Hey there… oh, what a dream!
Listen! You know how I’ve kept myself distracted this Eid with my own little gift to myself?
A collection of ten novels by your beloved Humayun Ahmed… such beautiful, beautiful titles that I just had to buy it.
If loving brings no joy… hee hee hee… what novels are in there?
Don’t you dare turn away and escape now… hey, wait a minute, listen to the titles. Each title is a key to its own imagined world. I just read the name of each novel and lose myself in my own version of each story. Look here… you’ll get lost too…
You Had Called Me to a Holiday Invitation…
There! I’m lost already!
That time you called me? When will you call again…?
Oh no, oh no! Dropping all the books in my lap and getting lost in my land of imagination…
Alright, coming back… coming back… coming back…
‘Eyes’
…melting toward me,
‘Dearest’
…there, I’ve started writing you a letter in my mind right now, uffffff!
‘I Have Water’
…ha ha ha… I remember Bidya Sinha Mim singing this song with such dancing. I remember conversations with Zahid Hasan… when I too walked the ramp. He suddenly started telling his love story—how he met his wife, and how he too had to negotiate at home about her modeling, and so on and so forth…
‘A Sorceress’
‘Bird, My Lonely Bird’
‘Tithi’s Blue Towel’
…oh my, Tithi, my only friend from my naked childhood days! She herself is a novel. Now I understand, I can embrace her way of surviving now… with both arms, my older brother had a crush on Tithi… she too is victorious, a fighter… ufff!
Alright, the next title… ‘You’! Ya Allah, what a dream! How many songs I want to sing right now… every song has ‘you’ in it!
Skip… skip! Okay! The next one…
‘Pencil-Drawn Fairy’
…didn’t I show you my sketchbook?
I used to draw portraits in college, of various celebrities. My roommate’s younger sister took them all away. Now I think, I could have kept them for myself!
‘Naboni’
…no, just the name is beautiful! A girl and her name, that’s all!
‘The Cloud Said I’ll Go’
…but during the last corona lockdown, I sat by the window and caught the very first rainbow right after the first rain of monsoon and sent it to you in my cupped hands. I’m amazed at myself, just given time, I can bring everything in the world into life and find joy even from experiences of longing!
Whew! Saved! At least I managed to tell you all the titles!
Alright, I’m going. Had my coffee, shall I finish the book in my hand?
I’ll be back.
You there,
your chest,
I will surely come
to rest my head.