girlfriend’s spirit is going to come through that broken hole and take revenge on me! Don’t they show this on TV—such things happen! I’m scared out of my wits, Tultul. Please explain to them that I only gave love letters, nothing more. And I didn’t even bother you that much. I believe in djinns, ghosts, spirits, fairies—all of it. I’m frightened. If the spirit comes and tickles me just to scare me, that’s no problem, I’d actually be quite pleased, as long as she doesn’t scratch and claw at me! People will see me and get the wrong idea! They’ll come up with other meanings for the scratch marks! The public in our country is so ridiculous and judgmental—about other people’s affairs. All right beta, khoda hafez. I won’t bother you anymore, but please do control your old girlfriends! They’re all like friends to me, aren’t they? Explain that to them. At least for tonight!

Tultul, how do you manage on a salary of 20,310 taka, tell me? I simply couldn’t do it. I gave my niece Tultuli a gift of 5,000 taka in her very first month, and this month I had to borrow that money back from her. I also borrowed four thousand taka from my aunts. I don’t buy expensive things, yet why couldn’t I live comfortably within my means? On top of that, they’ve raised the AC bus fare by 100 taka. If I go to Rajshahi this month, I’ll have to take a non-AC bus. My friends earn the same salary as me, yet they spend 12-14 thousand taka on watches. How is that even possible? And they have all their other expenses too! Does that mean even after getting jobs, boys still have to go to their fathers with outstretched hands? Of course, I have some of those expenses myself, but I get that money as charity from family! That indulgence money isn’t really mine. And now with this new torment that’s begun, I don’t even feel like working anymore. A poor dog like me doesn’t have the audacity to quit his job, but I want to do business independently like you used to, where everything would be according to my wishes. I wouldn’t have to commute back and forth for five days straight. Everything would run according to my judgment. But this doesn’t mean that just as you wanted to become rich, I too want to become rich in the same way. No brother, I don’t need that much money. What happens when money keeps accumulating in the bank? A few more zeros get added to the account. And seeing that brings peace. For those who have so much money that they couldn’t spend it all in their lifetime, watching their wealth grow is nothing more than a kind of foolish self-satisfaction. The growth of idle money in banks just means the growth of some numbers, that’s all! What’s the point of such numbers, Tultul? I’d rather stay poor and content. Tultul, why don’t you open a shop now and hire me as an employee! Then I’ll save money and buy it from you! Then gradually I’ll turn it into an establishment. Then another one, then yet another.

After that, if I can save up some money, I’ll open an orphanage. I’ll be the teacher there. Since I can’t even count properly from 1 to 100, I’ll take classes on mental development and hire other people to handle their studies. Then I’ll invite you as a guest speaker. You’ll give them a couple of good words for free, and they’ll be inspired. Then I’ll invite my uncles and maternal uncles too. They’ll also teach classes for free. They’ll donate for the orphans as well. I’ll ask you for donations too. You’ll say, “I’m busy right now, we’ll talk later. Bye.” And you’ll hang up with a click. Then you’ll put my number on silent. That won’t be a problem though—I know plenty of people who donate, going to you would just be an excuse. My real purpose would be to see you. If I just went to see you for no reason and you didn’t let me into your room, then what? I have this idea about myself that even if I can’t teach properly, I’ll be able to shape those children into good human beings. Ugh! Look how carried away I got! I know none of this will ever happen through me. Ah, but still, what dreams I have! Actually, I just love dreaming. Tell me, Tultul, why did you study at IBA? RU has had an IBA for several years now. Anyone who can write the alphabet from A to Z can easily get in there. So I enrolled there, hoping I could get out of the house a bit. Then I saw—ugh! So many rules and regulations! Daily class tests, homework, presentations… Yuck! What is all this? And I found out that they even cut marks if you’re not in class! Am I a little child or what? I took the midterm exam and then dropped out a few days before the semester finals. After telling my family this, I had to listen to so many taunts! If I hadn’t gotten this job, I would have had to kill myself!

