Thought: Seven Hundred Twenty-Two ............................................................... One. In those childhood days, I would roam from house to house all day long, getting scolded by my mother when I returned home at dusk. Under the pretense of going to school, my friends and I would slip into Anjali's garden and steal mangoes and pears in a gang, devour them with salt and chili, and return home right when school was letting out, as if we'd been there all along. From dawn to dusk, lost in games of blind man's buff and hide-and-seek, I'd grow weary as the day dissolved. I'd swim freely in the lily-laden pond by the neighboring lane, and when fever seized me at nightfall, I'd relish—truly relish—my mother's tender affection and caresses during my delirium. How I loved sitting by the riverside fishing with a rod, catching small fish in the marshes and bringing them home. It delighted me to muddy the pond in a fit of play, to face my mother's relentless thrashing for yet another theft—pears from someone's tree, tamarind from another's—swearing each time I'd never steal again, only to pilfer once more the very next day. That was the age for breaking oaths. When noon arrived, how I loved pestering my mother for four annas or a rupee for ice cream and candy. Those meager coins were a fortune then. Five rupees in my pocket meant the world: I am a king today! On full-moon nights when fireflies glowed, we'd all sit in circles on the courtyard, bathed in moonlight, listening to grandfather's tales of his youth, casting restless eyes toward the open sky, thinking to myself, 'Oh! When will I grow up? When...?' Now I've grown old. Along the way, I've lost those golden days of childhood. In my village, once ringed by shadowy trees, across that verdant map, a kingdom of brick and stone has risen. Beneath the harsh glare of two-hundred-watt bulbs lies buried that gentle, flickering glow of fireflies. Hide-and-seek, hopscotch, blind man's buff—all are dead, murdered by PUBG and its glittering cousins. Alas, an entire golden childhood of mine lies crushed underfoot, trampled beneath the wheels of modernity and mobile networks! Two. The words I speak to you—you don't understand them, do you? Not before, not now. Sometimes I think it would have been better had we never met. If you could grasp even some of what I say, I might find a shred of peace. I've spoken so much. Good things, bad things, everything. Sometimes directly, sometimes in hints. I've never told anyone else so much. Neither kindly nor unkindly. Regret! I couldn't make myself understood—neither myself nor my words. But it's alright...it doesn't matter. Whatever happens, it happens for the best, doesn't it? I truly think of nothing now. Everything that happens to me now is expected. There's no such thing as the unexpected anymore! Some situations in life defy all explanation. But I never knew that I'd have to learn each and every lesson this way—through bruising collision with reality. Sometimes it hurts, feels wrong, irritates, becomes unbearable, breeds regret, brings despair...and yet, sometimes it feels good too! I think, well, life has taught me so much...and so soon! I don't know what lies ahead. When a day passes, I think...good, one day less! People are very strange...terribly strange...truly! I'm often amazed. There is no creature on this earth more bewildering than humankind. I harbor no illusions that miracles will visit my life. So I must make do with life as it is. Accepting and adapting are not the same. Whether one succeeds at acceptance or not matters less than this—one *must* adapt. One must perform the act of adapting!
# The Plaster of Thought-Walls
To understand life, there is no content greater than life itself!
This love you’ve been showing me lately—it intoxicates me, yes, but far more than that, it terrifies me. I find myself thinking constantly: day by day, I’m growing accustomed to drowning in your love, and what becomes of me if that feeling of being loved should vanish from you one day? How am I to live then?
Three. Time changes. Circumstances change. Relationships change. People change.
With time’s passage, people’s conduct toward one another shifts according to circumstance, and slowly, imperceptibly, the relationship itself transforms.
Isn’t that so?
I knew such a time would come. Such a day. Such a moment. Yet I didn’t want to believe it. In the beginning, no one wants to believe these things; later, one is forced to.
It hurt then. It still does.
Before, at least I had the right to show my pain when something felt wrong. Now, even that is forbidden.
