# The Lamp of the Inner Chamber The afternoon sun slanted through the western window, turning the room gold. I sat by the table, watching dust motes drift like tiny planets through that golden light, and felt the peculiar loneliness that comes when you are alone in a house that was built for many voices. Mother had gone to her sister's place in Shyamnagar. Father was at the office. The servants were in the courtyard, their voices carrying up through the stairwell in bursts of laughter and complaint. The house breathed around me—the slow, familiar breathing of a place that has held the same family for generations. I had taken out the old photograph album that afternoon, the one with the cracked leather spine and yellowed pages. I don't know why. Perhaps because the silence was too loud, or because I'd found myself thinking of Grandmother, who had died the winter before I was born. The photographs were all there: Grandmother in her wedding sari, stiff and formal beside a man whose face I had never known. Grandmother holding my father as an infant. Grandmother standing in this very room, in front of the lamp—that strange brass lamp with the blue glass shade that had hung in the corner of the inner chamber for as long as I could remember. I had never really noticed the lamp before. It was simply there, the way the walls were there, the way the floor was there. But in the photograph, Grandmother's hand rested on it, and she was smiling—truly smiling, not the stiff, camera-conscious smile of the formal portraits. I closed the album and climbed the narrow stairs to the inner chamber. The room was exactly as it always was: the carved wooden bed with its heavy quilts, the small shrine in the corner, the old dressing table with its mirror reflecting nothing but the window. And there, in the corner by the eastern wall, hung the lamp. It was smaller than I remembered. The brass was tarnished now, darkened by decades of dust and neglect. The blue glass shade was filmed with the same dust, so that the light that came through it—when it came through it—was dim and distant, like light filtering through water. I stood on a chair and reached for it. The brass was cold and surprisingly heavy. A small bird's nest was tucked behind it, abandoned and desiccated. "What are you doing up there?" I startled. It was Purnima, the older servant, standing in the doorway with a feather duster in her hand. "I was just... looking at this lamp," I said, descending carefully. Purnima's face changed. She set down the duster. "Your grandmother loved that lamp," she said. She was quiet for a moment. Purnima had been in the house since before I was born. She remembered things I could not. "She said it was not for the night," Purnima continued. "It was for the dark that comes in the day. Do you understand?" I shook my head. "When she was sad—and your grandmother had her times of sadness, though she hid them from everyone but me—she would light that lamp in the afternoon. Not because the room was dark. It was broad daylight, you understand. But because—" Purnima paused, searching for words. "Because sometimes the day is darker than the night. Sometimes the day holds a darkness that the night cannot touch." I looked back at the lamp. In the afternoon light, it seemed impossibly fragile. "She would sit here," Purnima said, "and light it. Just for a few minutes. Just until she remembered why she was alive. Then she would blow it out again. No one knew. Not even your mother knew, I think. But I saw her once. I was bringing her tea, and I saw. She was sitting right there, by the window, and the blue light was on her face, and she was crying. But her hands were steady as she held the cup." "Why did she need it?" I asked. "Why did she need the lamp if she had the sun?" "Because," Purnima said, and her old eyes were kind, "the sun is for the whole world. The lamp is for yourself. The sun is a king; it rules everyone equally. But a lamp—a lamp you light yourself—that is a friend." She left me there. I didn't light the lamp that day. But I cleaned it. I took it down and cleaned away the dust and the grime, and I polished the brass until it gleamed, and I washed the blue glass shade until the light could pass through it again, clear and true. When I hung it back up, it looked like something newly born into the old room. That evening, when Mother returned, she found me sitting by the lamp with a book I wasn't reading. The afternoon light was beginning to fade. I hadn't lit it yet. I was simply sitting with it, understanding at last why Grandmother had needed it—this small, blue light that belonged to her alone, that asked nothing of the world and gave nothing but comfort. "You've cleaned the lamp," Mother said. It wasn't a question. "Yes," I said. "Is that alright?" Mother came and stood beside me. She looked at it for a long time. Then, very quietly, she said, "When I was a girl, I saw my mother light it sometimes. I never understood why. I thought perhaps it was broken, and she was trying to fix it. It wasn't until much later—after I had children, after I had learned what it means to carry the weight of a house and a family—that I understood." She placed her hand on my shoulder. "Yes, it's alright. More than alright. She would have wanted someone to remember." That night, after everyone had gone to sleep, I returned to the inner chamber with a candle. I lit the lamp. The blue glass filled with light—a soft, ethereal light that seemed to come from somewhere else, somewhere deeper than the room itself. I didn't cry. I simply sat in that blue radiance and felt the presence of all the women who had sat in this room before me, all the women who had needed this small rebellion against the day, this small assertion that there was a darkness that was theirs alone to choose, to name, and to transform. The lamp burned low. I let it burn until it was nearly gone, and then I blew it out and sat in the darkness it left behind. The darkness, strangely, was not empty. It was full of everything I hadn't known I was carrying: my own sorrows, yes, but also my own strength. My own quiet light, waiting to be remembered.