Well Tultul, that MBA program they have at your IBA— what do they teach there? How to make the exploiting class even more powerful so they can exploit the exploited even more? Or how to help companies evade taxes and lead the country toward ruin? Or how to become a corporate slave and construct all the arguments in favor of slavery while making life torturously cheerful? Of course, I didn’t drop out of MBA for these reasons—I just didn’t like having to study every day like the little kids. Tultul, why did you go study at DU’s IBA? You’re already a good student—did you really need another certificate? Or do you want to join the exploiting class too? Tell me why. You write, don’t you— you could make that your profession if you wanted. You’re so knowledgeable! You know so many things! So why are you going in that direction? You have a dual character! I don’t like it! I don’t like such characters. Sorry! Please don’t be angry with me. I’m a crazy person, you know—I say this when I mean to say that, there’s no sense to it. No one ever taught me what to say to whom, so I don’t know. Though I certainly don’t get scolded any less for it. Only you never scold me even a little. Tell me, why are you so good? I don’t flatter you, yet you don’t hate me, don’t snap at me, don’t make snide remarks. Sometimes I feel guilty. Tultul, if you tell me to stop bothering you, I swear to God I’m telling you, I won’t be angry or hurt with you at all. (Though I can’t guarantee I’ll actually stop pestering you after that.) You can say it whenever you want. I’m not as sensitive as you—I can handle anything.

Tultul, how are you? And why didn’t you tell me how your father is doing? It’s not as if knowing this would make me fall in love with you or anything. So? What’s the problem? He and I have the same ailment, which is why I feel a kinship with him! And I want to know about him. You know, you and my father are so alike! How so? Let me tell you. From childhood until now, everything I’ve ever asked my father for, I’ve gotten. Absolutely everything—but only in words! Whenever I ask him for something, he never says he won’t give it. Whatever I ask for, he’ll always say, “Of course I’ll give it to you! I’ll get my salary in such-and-such month, then I’ll give it. Next month I’ll give it to you.” But that “next month” never comes. And I would ask for everything—from cars to world tours, I never held back. Tultul, you’re exactly like my father! There’s another similarity too. You’re both very fair-skinned. Tultul, since you’re so fair, why don’t you motivate me a little to become fair too? These days I’m feeling really down. Girls who can’t do anything—even if they can’t become anything else in life, at least they have to be fair! I can’t do anything, and I’m not even fair-skinned. On the contrary, what little color I had is getting even darker. Day by day I’m turning from a human being into a lump of coal, Tultul! The room I moved into—it wasn’t hard for me to get at all, because there was practically no competition for this room. You see, this is the hottest room in our entire hostel. Between the heat and my sorrows, I feel like tearing my hair out.

Everyone tells me, You’re not going to get married anyway, So what will you do when you’re old? How do I explain to them that if a girl can’t find happiness even standing before a mirror, how can she go on living? When I stand before the mirror and see my own face, I recoil in fear! Showing my face to myself matters more to me than showing it to anyone else. If even I can’t find peace standing before a mirror, then how am I supposed to live? I haven’t kept a single thing in my room that might spoil its beauty. I haven’t bought anything that would make the room look ugly. If necessary, I’ll wait, save up money and buy beautiful things to decorate the room. But look at fate’s cruel game—Allah is making me uglier day by day! The ugliest thing in my room is me! I feel like dying of shame. Though I’m to blame too. I’m so lazy that I never take care of myself. Forget about doing facials with potato-pointed gourd-ridge gourd-papaya paste for skincare—sometimes I don’t even bathe in this heat. I’ve filled my dressing table with face washes, but don’t use a single one because of my laziness. I’m so lazy, I just drowse and sleep all day. If someone let me sleep for 24 hours, I could sleep for the full 24 hours. Seriously, I could! My personal philosophy of life is: “We live only to sleep. We should stay alive to sleep, to sleep, and only to sleep.” That’s not the point. The point is, the moment I stand before a mirror, I feel depressed. I walk at least five to ten kilometers going to and from the office, can you imagine? Still my belly keeps growing. Tell me, do you only give encouragement to live to those who want to die simply because they’re nobodies? What if I say that being a nobody isn’t sad at all, rather people want to die more from other kinds of heartache? Give me some treatment so I can be inspired to live as a dark and fat girl! Or have you decided you’ll only treat dying BCS patients? Can’t people have other kinds of pain? Everyone’s getting sick from all this BCS-BCS obsession! The sick public of this world! It seems like the BCS exam isn’t a path to getting a job, but a direct route to heaven! By the way, I forgot what I wanted to know while waiting! (Actually I didn’t forget, I just got a bit… you know. I don’t know what ‘you know’ means.) Can’t you think of anything beyond BCS-IBA-jobs-nobodies-womankind? Did you just read this question of mine? Did it make you very angry, or just a little angry? Then I’m sorry you had to read this. Actually, whenever I hear about these career matters, I feel disgusted! What should I do?