In the end, nothing was made clear—neither could I explain myself, nor could I understand.
But couldn’t the ending have been less terrible than this? Tell me, couldn’t it?
Endings often turn out well, after all…
Even if the time we spent together never became what I wanted, couldn’t the ending at least have been kind?
It wasn’t.
I know no miracle will happen. Still…
Sometimes I want so badly to know: what happened now, I accept it as consequence; but why did the beginning unfold the way it did, when the end was bound to be like this?
What I didn’t want to happen then—it happened. At the beginning and at the end, both times.
Yet I never imagined the cause or its aftermath could be so devastating.
I know nothing has been made clear even now—not the words themselves, but their weight.
It wasn’t explained then, nor is it now.
Because had it been explained then, this day would never have come,
and had it been explained now, my smile—already dead—wouldn’t be reserved for what comes after.
Nothing was made clear. Neither then, nor now.
If life were blank paper, wouldn’t that be wonderful?
I could write whatever I wanted with a pencil.
And erase it with a rubber whenever I pleased.
How wonderful that would be.
I could have escaped the slavery of habit!
I could have escaped becoming fate’s offering!
In any case, I’m saying all this—not for anyone’s sake, nor to make anyone listen to me. Simply… like this.
Yes, just like this.
Thought: Seven Hundred Twenty-Three
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One. Whether it is one-sided or sometimes mutual love, when love grows and crosses a certain threshold, that very love becomes poison.
This poisoned love—in the one who loves and in the one who is loved—makes both their lives unbearable!
Sometimes a person loves someone so intensely that they come to hate themselves fiercely for it!
Life is remarkably strange… even at the cost of hating oneself, one continues to love.
Two. A man who is both poor and foolish—if he is stubborn too, it hardly suits him. Stubbornness befits only two kinds of people: the rich and the intelligent.
Three. Affection is a difficult thing. Even more than love itself, affection draws people closer!
That uncle who sits at the corner of the street, in front of the school gate, selling pickles or ice cream—if he doesn’t come one day without warning, something lurches in your chest!
That dog neglected in front of the house gate, the one you see every day on your way, whom you’ve never even touched, let alone petted—when it suddenly dies, something stirs restlessly in your heart!
When the favorite teacup or coffee mug you’ve used for years breaks, and as you’re about to throw away the pieces, your heart seems to weep!
Sometimes there’s such profound affection even for the withered, dying plant in the vase…
# The Plaster of Thought-Walls
I weep in the dead of night—my chest heaving, aching—for someone I came to love but could never truly love. For that person, neglected again and again, my heart still breaks open in the darkness.
We promised to walk the whole of life together. The promise was broken. That beloved is now someone else’s. Yet there are moments when my chest threatens to split with such sharp, unbearable pain.
This tenderness—this *maya*—is a cruel thing. Crueller even than love. It binds people far more tightly than love ever could.
Sometimes, a person we’ve exchanged mere words with for two days begins to feel so intimately ours. Someone whose lips I could never bring myself to tell “I love you”—for that person, on some full-moon night my heart will throb and throb and keep on throbbing.
A person walks down paths under the spell of this tenderness without knowing where they’re going. They never once look back until they’ve gone too far. And through this tenderness alone, we find ourselves clinging to what is wrong, binding it to our chests as though it were precious. Man is a strange creature. He will never walk the path that whispers to him of freedom from this tenderness—not even if that path is the right one for him.
—
Don’t keep me. Don’t give me permission to leave either. When the time comes, stand in my place with a woman’s thoughts and ask yourself why I do as I do. You make me cry so much, yet you don’t beat me. And I’m fine too—I’m not dying.
Listen, won’t you? I love you. Just come once. How should I say it to make you come? I want to see you grow! Life demands so many things against our will. Even if it’s not in the name of any relationship, don’t deny another human this small, simple gift as a human being. If you give me even a little of your time, what loss is it to you? Time gets wasted in countless ways anyway.