# I Heard

I heard that my great-grandfather was a zamindar. People in Sirajganj still speak the name of Mina House with reverence. Kingdoms pass, but the names of kings endure. When I listen to stories from that time, only the atmosphere of Mina House from Shudranjana Bandhyopadhyay’s novel *Sansaptok* comes alive before my eyes. In my childhood, I used to watch the play, and I would think of the character ‘Mina’s son, Mina’ as my own father. Every girl has a childhood hero—and that hero is her father. My father and uncles learned together, from the blood itself, the lesson of unity and oneness. I also heard that no one would dare walk past Mina House wearing shoes and an umbrella on their head. We had our sitting room and inner quarters strictly separate, of course! My father’s nickname was Sakhu, though the younger ones in the house and relatives from further away, I’ve seen, would call him Sakhawat or Sakhawat Bhai. My father was one of eight brothers and three sisters. Three of my uncles are no longer alive. I never saw my younger aunt; she died before I was born. She suffered from mental illness—terribly ill, sometimes locked away in the house. She knew suffering her whole life. Even at death there was such agony; I heard she vomited blood until she passed. Everyone pitied her and would say that a life of such torment deserved at least an easy death. The Creator did not listen. But all of this is hearsay. My younger aunt was extraordinarily beautiful, and gifted beyond measure. I’m told her face resembled that of my immediately older sister. But I did remember seeing my elder aunt. Tall, statuesque, fair—such a woman was rarely seen. I find her very much like one of Rabindranath’s sisters-in-law. My elder aunt became a widow at a very young age. I never knew my grandmother. Everyone said my aunt had inherited her character. I quite liked my elder aunt’s dignified, composed bearing. She was a learned woman with a vast library. She spoke Bengali, English, Arabic, Hindi, and Urdu. Even when she visited us, I remember her scolding us. I heard that because of work, my grandfather stayed mostly in Calcutta, so grandmother had to manage everything, and my elder aunt was always there to help. My father called my elder aunt “Borbu.” No one ever speaks of my middle aunt. She wasn’t as beautiful as her two sisters. But she had a magnificent voice and commanded music with true skill. Against everyone’s wishes in the house, she learned classical music. Later, this aunt eloped and married a non-Muslim composer. For this, she was cast out by the family. I heard she now lives in Murshidabad, runs a music school, and lives quite happily with her husband.

My father was rather indifferent to his studies. He roamed through all of Kachihara, Jamtail, Kaijuri, Rupnai—the villages around Shimuldairi—this youngest son of Mina House, and the senior friends of the village took his words quite seriously. One of my father’s senior friends was P. R. Majumdar, a former army chief. After I applied for a lecturer’s position at Rajshahi University, I even met him in person. I didn’t get that job, because the university authorities had already decided in advance whom they would allow to teach. But his sincerity was never in question. I came to know him and collected his phone number at an event organized jointly by the Liberation War Cultural Council on our campus and Uddhar*an*, a cultural organization I had founded. Anyway, that’s another matter altogether.

# My Father

My father recognized Sakkhu, his childhood friend, without hesitation. He didn’t do what many grown men do—pretend to remember someone while struggling to place them. I witnessed my father and uncles’ fervent discussions about politics right there in that drawing room over tea. None of them could stomach the filth and pettiness of political life. So they’d always been careful to keep themselves scrupulously detached, deliberately removed from it all. As a family, we were never among the opportunists. We had to earn through our own merit what could have come to us effortlessly through political lineage. I never saw my father or uncles regret this; rather, there was always a pride in them—there still is, I believe there always will be—the pride of surviving by proving one’s worth. My father often says, “As long as ordinary people in this country defer to politicians not out of respect for their intellect but out of fear of their muscle, political identity will never be an honorable way to exist in this country.” What a remarkably true thing to say! But let me get back to where I was. My father used to wander about watching jatra performances, theater festivals, and such things. He was quite a daredevil. He left school entirely in the eighth grade and even left home, coming to Dhaka. He went to stay with his cousin Arafat in Jurain. And from then on, I’ve never seen in my father even a whisper of longing to return to Sirajganj. My father’s education ended at class eight. Yet, encouraged by my mother—whether gently or by force, I’m not sure—he read many novels.

My mother, on the other hand, was from Nirmol village in Naugaon. My maternal grandfather, Munshi Rezvi Ahmed Bhuiya, died in 1971, shot by Pakistani soldiers. There’s no scholar or humble man like my grandfather anymore, they say. I heard he always addressed my father as “you” with formal respect. He never raised his voice at anyone. My mother, I’m told, became like her father—equally refined. We called my grandmother Bubu. When I was thirteen months old, my brother Hasan was born. So I had to be weaned, and Bubu stayed with us in our Dhaka home to look after me, to feed me. She cared for me so tenderly that I became quite a healthy child. When I slept, everyone would say, look, look, Fakhera’s daughter has turned out like a lotus flower. My eyes, they said, were so long that they captivated everyone. Such fair, glowing skin—no one had complexion like that. Who knows how many things I’ve heard about myself! As children, I suppose everyone just receives praise. When you’re small, you don’t have to worry about deserving it. But once you grow up, trouble begins—you have to manage all that praise yourself, convince yourself you’re worth it! We saw my grandmother—there’s no one simpler or more innocent than her. She would even pull her veil and hide when she saw people inside the television. Small and round-faced, Bubu, with her white clothes and thick, long black hair covering her head, lay in bed for a long time and finally passed away. Even before her death, not a single hair on her head had turned gray, and she hadn’t lost much hair. I didn’t even go to see her when she died, and it never occurred to me to help care for her while she was ill. My mother went; the rest of us stayed home and managed the household. My mother seems to me just as simple as Bubu. My grandmother was my paternal grandfather’s only daughter, much adored. Once, when she fell gravely ill, they forced my grandfather to marry again—to a younger wife.