If you tell me that you wouldn’t answer my calls because you were afraid I’d pester you about the BCS exam, I won’t believe you one bit. I’ll think you were cleverly avoiding my calls just to shake off my persistent following. I’ll believe that you stay busy. If a little mouse like me (obviously not in size, but in work!) can’t talk to someone that way, I mean can’t find that much time, then how does a camel like you (in size too) manage to have that time? I love you in two ways—first, romantic love, meaning a naughty girl’s love. Second, devotional love, meaning a good girl’s love. But neither of my loves makes any demands, and certainly not because you’re unable to respond. It’s because I myself am unable. My sorrow isn’t about any of this—my only sorrow is that I’m getting darker. I bought an expensive Olay cream to become fair, but most of the time I forget to apply it to my face. If buying fairness cream could make you fair just like that, it would be so convenient for lazy people like me. In my branch, out of several labs, three labs are under my control. (I mean, they’ve forcibly dumped them on me. I’m a very well-behaved type of girl, so I don’t really protest the bosses’ decisions much.) I spend my whole day sitting in very cold air-conditioned rooms, but the moment I return home, I have to enter my furnace-like room, and I’m burning up in the intense heat, turning into a dark monkey. I’m sure no one will marry me anymore. Even if someone agrees to, I won’t marry them. Marrying such a fool would make life absolutely unbearable. I’m much better off as I am now.

Oh Tultul, If you truly don’t love me, Then at least pretend a little. (Not pity, though!) Is this your favorite song? Whose song is it, tell me? This is a quiz for you. (You’re always giving people quizzes, so I’m giving you one too. Hmph!) Listen Tultul, you tell so many lies anyway, so if you had just lied and told me once that you loved me, would it have caused you great harm? Would a few hairs have fallen from your head? Would the third tooth from the left on your upper jaw have come loose? Would your flabby belly have protruded even further outward? Are you afraid that if you said that, I’d want to marry you? Ehhh! Am I some marriage-crazy fool like you? Listen here, Chowdhury Saheb! Shanaya Babu doesn’t dream of marriage. Shanaya Babu has only one dream: that she could eat lots and lots of delicious food without her belly growing any bigger! Tultul, what more can I say about my sorrows! I’ve spent my whole life lugging heavy bags around. Even now I have to carry heavy books. The office loads them on me. Tells me to take them home and read. I dutifully carry the books home like a donkey, but nothing gets read, then the next day I haul the books back to the office again. Nothing’s getting read at all, but meanwhile my bones, muscles, back, and shoulders are all aching. Rubbing balm on every joint—and a golden life gets destroyed in the process! Who keeps track of that! One day I might just collapse on my bed forever! Don’t give me advice about finding another job! If I do collapse in bed, you’ll just have even more opportunities to torment me. Then I’ll make your entire life miserable with my nagging. Therefore, for your own sake, you should help me!

Tultul, there’s something urgent I need to tell you. Not the thing I texted you about—something else. Tultul, imagine that anything could happen to any of us at any time, right? So imagine that I died. Just imagine it! What I want is for you to never tell anyone about me. Will you keep this promise? Please, Tuntuni, I beg you by your writing. Just keep this one thing, and I’ll never ask for anything else. Don’t tell anyone about me while I’m alive, and if I die, then never ever! I don’t want people laughing about me behind my back. Since I’m the one sending these texts and emails myself, how can I ask you to delete them! Why would I want you to waste your time deleting them? It’s not just one or two messages! You can delete them in your own time, but Tultul, please don’t tell anyone about them—not even your mother, not your girlfriend, not your wife, not your brother, not your best friend. (Though you probably don’t have a best friend anyway. You don’t seem to give anyone your time sincerely!) Absolutely no one. Please, Tultul, I’m begging you! Of course, if I die, you probably won’t even know! Wherever I am, just keep this promise, okay? Now why would I be dying anyway? Right! I’m not going to die, not even if I die! Ugh! Why would I do such a thing? But whether I want it or not, death will come to me, won’t it? (Damn! Getting too literary and writing all this death stuff! Eeeeewwww…) Today or tomorrow, it will come.

