The girl hasn't lost!

Oh dear! The thing is this………
The ones who are doctors,
they themselves are unwell!
Yes, she’s studying psychology,
which means she’s probing minds deeply and healing all mental ailments. Is that it?
Perhaps it is,
but her own mind is terribly troubled! Doesn’t that happen?
It does! It happens quite often!
The girl had never been second in her life,
I mean, not that,
she’d come third,
but always first. Sharp,
quick-witted! Among friends, she stood out so easily. Cheerful,
never letting anyone sense her pain. She had learned to walk without leaning on anyone since childhood. Everything that life offers—what everyone understands as achievement—whatever needed to be done to attain it,
she had left nothing undone. She knows
what she is. Her only sorrow:
no one else knew her as deeply. What everyone knew was just a fragment,
though there was so much more to discover. What was missing from her life was the recognition she deserved. Though,
does ‘deserved recognition’ even exist?
Whatever recognition there is,
it’s all
‘received.’ Then why do we attach ‘deserved’ before it?
I won’t delve into that discussion now.

So, as I was saying. Recognition. What kind of recognition?
During her time at cadet college, she never received prefectship. Yet she was never behind her batchmates in any aspect. She always dreamt to lead, but always she had to follow!
In both SSC and HSC, she was among the top 10 girls in the board,
but in BUET,
Medical, or Dhaka University—
nowhere did she get a chance. So many boys and girls received everything without asking, while she, despite tremendous effort, couldn’t even demonstrate her worthiness for admission anywhere. Her own friend,
who used to be overjoyed just to pass in school and college,
got into Medical. Her boyfriend, after getting into BUET, never answered her calls again. Gradually she began to grow alone,
or rather, she was being forced into solitude.

It’s not that
seeing their happiness caused her great pain;
nor is it that
her friend who’s now at Dhaka University
doesn’t call her anymore when going for fuchka, and that thought troubles her deeply. Still, something changed after HSC’s boundary! Everything is no longer as it was before. When things that never used to happen suddenly began happening, accepting and adjusting required weathering many shocks.
That little girl discovered in time
that everyone around her wanted to see her
not for who she was,
but for what she was. Everyone looked at her with a gaze tinged with disappointment. Sometimes that look held pity too. Gradually, in shame and hesitation, she learned to speak with downcast eyes.

Her parents,
even her most beloved brother, began to lose faith in her at some point. They started to believe,
to think,
what more could she have done anyway?
All of this gradually taught her to hate herself and everything around her!
Everyone grew accustomed to saying and thinking,
she simply hadn’t studied properly. Otherwise, when everyone else got into good places,
why wouldn’t she?
Sitting at her study table, she did nothing but fiddle with her phone. Really, there’s nothing in her head. She somehow scraped through public exams with rote learning, but when she reached the real test, she was caught out! There’s no regret in their tone,
no sympathy,
but rather a strange gleam of triumph in their eyes and faces. Had she gotten into somewhere good, their distress and disappointment would have known no bounds. Those who feel victorious in others’ defeats—
she belongs to their tribe. Alas! That tribe weighs so heavy!

Face down before life’s harsh reality, her address became this: 1st Year,
Psychology, Eden College, Dhaka. So close at hand, yet so far from reach—BUET,
DMC, DU!

In this new chapter of life, her days began passing with the constant feeling of being utterly unwanted. She finds no pleasure in talking to anyone. It’s not that people around her don’t try to befriend her. She herself runs away from everyone. The pain that’s constantly destroying her from within—
to hide it, she kept hiding herself, passing her days. It’s not that she had many friends before either,
but she had never felt such intense anguish! Could this pain really be from somewhere else,
some other place?
There was a time when books were her companions,
movies, music. With these by her side, she needed nothing else. She always delighted in her own company. Like the girl in the movie Amélie, her world was wrapped in grand dreams. When she sang to herself, she’d think,
this is how life would pass—singing songs, with all its taire-naire-na. She had such a sweet voice. She often wonders now,
“I wonder, if I sang now, would anyone say, ‘Oh! What a sweet
voice!’” She can’t understand at all
whether nobodies can have sweet voices! Those who don’t get into anywhere,
are their smiles different somehow?
Do they look somehow different?
Thinking these thoughts, nothing pleases her anymore,
she finds peace in nothing. She noticed
that lately she’s even forgetting to look in mirrors. A girl who forgets to look in mirrors—
there’s no one in the world in greater pain than she! Does this mean she’s becoming the saddest of all, day by day?