(Little Nanny Bubu was our grandfather’s younger brother’s daughter.) This is no myth—my grandmother is living proof that it happens. Our grandfather wasn’t being looked after properly, so she married off her husband to her own younger sister! My Bubu was far more tender-hearted and beautiful than our little grandmother. I’ve heard that no one from grandfather’s house ever returned hungry—not once. When I try to recall memories of the village home, what comes back is always the grandfather’s house. My second uncle was the chairman of the area. I remember his sitting room stood open twenty-four hours a day. My second aunt kept cooking pot after pot, pouring and filling, and it would be empty again in no time. The house always had extra people staying over.

Father couldn’t bear to be away from Mother for long. If Mother went to her father’s house, Father would use the excuse of taking us to grandfather’s place as a way to see her. Father never left Mother behind—not once. No matter what, he’d always find some clever way to bring her along on the return. When Father took us to grandfather’s house, everyone would fuss over him. Everyone showed him great respect. I couldn’t understand why. Father’s financial and social standing wasn’t impressive enough to warrant such deference. Father gave everyone a lot of good advice too. Yet those weren’t even good times for him. Whenever I see speakers at seminars dispensing wisdom and counsel, I often find myself wondering—how much of what they say do they actually follow themselves? Watching motivational speakers, I usually get the sense they’re being contradictory. Their own lives aren’t smooth, yet they’re teaching everyone how to make life smooth! Once Rabindranath’s sister-in-law teased him—*you don’t know about your own wedding, yet you write poems about others’!* Watching these speakers, I want to say the same—*you have no order in your own happiness, yet you peddle happiness to others!* Most of what they ask their audiences to follow seems excessive to me. They’re preaching a dharma they don’t practice themselves! Listening to them, I feel no inspiration whatsoever—only my temper flares, and I want to grab them and give them a good thrashing! Just seeing a motivational speaker makes me laugh—I get the urge to tickle them. Hehehehe… When I saw Father’s such character flaws as a child, my bewilderment would only grow. It would infuriate me to think that Father wanted to see Mother, fine, but why was he dragging us along? Didn’t Father have the courage to go to grandfather’s house just to bring Mother back? Or had Father simply not yet found firm enough footing to go to his in-laws’ without needing an excuse? It happened more than once—we’d skip school and end up at grandfather’s, wandering about in pure delight day after day! It would anger me to think: does Father not manage a single day without Mother?

Two different villages in two different districts, same region. Two different families. On one side, the Miya household’s arrogant pride and gentility; on the other, the Bhuiya household’s humility and meekness. A marriage between two families of entirely different ideals, two people of completely different natures. And perhaps because such a marriage happened, our household, even through such adversity, never lost its way. When the boat began to sink on one side, a strong hand would row from the other, keeping it afloat. This, I understand, is the dharma of a household. A household balanced evenly rarely lasts long. Household means struggle. Household means understanding. Household means opposition.

I’m somewhat unsocial. I remember a teacher in class six whom I adored—Rumana Jaman Chaudhuri Auntie.

She was a tall, lean, fair-complexioned, affectionate and vivacious woman. She taught English. She conducted her classes in a recitative style, with an impossibly beautiful accent. Her ideal was Derozio, and she would speak of him often in class. Apa was a deeply sincere person. I never met another teacher so dedicated and honest in her profession. All the girls loved her. I did too. What set me apart from the others was simply this: I was an exceptionally obedient and attentive student. The night before each class, I would read what she was going to teach, and come to class prepared. In our Ashaboree Government Girls’ High School, there were two sections in each class. Those who held odd-numbered seats studied in section ‘A’ and those with even numbers in section ‘B’. I was roll number one in the ‘A’ section. But this doesn’t mean I was truly the first in my class. The girl who actually came first had transferred to another better school, and so even though I ranked third, I got roll number one.
So, back to what I was saying. Why was I so unsocial? I can’t remember everything—much of it has grown fuzzy with time, the way things do as you get older. But what I do recall is that because I was a good student, Rumana Apa showed me a great deal of affection. Apa was from Sylhet. She called me Kaulmi—that’s how Apa pronounced Kolmi. Most likely, her brother’s daughter was also named Kolmi. At that time, Apa was our class teacher. She had noticed me from the very beginning, from when she first transferred to our school. That is, from class four onwards. A quiet, well-behaved, good student—and the class captain too. But there were two problems. First: the girl’s health was very poor, the marks of malnutrition clearly visible. Second: her school dress was torn and patched—mended and restitched countless times. The cloth itself had grown thin from constant wear. The truth is, I could attend school at all only because of two reasons—first, books and fees were free; and second, I didn’t have to go work in other people’s houses. Whether I had food or not, whether I wore fine clothes or not, my mother wanted us to be educated. And my father, no matter how poor we were, always upheld the principle that laboring classes and others were separate—even though father, mother, and all of us were living in tatters at the time. Half a kilogram of rice divided among twelve people in a single dish to eat, yet even then father maintained class distinctions. Father had a saying: a poor man, no matter how much money he owns, remains poor. A hundred-taka lungi with fifty taka knotted into it doesn’t become a hundred-and-fifty-taka lungi. Lineage speaks. A great lineage is great, and a lowly lineage is lowly. Father would rather starve to death than let our family’s name be diminished before anyone. I never saw my father with his hand outstretched before anyone. Rather, even in times of desperate want, he maintained an air of formidable dignity. The lesson I learned from father that has served me most is an abiding, sky-touching sense of self-respect.
In those days, my trademark was a torn dress, a wan face, humble behavior, and good marks. Strangely, though I felt sorrow about my circumstances, I felt no shame. It seemed to me that I was in no way responsible for my condition. And surely this state could not be permanent. The day would come. These days of hardship would pass.