Do you understand this much? Then it’s best to let you know something urgent. Something happened. All this dying-dying business has got me scared. If I had known that my two neighbors—I mean the two people from the rooms next to mine—wouldn’t be coming home tonight, then I would have gone straight to my elder sister’s place from the office instead of coming home. I’ll go tomorrow of course, uncle is coming, I’ll wander around with uncle. I understand everything! But how will I get through tonight? I’m so frightened. It feels like there’s something under the bed! Someone’s walking around on the veranda! Someone’s hand will come from behind and touch my shoulder! Someone’s standing on the other side of the window! Some unfamiliar shadow on the wall! That gecko on the ceiling seems to be threatening to pounce on me! Any moment now someone will come and knock on the door! I clearly heard my dead aunt’s voice twice! If I sit in the chair, or try to get down from the bed, someone will surely grab my leg! There’s a constant scratching sound coming from the next room! What will happen if the window suddenly flies open in some gust of wind? I think I need the bathroom, but then again I don’t! Today I’ll have to completely avoid drinking water, so I won’t need the bathroom at all! I get more scared in the bathroom. I’m alone in this entire block! I don’t have the courage to open the door and go to another block! What if something happens while I’m walking through the corridor? I see the corridor light is broken, or is there no power? The light in my bathroom isn’t actually turning on—am I seeing things wrong? What should I do? Oh! Now I’ll have to force myself to fall asleep quickly! As long as I stay awake, I’ll keep feeling scared. But what if sleep paralysis hits me—then I’m finished!

Oh little bird, my tuntuni muntuni shunmuni birdie, will you have tea? Come, let’s play house. Come, let’s arrange the doll’s wedding—the doll’s already past marriageable age, where will we find a groom for her later! Come on, little bird! Green tea/ colored tea/ lemon tea/ ginger tea/ milk tea/ black coffee/ cream coffee/ hot chocolate/ there’s another one, I forget the name, there’s some foreign organic tea leaves in the wardrobe. I threw away that packet, so I can’t tell you the name. But I remember it had a beautiful flower-like fragrance! Which one will you have, tuntuni baby? You don’t have to have any, just sit there with your mouth open. Do tuntuni birds even drink tea? They eat insects! What’s all this tea business? Go away, shoo! Go quietly update your status! Actually, why do we only call female birds tuntuni? Aren’t there male tuntuni birds? Male tuntunis must have egos too! Don’t they feel bad when only the females are called tuntuni? Oh right, you never told me about the lemon grass—I’ll find the shop myself later and buy it. What were you thinking? That I’m an idiot? That I can’t find a single shop? Hmph! What should I bring you, tuntuni? Which insect should I catch for you? Which one’s your favorite? Aren’t you hungry, sweetie? Oh my baby! My little tuntuni’s tiny belly has dropped so low! My soft little baby, I’m really very scared! What should I do?

After all the trouble I took writing all night long—whatever it is I wrote in my sleepy haze, I couldn’t even see it myself—and you’re not even going to read this? Why don’t you read it, tell me? You’ll read it sometimes, won’t you? It’s fine if you don’t read it though, I don’t really write anything worthwhile. If it were something worthwhile, I would have asked you to read it. I just write like this, for no reason. Nothing else to do, that’s why! Well, what if this turns out to be my last piece of writing? No one can say anything about a person’s lifespan! That’s why I’m calling this piece ‘A Mother’s Prayer.’ Well then, khoda hafez.

Dagas, assalamu walaikum.