“Papa,
will you buy me a violin?
I want to learn to play the violin!” Her father had smiled and bought his beloved daughter a violin. Each day, the layer of dust on that violin grew thicker and thicker. After getting into university, she had planned to visit so many places, to see the world. Now she doesn’t even feel like going to a shop to buy a pen. Life has become a vast emptiness for her! She drags each day along with tremendous effort. With every breath, she diminishes little by little,
but alas,
the days refuse to end. A kind of restlessness haunts her every moment. Something is missing! Something is missing!! Yet she herself doesn’t know
what it is.
By just 0.03 marks, she ended up at Eden while her friend got into DU. In just one hour’s examination, all the calculations of her life were settled. When she sees her friend from afar, she desperately wants to scream and cry! But
she doesn’t cry. She never had to learn how to cry! But does everyone have to learn to cry at some chapter of life?
Does everyone now look at her and think,
“You actually look better when you cry!” That her tears come from pain—
somehow everyone seems to have gotten this wrong! Well,
are her tears still salty?
Now she listens to good songs in secret,
when she watches a good movie, she doesn’t tell anyone to watch it,
when she reads a good book, she no longer excitedly shares its story with anyone. How do those whom nobody wants in this world
become beautiful?
Those who aren’t beautiful—
what do they understand of beauty anyway?
A terrible, suppressed resentment against all the people in the world builds up in her heart. Nobody wants to understand her. Nobody loves her. Whether she exists or not makes no difference to anyone. She keeps thinking these thoughts. When she came first in college exams,
even then relatives said,
“Of course she’d come first in college like that!”

Now when she listens to songs on YouTube, she no longer downloads the lyrics and keeps them in front of her eyes like before. She only needs the melody now! In soft tunes, let them say whatever they want,
it makes no difference to her. She no longer has the strength to feel beautiful words. The song that she once listened to five times in a row without ever getting tired,
now she can’t find the strength to listen to even once completely. When someone whose own life is chaotic watches “Life is Beautiful” and exclaims “Wow!!” everyone somehow looks and says,
“Show-off!!”

Some acquaintances suddenly ask,
“What do you study again?”
This is a way of insulting someone. It means,
“What’s there to remember about you?”
Knowing full well, people ask “What was your name again?”
and get a kind of sick pleasure from it. She understands perfectly well what “What do you study again?”
means. Still, with a smiling face, she keeps giving the same answer over and over. She thinks,
let them have a little happiness! Let everyone make those contemptuous jokes around her! Being happy is what matters! Even a little! The world conspires to prevent anyone from remembering her anymore.

Lately, she’s convinced that everyone except her is growing more beautiful by the day. She is the ugliest person on this earth. One who thinks herself unattractive finds everyone else beautiful. In her case, this happens with fierce intensity. “Oh! If only I could have just a little bit of beauty! Even by mistake, just something!” Her days pass in this regret, her nights fade away in the same sorrow.