I don’t shirk my responsibility when it comes to studies. I’d come first in class wearing torn clothes. What’s the harm in that? So there’s no reason for me to feel small about myself. What’s the point of wearing expensive clothes and painting your lips if you’re going to fail? That’s how I’d convince myself. But every year, when I had to apply for the poor fund and full scholarships, there was a kind of shame that crept in. I understood clearly that I was different from the other girls in class. I was genuinely poor. Their mothers packed noodles in their lunch boxes; my mother could barely manage to send anything most days. Still, I’d slip the empty lunch box into my bag, and during the lunch break, I’d hide my small head inside the bag and move my mouth as if I had some expensive, delicious food in there that I didn’t want to share with anyone. I knew I had to fight within far greater limitations. I knew it was an unequal battle. I also knew that I had to win it myself. If I lost, I couldn’t even use my poverty as an excuse anymore. And what good would it do anyway if I did? I’ve gone into battle to win, even if it costs me my life—not to survive in defeat. From childhood, I learned to move forward on my own strength without making excuses. And that’s what I kept doing. The days passed this way.
My mother had taught me that outward glitter doesn’t matter; it’s the inner shine that counts. I took that as gospel truth. From then on, I became indifferent to how I dressed and looked. Even now, paying attention to such things seems pointless to me. Class six—that was the most humiliating day of my life, when Nowsheen’s mother (she was roll number one in our class, the girl who moved to Vicarunnessa School when we went up to class six, so I became roll number one) called me aside and said, “Kholmi, Nowsheen is leaving for another school now; she won’t need her school dress anymore. I want to give you her old one, if you don’t mind.” When I heard those words, I felt so ashamed! I knew I didn’t have new clothes. Maybe my dress wasn’t fit to wear anymore. Fine, I was wearing a faded, patched, torn dress with a hundred stitches in it, but at least it was my own dress. I didn’t like wearing anyone else’s clothes. My own torn dress was best for me. I had learned to live with what fate had given me. How could she dare offer me my classmate’s hand-me-downs? I held back the tears in my eyes and said firmly, “No, Aunty, I don’t need it.”
A few days later, Rumana Jaman Chowdhury Auntie asked all the girls to leave the classroom after class, but told me to stay. Just me and Auntie in the room. She was someone I admired deeply, and she’d called me alone and made everyone else leave. I felt so proud in that moment. Auntie pulled me close and ran her hand over my head, and said, “Kholmi, your name is the same as my brother’s daughter’s, and I see you just like her. I want to have a school dress made for you. Come with me to the tailor today.” I loved Auntie so much. And when someone offers you a gift of love, you can’t say no. My eyes just filled with tears; they flowed without stopping. There were no words left in my mouth. Like a mute, I just hugged her and cried.
That day happened to be the market’s weekly holiday, so the tailor’s shop was closed. Auntie said, “Come, let’s go to your house. You’ll take me, won’t you?”

I was thrilled—absolutely thrilled! “Come on, Apa,” I said. Walking back and forth is my habit. I walked from Chandrika Chowk market with Apa all the way back to our home in East Mahisantosh. Apa was a bit out of breath by the time we got there. “That’s quite a distance!” she said. When she arrived at our house, she’d brought apples for me and forced some money into my hands for my school uniform. She asked after all my siblings. By then, my older brother—Nalinda Bhaiya—had finished his degree from college and gotten admitted to the Master’s program in Mass Communication and Journalism at Dhaka University. And my eldest sister had already completed her Master’s in Economics from Dhaka University and was working. But she had weathered so many storms. Storms that seemed to flip our entire family on its head almost every year, yet somehow we all managed to hold together, again and again. Yes, from 1996 to 2001, for five straight years, Apa would fall ill mentally every winter. For seven long years she had to take medication under doctor’s supervision at PG Hospital. High-powered drugs—Largactil, Parkinil, and who knows what else. So expensive! A single dose of any one of them would be enough to kill a healthy person. But that’s not the sort of thing you go around telling people. I never told anyone. Our family taught us never to speak our sorrows to anyone. Happiness might be something worth marketing, but suffering—never. Suffering must be hidden. To tell others about your pain is to diminish it in their eyes. Really, people don’t value others’ suffering much at all. They might show sympathy on the surface, but there’s seldom any genuine warmth behind it. And besides, does sympathy and consolation actually ease suffering? More often than not, what happens is you tell someone about your pain, and they distort it and tell someone else, who then uses it as leverage against your weakness. For some mysterious reason, people are drawn to cruelty. So the real art of living is to swallow your tears and smile! In any case, even through all that illness, in 1998 Apa passed her Master’s exam with excellent marks. After that, to hold the family together, she taught at schools, gave classes at various coaching centers. Bidyapith Coaching Home, Suryabarta Academy, DRC—all those places. That day, I didn’t actually get to see Apa. Bhaiya was home, so I met with him instead. I remember, as she was leaving, Apa said, “That’s good. Since your elder sister studied at Dhaka University, you will too. Where the first one goes, the second will follow.”