I don’t feel like writing to you. I’m angry with you. I’m setting my anger aside for a moment. Over the past four days I read your 4 pieces. Writing that’s exactly to my liking. I literally double-liked each one of them. (This created a technical problem. Because of the second like in the double-like, the first like disappeared. What should I do, tell me?) I really loved them. You write so incredibly beautifully. I don’t really understand anything about writing, I only understand what feels good. So I watch a lot of the time. I watch like a thief. (Maybe you too secretly watch someone or other’s writing this way!) There are many people who write trying to force you to laugh (with tickling, I mean what you call katukutu) or trying to force you to cry (by pouring onion juice in your eyes). They annoy me. But these pieces of yours? Oh my God! I’ve fallen in love! You write so beautifully, I mean you speak so beautifully! Ufff! How wonderful! So beautiful, so very beautiful! I don’t know about others, let me tell you why I love it so much. I’m telling you, just a minute. If you get any email from LinkedIn with my name on it, please delete it, I haven’t sent anything to anyone, messages are going automatically to many people. I don’t understand what happened, I mean I do understand, but I don’t feel like talking so much about it, I mean I don’t feel like explaining the reason in such detail. I talk a little less, that’s all. Don’t mind it, okay? Now shall I come to the writing? So whether it’s laughter or tears, I like everything that’s taken from life, I mean I don’t like anything fake. Forced emotion feels disgusting to me. These pieces of yours are perfect. Most of your writing is beautiful, I mean all of it is beautiful. But I’ve never gotten so many such beautiful pieces written so beautifully in such a short time. I don’t know if you used to write like this before. Every line of these feels very natural and pure and very clean to me. Writing without any pretense—I’ve fallen in love. I swear to God I’m telling the truth, I’m not flattering you at all. (I do flatter you sometimes though! You don’t realize it because you’re always ready to be flattered. By the way, what about that girl who was writing suicide notes? What’s her condition now? How is she doing?) Taking this opportunity let me tell one truth—there’s one piece of yours I didn’t like as much, the one where the story has no ending, that one. What I think (it might also be borrowed thoughts from others, I don’t remember much) is that a writer will write in their own way, they have no other responsibility. Liking it, disliking it, finding it annoying, addictive, funny, sad—all that is our responsibility. Please don’t tell me again that hearing these silly words of mine has made you angry! Pleeeease!

Listen, you’re a strange sort of public! Why do you sit around expecting people to only praise you, never say a bad word? Why do you only want to hear compliments? Even if it’s flattery, it’s still comforting, right? Weird! So very weird! Can you praise everything all the time? I don’t even like hilsa fish! Everyone tells me, oh what a delicious fish, and you won’t even eat it! Let them say it! Still, I won’t eat hilsa—I just don’t like it! I feel sick just looking at hilsa! So what? The demand for this fish isn’t going to drop! Hilsa is a good fish, I just can’t appreciate it—that’s my problem, or maybe my taste is just different. Maybe my taste is bad, maybe that’s my fault, but the hilsa didn’t do anything wrong! So maybe your writing was good, but I didn’t like it that much. But you write very well, I’m a fan of your writing, I swear on my mother’s grave. But I don’t like many of your pieces—reading them just puts me in a bad mood. I’m going to make a few harsh comments about those. As a reader, that’s my right. You could say, why not just stay quiet! I say no, I won’t stay quiet, I’m not a polite reader, I’m an irritating reader. What’s there to get so worked up about, brother? You could say, who asked you to read my writing? Did I invite you to come read my writing? There’s no point saying all this, brother! You’ll write, you’ll post it publicly, and the public won’t read it—that just doesn’t work! Did you set your posts to private or what? We’re going to read them and we’re going to make some harsh comments! If you had the level of mental maturity we do, we could write too, little birdie!

My knowledge is quite limited, so I have to look up some of your words. But my personal opinion is that it’s better not to write in ways we don’t speak. For instance, I write “dead” straight out instead of “demise and such,” because I don’t talk so prettily, so why should I write that way for no reason? Also, I speak quite messily, so why should I try to write neatly for no reason? It would be fake! Literature should at least have that much honesty! This is entirely my personal preference, of course—most people (myself included) prefer beautiful words and organized speech or writing. Also, I’m a bit stubborn. I much prefer regional language. And I can’t speak the Rajshahi dialect because of my pretentious aunts and uncles—they said I had to be a proper child, and if I learned regional language I apparently couldn’t be a proper child, so I wasn’t allowed to speak that language from childhood. But hearing the Rajshahi dialect makes me faint with joy. The Rajshahi dialect has a distinct masculinity to it. It’s a very sexy and sophisticated language. You speak very beautifully, of course. But I really want to hear you speak in your local dialect! Make me hear it one day! Pleeeeeease.