When she comes home during post-exam breaks, she never leaves the house, never meets anyone. Everyone has simply accepted that hiding her face is her destiny. If she laughs, it’s shamelessness; if she cries, it’s showiness! It’s better to stay alone than this. All pain to herself, all joy too!
The girl she considered one of her closest friends came to Eden one evening, chatted the whole time, and returned to her dorm. “Hey, you came to our place and didn’t tell us?” “Sorry! I didn’t know I had to tell you!” This response hit her like a tremendous blow, as if she had completely shattered! Oh! The girl studying architecture at BUET has already learned to break hearts by her second year!
One evening. Simple Plan’s “I Can Wait Forever” was playing on her laptop. As she listened, suddenly only this thought came to her mind: I can’t wait forever! It kept playing, kept playing… The words wouldn’t leave her head. Again and again she felt—no more, now is the time. Something must be done! Life isn’t meant to be lost. “When you call my heart stops beating/ When you’re gone it won’t stop bleeding…” What’s the point of waiting an entire lifetime with so much agony? Enough is enough. Before it’s too late, I want to find myself once more! All this time she had only thought this much: nothing is right. Everything has become chaotic today. I can do nothing. The world has moved beyond my reach! Only I am miserable! She suddenly began to think: Fine, perhaps I couldn’t study the way I should have. But whether I gain anything from this or not, the entire responsibility is mine! What does it matter to anyone else? My life is mine. If I’m good, I’m good; if I’m bad, I’m bad. Why should others have headaches over it? Where were they when I needed good advice? They never came! They only find comfort in saying, “You’re this, you’re that! You’re such and such!!” Who are others to interfere in my affairs? Where do they get the audacity to call my life worthless? I didn’t study, I sinned, I’m bearing the consequences of that sin. I’m the one bearing it, right? No one else is! Then why is everyone hurting me? Well, why am I letting them? Why must I live caring about everyone? Where are they when I’m sad, coming to cheer me up? Then why do I let their pettiness sadden my heart? I was once an all-rounder. Everyone spoke well of me, praised my work. That same me is still here! So where’s the problem in trying to find my former self once more? I’ve endured enough, accepted enough. No more! How much longer will I keep running away from life like this? Life isn’t running away! It’s always there, as always! So how can I run away?

To overcome her depression, she went to see a psychologist. The lady was an ex-cadet from their own college. She listened to everything she had to say. After hearing her out, she said,
“Take a risk, why don’t you! To turn things around, first you’ll have to break out of your old comfort zone. Forget that you came first in your first year. Being first somewhere one year doesn’t mean you have to be first in the same place the next year. Don’t sit there dwelling on the pain of a year and a half lost. If you delay any longer, all you’ll do is spend more time with even greater suffering. You need to think about this right now. Get out of here. You’re seeing everything in this country through a shroud of melancholy. Maybe it’s a hallucination, but you’ve been living with this for the past year and a half! Life can’t go on like this. Even if it could, don’t let it.”
After leaving there, she felt a tremendous shock to her inner world! She began to think,
“What does she actually want?
What is there that she could do to find relief from this suffering?
What would it take for her not to have to hide her face from friends?”
After much contemplation, she decided
she wouldn’t stay in the country any longer. This time she would run away from everyone. Let it be the act of a coward, so be it! Whatever it took, she had to live! She spoke to her parents about this. Many of their close relatives lived abroad—in Canada, Australia, England, America. But none of them wanted to help in any way. Instead, they convinced her parents,
“What’s wrong with Eden College?
What better could she do than this?
Tell her to do what she’s doing, but do it well. If possible, arrange a good marriage for her. You’ll see, everything will be fine! What’s the point of girls having such grand dreams?”
No one helped even a bit by providing information or guidance. Instead, her parents had to endure harsh words. They had assumed the calls were made to burden them with her. In utter humiliation, they wept deeply. They told her,
“Stop thinking all these wild thoughts and focus on your studies where you are.” At home, she had to endure many more bitter words.

She never cried in front of anyone. She didn’t cry that day either. Wherever she looked, all she could hear was talk of despair and nothing else. But rather than being discouraged by this, she took a blood oath to push herself forward on the path to fulfilling her dreams with doubled determination. A phrase from Nishat Majumder, Bangladesh’s first woman to conquer Everest, became etched in her mind: “Since when do dreams have gender?”
She threw down a challenge to herself: she wouldn’t need anyone. She could do it alone. ………… Sometimes in a person’s life comes a moment when you must listen only to your own heart. If you can’t hear anything worthwhile from others, what’s the point of talking to them? Rather, it’s better to take responsibility yourself to ensure that they can never again lord their opinions over any aspect of your life.