Perhaps those words didn’t carry much weight at the time, but I’ve always felt that certain words people speak work like blessings. That day, little me, understanding nothing, made a decision right then and there: yes, I will study at Dhaka University. I had no idea what Dhaka University was, what would happen if I studied there—none of that. I only knew that my most beloved teacher had told me to go to Dhaka University, so somehow, no matter what, I had to do it. Later, I found that her words had come true. We—I mean my uncle Shanu, who was the only uncle of mine living in Bangladesh, and his children, my cousins—they too had all graduated from Dhabi. The eldest child of our entire family, Roni Bhaiya, did his Master’s in Applied Physics, and the most absent-minded girl, Ruku Apa, did her Master’s in Fine Arts. Both of them are working in the BCS Education Cadre.

# Early Days

There was a time—before I was born, mind you—when my uncles lived with us in our old house in Mahisantosh. Uncle Shanu, being a Food Inspector, eventually got government quarters and moved to Agargaon. My father, though the younger brother, had once supported his elder brother through school and even helped bear the household expenses. Yet when hardship came to my father’s own door, he received little in return from that same brother. Not that Uncle was ungrateful exactly—he too had a government job, with its meager salary and his own family to keep afloat. That’s how the world works. If you don’t look after yourself, nobody else will. How long can you live on others’ charity? And why should anyone help me? What obligation do they bear? If I extended my hand when he needed it, that was my choice. Whether he extends his hand when I need it—well, that’s entirely his own personal affair. Truth be told, in times of trouble, it’s often those people who stand by you whom you never really thought much about before. From someone I once helped, the most I can reasonably expect is that they don’t make my suffering worse through their actions. There’s a younger brother I stood by always, both financially and emotionally, even paying for almost his entire wedding. Yet he, in my time of need, actually made things harder for me. There’s a friend too—someone whose emotional pain I sat with for hours on end—who spread all manner of lies about me when my troubles came. Life taught me these harsh lessons early, very early indeed. I learned that people are ungrateful, that they betray, that given the chance, people hurt their benefactors first. And knowing all this, I have gone on helping people anyway. Because when I can help someone, it brings me real joy.

Though Uncle couldn’t stand by us the way we needed, my maternal uncles were there for us in every way they could be. But they themselves never quite succeeded in their own endeavors. Today, it’s true—nearly all of us siblings have graduated from Dhaka University and each of us stands on our own feet now. My youngest brother was born when I was in Class One. Nobody had milk to give him—Mother’s milk never came in, and she’d developed swelling in her hands and feet from malnutrition. It was I who would comfort him by spooning sugar-water into his mouth. We had no money for milk, so I’d feed him water to keep him quiet. I remember those days when every morning began with my parents quarreling, and I’d watch my mother—humiliated, devastated, defeated—under the brute force of my father’s strength. Mother bore the brunt of all his helplessness, all his resentment. That silent humiliation slowly filled me with bitterness toward him. But I was speaking of my brother. He’s the only one in our family who’s a BSc engineer from a private university, and today he’s employed, earning decent wages, standing by the family. We’ve come through hard times. Truly, I have no wish to look back now. And yet sometimes the pain wants to return. Though it’s a different kind of pain that comes back. Even when you have everything, there are many kinds of suffering.

# The Hidden Weight

Some people look terribly happy, the way they conceal their suffering behind a smile so carefully, so skillfully. Whether life offers abundance or scarcity has nothing to do with how much we suffer. Suffering has only one immutable law: as long as breath remains, suffering remains. It’s impossible to erase suffering, but yes—it’s possible to diminish it, to train yourself to live alongside it.

That day when Rumana Apa was leaving, she smiled sweetly and said, “What, you won’t even see me off properly, you’re so unfriendly, Kolmi?” And with that, she embraced me. I turned red with embarrassment and went with my brother to see her off to the rickshaw, then walked back. I was such a fool then that it didn’t even occur to me that you could take a rickshaw all the way home. I walked everywhere, so I brought her home the same way, making her walk. As she was leaving, Apa embraced me again and kissed me. And that affection—it was this very gesture that drew me so powerfully to her. The truth is, for all these years I’ve grown up, my mother never once embraced any of us siblings, never kissed us with tenderness. I’ve never found out whether poverty was to blame, or whether it was my mother’s shy nature. We desperately wanted her to show us some affection, but she never did. Not even after my youngest brother fell asleep—I never once saw her kiss him on his forehead, his eyes, his cheeks. Perhaps that capacity for tenderness simply wasn’t in her. How I longed for Rumana Apa to embrace me, to show me that care! In her affection, I found the maternal love I was searching for. People are starved for tenderness. Without even a little of it, they go mad.