Look how far I’ve wandered from where I started. Anyway, your training pieces turned out beautifully. Though I didn’t know many of the terms in your piece from the 22nd, still. I claimed those words for myself. By force. The way people instinctively make a beautiful stranger their own when they see them—the question of proper introductions never even crosses their minds in that moment—just like that. Hahahaha… I’m quite the land-grabber, aren’t I? It’s in my legacy—my father and grandfathers were all land-grabbers, so! They used to seize people’s fields and property by brute force, and here I am seizing portions of your creations! I wish I could praise you as beautifully as those stylish heroines of yours do. You truly write with impossible beauty. What should I call your writing… effortless? spontaneous? Can writing be called such things? I don’t know. I can’t say. But I’m enjoying it immensely. I could see everything—the flowers, the trees, the ducks, the verandas, everything you saw; even your teachers. It felt as though I was walking alongside you on that journey, being enchanted, and laughing to myself. Enough about the writing. Now let me bring my anger back down, shall we? I’ll try to stay perpetually mad at you. Otherwise that mushy love nonsense or whatever will start its kicks and punches!

And I have things to say to you. Not to you specifically, just things I need to say. When I tell you, I feel a little relief, that’s all! But I can’t say them for lack of time, so my heart doesn’t feel right either. I’ll come later and bother you. My heart is heavy! Seeing the hypocrisy of people around me is making me sick, seriously! Nothing feels good anymore. Are those people normal, or am I the abnormal one? I can’t tell. What feels worst and most unbearable is when I see people who don’t even know they’re bad or wrong. They’re confidently saying wrong things or doing wrong things and thinking it’s good and right. I can’t fight with anyone except my parents and sister. I’m like a pig, I mean a coward (Wait, why isn’t there a word like coward for women? Are only men cowards?) — I can only raise my voice with them. I don’t even try to make anyone understand anything. Anyway, what will you do hearing all this! You’ll have to say tickling words to me! It’s winter now, so instead of tickling, should I set you on fire a little? Say I said something that made you hiss with anger! Should I? No, let it be, I feel sorry for you. My heart is again full of affection! And anyway, you’re away from your parents, what if you faint from all the crying and carrying on! Then what? And I don’t want you to get bad results in your training anyway. Never mind. I forgive you. Don’t be upset, I was just being naughty! Really, why are you like this? You don’t even understand mischief! Ugh! What a boring old man! I’ll never write to you again. Go away! When I stop writing to you, you’ll definitely miss me, but you’ll never say so, I know that too. I know you think if you said that, you’d transform from a man into a… well, you know what, and while you’ll quietly miss me (you will miss me a little! For God’s sake, say you will!), you’ll still remain perfectly manly! Ha! What strange thoughts you have! Here, listen to a song… tere galiyon mein na rakhenge kadam… forget all that today. Huh! Actually, not today — forget this whole month. From next month, complete goodbye! Right? I won’t bother you anymore. Go on! Sit around getting pinched by girls and live comfortably. Why do girls pinch you in front of everyone anyway? It makes me so angry! Tell them to wait a bit, when I’m gone, then they can pinch and squeeze to their heart’s content! If they pinch you one more time before then, I’ll go and crack their heads with a brick! What shameless girls! Just seeing it makes me burn!

I have a niece though! I named her Tultuli. How is it? Tultuli gets shortened to Tutli! That’s even cuter! When I call her Tutli-sweetie, she rolls her eyes upward and smiles with her lips curved and moves her tiny feet! What joy I feel then! Alright, illiky-billiky-chilliky, bad-bye. I’m getting angry talking to you. You’re a bad person! You really are a bad person. I feel like crying! But if I cry, there’s a problem — I’ve put kohl in my eyes. I don’t know what to do!