The American Center hosts various seminars and admission fairs for different foreign universities at different times. Going there, one can learn about university profiles, scholarships, tuition fees, visa processing, and so on. She began going to all these places herself, gathering all the information. Coming home, she would spend hours upon hours on university websites, learning about their various requirements and other details. She discovered that studying abroad wasn’t nearly as difficult as people made it out to be. There are many who speak authoritatively about things they know nothing about, as if they know everything. It’s better not to talk to anyone at all than to talk to them. She began trying on her own. In the process of doing all this, she couldn’t properly take many of her college exams. Three classmates regularly kept her updated with all the class notes and helped her tremendously. The interesting thing was that most of those she considered true friends began to envy her terribly upon seeing all this. So much so that they simply couldn’t stand her anymore. They would never help her with anything; instead, they would give her false information. ……. People reveal themselves when the time comes!

She studied on her own and took the IELTS, sat for the SAT. Her IELTS score was 7.5, SAT 1710. Then, on her own initiative, she applied to four American universities through their websites. Fortunately, she was accepted to three of them. In the end, she enrolled in one. At Wichita State University, in biomedical engineering, for a five-year visa to complete her BSc and MSc. She set off for a new address, weathering many shocks and becoming acquainted with life’s many strange and wondrous faces, experiencing for the first time in her life the feeling of standing completely on her own feet. She’s now trying to get into an even better university. Life presented itself to her exactly as she had envisioned it. Presented itself? Or did she compel it to present itself that way? She had only three strengths: tremendous faith in herself. The mentality to work incredibly hard. The courage to touch her dreams.

Life in America hasn’t been easy for her—not at all. She went there alone. Everything that needed to be done, she did by herself. She has many close relatives there. Her beloved uncle lives very near where she stays. But she doesn’t meet anyone. She never asks anyone for help with anything. When she needed it most, no one was there for her. Not a soul extended even the smallest gesture of support. Instead, she faced scorn, obstacles, and words of discouragement. Nothing more. Of course, it’s also true that not everyone has the capacity to give more than that. There are two kinds of people in this world: those who can’t speak well, so they speak badly, and those who can’t speak well, so they stay silent. If you want to live well, you must stay far, far away from the first kind. She’s doing quite well on her own. For both her joys and sorrows, she alone is responsible. Just the other day, while crossing the street, she had a small accident. Her knee and ankle were badly injured. She had no medical insurance. Seeing a doctor there costs a fortune. She doesn’t have that kind of money. She didn’t even get an X-ray. She just took some medicine. Slowly, she’s healing. When you have no money in your pocket, life abroad isn’t so easy. Still, she tells no one. Her parents back in Bangladesh believe their only daughter is somewhere like Alice in Wonderland. When they talk on the phone, she spins elaborate fairy tales so that no one worries about her and suffers. Sometimes she feels terrible, inexplicably wants to cry deeply, and thinks she needs a friend—someone in front of whom she could cry without any discomfort and lighten herself. She reaches out her hand. She finds no one. She doesn’t need anyone! She’s learned to heal her own wounds! Life goes on this way. Let it! Let’s see what happens!

Who this girl is, I won’t reveal.
Whether this story is true or made up, I won’t say either.
I’ll only say this much: if even three people played the smallest role in everything she has today, I am one of them—or rather, my writing is. These aren’t my words, but hers. Seeing her gratitude brought tears of joy to my eyes. The happiness I feel just thinking about her journey—God hasn’t given me the ability to capture that in words. Saluting her, I wrote: You’re that girl who has decided not to live the life she was not born for. I don’t recall ever doing anything particularly special for her. I met her once at the airport for ten minutes, we chatted a few times in messages, spoke twice on the phone. That’s all! She read my writings again and again. But that’s entirely her own achievement. I write simply so that sometimes I might write something that, when read, won’t leave anyone feeling downhearted. May everyone believe from their heart: I can do it too! Just that much! That alone brings me happiness!!

I pray that she stays very well, remains a good person, and goes very far. I’ll watch from afar, feel joy rising within me, and keep saying in my heart: Hats off!!