I remember those days… Those were times of war. We had one task alone—to fight poverty and survive, to push forward somehow. We never had to fight our own desires and urges. Those who carry the dream of becoming something, no matter how poor they are, cannot be consumed by any vice. Our only task was survival, not to be lost, to somehow continue our studies even if it meant going hungry. That’s what we did—we struggled desperately to wipe away my mother’s tears. But even now, when my mother weeps only because I haven’t married yet, when she stays awake night after night praying tahajjud, all my achievements feel utterly worthless. The house I brought Rumana Apa to—that broken tin-roofed shack where every little rain would leak through the holes and rust, soaking the bedding, flooding the earthen floor—has now become a solid brick building. How I wish I could bring Rumana Apa there again! My mother’s dream home is named ‘Nest.’ And yet, beneath all of this, the hidden sorrows still try to suffocate me again and again. Some sorrows are so peculiar that I don’t even understand what they are.

Rumana Apa was the North Star of my life. The moment I entered class seven, she was transferred to Senbagh High School in Noakhali. By then, her daughter had already started taking drawing lessons from me at school. Because I’d gotten the highest marks in drawing, Apa had asked me to teach her daughter Simanti. After class, I would sit with Simanti in a room and teach her to draw. I’d learned some techniques myself from Mustafa Monwar’s program on BTV, “Come, Let’s Draw.” I taught Simanti with such care in those days!

# Rumana Apa

It seemed there was no work in the world more urgent than this one. Someone had trusted me with their faith, had asked me to do something, and that felt like a great honor. I poured my whole heart and soul into teaching Simanti to draw. The thought that Apa would leave—what grief it caused me! On the day of her departure, I gave her a card I’d made with my own hands, and a set of jewelry I’d designed and crafted from jute, bamboo, and clay. That gift was like bathing in the Ganges on Ganges-worship day. Anything I could do, I could do for Apa.

Like this time—I drew something terribly badly, and Apa would burst with excitement: “Wow! How beautifully you’ve drawn it! If you try, you could make something even more wonderful!” I made a clay doll and brought it to school to show Rumana Apa, and at once she’d say, “Let me see, let me see! How beautifully you’ve made it! Even the shops don’t sell dolls this pretty! Bring me another one next time, will you, my precious one!” She knew this magic so well—how to encourage children. Only for her did I make a desperate effort each time to do better than the time before. I was always trying to surpass myself, so that Rumana Apa would be happier than last time, would show me even more affection.

Later, I kept in touch with Apa through countless letters. That correspondence went on for many years. The funny thing was, we never asked for each other’s phone numbers, so we never knew them. All our communication was by letter. In late 2016, Apa came to work at the Secondary Education Office. My younger brother works there too. One day I went and met her, and I got her phone number. We’d talk on the phone sometimes after that, but the letter-writing never stopped. Simanti made a good marriage. She’s probably living in Canada now with her husband. For the past few days I’ve been thinking of Apa. I decided this time I’d give her an Eid gift. This foolish student of hers, with her unseemly affection, found the courage today to call Apa and even get her address in Banani. God willing, tomorrow I’ll go there with a sari of her choice and touch the dust of her feet once more.

One Rumana Zaman Chowdhury—to this silly girl named Kolmi, when she closed her eyes for a time, that name would appear more luminous than even her mother’s.

Rumana Apa was a lighthouse in my life, always. Whenever I found myself in doubt or danger, I sought counsel and courage from her. When darkness came to my life, Apa stood beside me as light, forever.

Tell me, perhaps in any relationship, the status and worthiness of two people determine everything, don’t they? By everything, I mean—whether those two people remain or go. In the very last days of university, I fell in love with someone. I loved them. That person caused me so much sorrow, so much pain, that perhaps no one in the world could understand it even if I explained. I know that no one will ever understand it. Today, after all these years, as I write about that person, I am so calm, so still, so composed. Time fixes everything. Time can heal terrible wounds—of the body, of the mind. I am not the Kolmi I was before. So much has changed in my life, in my thinking. Time changes so much—priorities, preferences, vision. For a while, because of that person, I began to feel deeply unworthy and discarded. Love strengthens the weak and makes the strong helpless. I loved him with everything I had. He was my whole world, and yet I was nowhere in his. Now, when I think of it, I laugh and laugh. He studied mechanical engineering at BUET.

# The Weight of Being Loved by the Wrong Person

She had this notion that if she could diminish someone by declaring herself superior, by making them feel small, then somehow she became a great person. *I’m not a doctor, not an engineer—how could she ever love me for anything?* And yet I had loved her. I had come to her—not unbidden, not uninvited, but drawn by the very tenderness I saw in her. I believed she loved me back. She was my first love. Before her, I had never even thought about a boy. I was too consumed with my own survival, wrestling with my own life, to afford love and affection the space they deserved. Existence itself demanded too much of me. And then—having to forget her, to live without her—the pain was like dying, like being unmade. When I look back at myself, I see such poverty, and yet such love, wasted on the wrong person.

When we first met, we simply talked. Then came friendship. At some point, she wanted more—she wanted me to be her girlfriend. Even while we were just friends, other girls had told me things about her. How she spoke to many of them in the same intimate way. I was nothing special in her life. It hurt terribly to hear it. I thought then that I wouldn’t keep even the friendship. But then she began saying things to me that made me feel—surely no one will ever love me as much as she does. Suddenly she was giving me time, real time. Hours and hours, sometimes skipping her tuition classes just to wander around with me. But something in me resisted. A voice inside kept screaming, *Kolmi, you’re making a mistake! A happy person is happy with any clothes, and a good person is good with any face. Someone who needs both a face and a mask—they can never truly be good. Leave while you still can. Save yourself.* But emotion conquered conscience that day. She would even use her friend to press her case, speaking through him as though her life would fall apart without me. Then one day I heard something from her about her mother—things that moved me so deeply, I felt such pity for her. And that pity became my ruin. Pity for the wrong person is a terrible, terrible thing. The cruel part? Those things she told me about her mother—they were lies. Now I understand why my instincts kept warning me. I had even blocked her everywhere—Facebook, Viber, WhatsApp, Emo—everywhere. That day she called me. She told me things happening in her life, and I felt so bad that I thought, *All right, let’s keep the friendship at least.* But friendship was never what she wanted. I see now that she was looking for sympathy, for compassion. Later I found out: those three or four hours she spent telling me everything that day? She had told it all to others too. And they had given her what she wanted.

Five months into our relationship, she fell in love with a girlfriend of hers. She told me about her. She described her beauty. She said that talking to me didn’t make her happy anymore, that there was nothing left between us to share.

His engineering studies—he couldn’t share any of it with me, he said. What was the point of being with someone who couldn’t understand his world? It hurt terribly to hear such things. As if he hadn’t known all along that I wasn’t studying engineering. So why hadn’t this mattered to him before? Yet I listened to everything he said with complete attention. Whatever he told me, I loved hearing it. Even when he spoke about his coursework, I listened. But then he fell in love again—this time with another girl, one who was studying electrical engineering. She went to some private university. If my father had money, if I hadn’t failed to get into Dhaka University, if I’d wanted to go to a private one, I could have studied there too. But this girl had someone else she preferred. Even knowing that, he felt some extreme level of emotion for her. Perhaps that emotion had started creeping in one or two months after we got together. Some people had told me as much, but I hadn’t paid much attention. Now I understand—that’s why he treated me with such contempt and neglect. Once a man catches sight of a palace, does he ever look back at a cottage? Perhaps I had been his cottage once, his refuge, his peace. But once a palace has taken root in his mind, it’s not easy to keep him bound by the charm of a cottage. He would push me away, then turn around and ask for forgiveness, setting everything right. There are people who feel no shame asking for forgiveness. And I, foolish as ever, would forgive him each time, thinking everything would be fine.

Those days were like living through the agony of death. I thought death itself might be easier than this. Our relationship lasted only five months. Brief as it was, he was the man I had loved. He meant more to me than my own suffering. But today I thank the Creator profoundly. He saved me before it was too late. That’s why I can still hold myself together with strength and patience. I have no contact with him. The person I couldn’t bear to be away from for a moment, the person around whom I had arranged every equation of my life—now that he’s gone, I’m doing just fine. In truth, no one is truly indispensable to anyone in this world. I won’t contact him ever again. It’s strange to think about. Once, the mere thought of having to distance myself from him would overturn my entire world; the sky would seem to crash down on my head, the ground would slip from beneath my feet. Today, without any contact with him at all, I’m doing wonderfully. I don’t need him to survive. What’s the point of shrinking myself before someone I don’t even need to live? I know now—he wasn’t the man of my dreams. He was the wrong man. There was nothing wrong with my love, but there was an error in recognizing the person I loved. The last time I heard he had a new girlfriend, that’s when I stepped out of his life. I understood then that waiting wouldn’t lead anywhere; it was time to go. Being an option in the life of someone I considered my own life—that’s worthless. The funny thing is, recently he’s found yet another girlfriend. She studies medicine at Rajshahi Medical College. She’ll graduate, become a doctor. She’s certainly far more worthy than I am. At least a doctor suits an engineer better than someone like me!

I’m just an ordinary girl—how could I have asked for something as extraordinary as ‘love’ from anyone? Though I never even wanted his love, really. I only wanted to be near him. There are these ridiculous, absurd rules in society about who belongs beside whom, who deserves whose love. Those without backbones, those for whom arithmetic matters more than the claims of the heart—they’re the ones who must live by these rules. I lost to those rules. In any case, the day I heard about his girlfriend, I didn’t scream or cry the way I might have. I wasn’t even shocked. I hadn’t listened to my own conscience before, so what happened was nothing less than what I deserved. But a storm was raging inside me all the same. And it felt as though someone was whispering in my ear: “Now it’s time for you to live. Live with some peace now. Stop looking down the wrong path, stop this wrong kind of waiting! Wake up. Live!” That day, I freed myself from everything, holding only to my faith in the Creator.
The Creator never wishes for His beloved creation to be destroyed. In one way or another, He always tries to save His creation. Throughout my life, at different times, I’ve learned courage and endured suffering through different people and events. During that painful time, I shared everything with one person in this world. Her name was Rumana Apa. She taught me that I could never again surrender myself, that it’s never too late in anyone’s life. I was blind then, so I needed someone to hold my hand and show me the way forward. Rumana Apa was that person. “Kolmi, we didn’t come to this world to suffer for someone and destroy our own life in the process. Human birth is rare, precious. Your emotions, your feelings, your sorrows—never let them become anyone’s plaything. For some people, another’s life is their favorite toy. You must always keep your distance from such people. They view human beings as showpieces. Once someone falls into their trap, they find themselves—without even realizing it—displayed in their showcase. There, alongside other dolls, they cry out, but no one hears. That cry never even leaves the throat—something forces them to swallow it before it emerges. Then with all their strength they try to free themselves from that shell, but it won’t break. They only fall again and again from their own struggle, bloodied, wounded. Even that bleeding goes unnoticed. Sometimes it gets too late. Then there’s no escape route left either! Come away, Kolmi. Free yourself. Or else you won’t even realize when you’ve become just another piece in that showcase.” These words from one of Apa’s letters were precious to me. Perhaps I already understood them myself, but hearing them from someone at that time was exactly what I needed. When you fall in love, you become a child, and a child only wants someone to explain the simple truth to them!
Now I’m doing quite well. He’s happy too, with someone new, with new dreams. Sometimes I wonder—what if I’d become a doctor or an engineer? Maybe my life’s story would have been different. But what would that have changed? I would have still ended up with the wrong person.

# Ah, if I had been a doctor or an engineer, perhaps I would have ended it all by my own hand! But what has happened is what was meant to be for me. The thought of suicide came many times, but I have lived for my family, and with the faith that one day a beautiful day would come. And for someone like Rumana Jaman Chowdhury—who doesn’t even know herself how powerful her words and kindness can be! She taught me that I have to stand on my own feet, for myself, for my family. As for love? Well, I suppose I’ve lived without it then. A person doesn’t get everything in one lifetime. I understand reality well enough now. Love may have no price in this world, but life—life always collects its due when the time comes.

I know it all, perhaps I understand it too. And yet there’s something, some peculiar ache that lingers somewhere. I wish—if only I could go back to the past and erase that person entirely. People leave our lives, yes, but life remains, and so does the memory of the one who left. If only I could have changed something! But I know that’s impossible. The past stays in the past—beautiful or ugly as it is. I see how those who can kill a soul so quietly and move on are doing just fine. Nothing haunts them. Not a thing. Now I watch their happiness in silence, see how they love each other so deeply perhaps. I want them to be well. Whatever fate holds for me, let them at least be happy! Not everyone in this world gets to be happy with the person they love. Let that be their fortune. Now all their friends know about their love. They’re a perfect couple, they say! And I think—my smile, which I yearned for my entire life, perhaps that smile died with the old me. This person is not the person I loved. How beautifully time changes everything. My days are beautiful now. Whatever else may come or not, I have my peace of mind. Something Rumana Auntie said brings me such comfort—whatever she does, she does for our good. We can only see the present; we don’t know what lies ahead, what’s good for us and what’s bad. Only she knows what will be good for us. If your intentions are right, then rest assured—whatever has happened to you has happened for your own good.

He used to say often, “Why not throw stones here and there? If one lands, so what? What’s the harm?” A highly educated boy can think like that! Of course, love means nothing much to him. As long as he can find a companion with a high degree, he can spend his life with her!

Sometimes, even now, I think of him and sit down to write many things—old habit, after all. But I stop. I don’t write. I think, why should I? I’ve lost all language somehow. If I happened to run into him one day, I’d startle him and ask: the things I gave you in deepest love—have you kept them safe?

“I know forgetting, remaining forgotten—both are very difficult things. To live in this life, we must go through things whether we wish to or not—and what we go through won’t be to our liking; that’s only natural. I know the pain you’re feeling now, and may feel later, you don’t truly deserve it. If people understood suffering, then perhaps it would be different.

Suffering has no eyes; suffering is blind. What you deserve, what you don’t deserve—that’s entirely your own reckoning. Life doesn’t run on that. What you’re getting is the truth. And the easier you accept this truth, the easier life becomes. You cannot erase the past from your mind simply by willing it away; as long as you live, the past will remain with you. Let it stay, then, but only if it doesn’t become a cruel murderer once again! Only you can save yourself from this murderous hand. To keep pulling yourself back from death’s grip, struck by the same blow again and again—that is what maturity means. Remember, grieve if you must, drown in sorrow if you must, but do not be destroyed. Grow. Don’t merely get older.

I sit in wonder, thinking how right Rumana Jaman Chowdhury truly is!