All right then, save your time. Does neglecting me bring you comfort? Does it give you peace? Then fine. Go on neglecting me as you do every day, and keep finding your peace. Does it amuse you—the way I writhe, the way I cry like a child? It amuses me too. And surely there’s such pleasure in the neglect itself? Go on then. I’m watching to see how many kicks I can take. People don’t die from kicks, or so I’ve heard. Let me try and see what happens. I’ll come myself and beg for your kicks, for as long as I’m alive.
Be well, and I’ll be happy. Find your peace, and I’ll rest in peace too. If my message makes you laugh, laugh—and I’ll laugh from here as well. Don’t grieve over anything. You needn’t just kick me—spit on me if you wish, or vomit on me. I love you, so I can’t simply leave even if I wanted to. Every filthy thing in this world is my due.
Sorry. I asked you for your time. That was wrong. I don’t need anything. Four months ago I took a four-hour exam, and even that was painful. I was terribly restless. If I can’t sit still for four hours to take an exam, how did I manage seventeen months? How does that feel, do you understand? You know it’s not strange to you. I want because I love. How many times, in how many ways did you turn me out? Countless! And still I want. Whom do I tell all this?
I cry so much while writing like this. For such a small thing, look at what I’m becoming! I can’t ask for love from someone I don’t love. This isn’t a matter of credit or debt—it’s my limitation. Do you know how many days are in seventeen months?
# You won’t come, will you?
This loving, loving, and loving some more—I’ve worn down its very weight in the process. And yet, it brings me peace, they say. Bird, my bird, before I called you by that name, I never thought it through. Had I thought, I’d never have begun such a terrible summons! It never occurred to me that calling you a bird meant you’d fly away. Don’t go mixing this up with all the things I said before—everyone does that.
Let my laughter mock you, let it irritate you, let it seem unbearable, excessive, foolish, let me seem worthless to you, whatever you wish. All I want is this: no matter what I say, let this always be my final word—I love my little parakeet so very much!
—
**Five.** In any relationship, along with love, there must be good understanding. In this world, finding a person who loves selflessly is as difficult as finding someone who truly understands.
It’s true, one person cannot fully understand another—I accept that. What cannot be spoken cannot be understood, that’s right; but can everything that is spoken always be understood?
If, for the sake of well-being, those we love—whose love is reciprocal—must quarrel with us merely to explain that I want to live a little loved and well…I want to live my own way…at the very least, my well-being is essential for my mere survival, and for that your understanding of me is essential—then accepting this is not easy.
My only regret is this: in this whole world, perhaps I’ve found some who loved me, but not a single soul who understood me completely, as I am. Truly, understanding in a relationship is necessary, whatever kind of relationship it may be.
Between parent and child, teacher and student, lover and beloved, brother and sister, friend and friend, husband and wife, relative and relative…
Between society and reality, between morality and personality, between happiness and sorrow and life itself…
Between custom and humanity, between goodness and contentment…
Even between soul and body—
Understanding is essential, absolutely essential, in all kinds of relationships.
Without understanding in a relationship, even boundless love becomes, in time, a burden, a weight to bear. The heaviness is real! If one is to survive a lifetime without being torn apart by this conflict, being alive itself can come to feel, truly, like terrible punishment!
—
**Thought: Seven Hundred Twenty-Four**
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**One.** Sooner or later you’ll find someone, just you wait and see. All this time it was only you for me. Then my chest will be empty. I’ve given you my things—tell whoever you give them to, tell them indirectly that you are someone I cherish deeply, someone I hold dear and respect. Let them understand the value of that. Otherwise I’ll kill you both.
My whole year and a half of togetherness! Did it make you laugh to hear it? Let it—no problem. So many things happened, bit by bit. Do you remember, bird? The anger, the hurt pride, the love, the tenderness, the joy, the silly pranks, the irritations, the teasing and jokes, so much neglect, so many nights of weeping, all those nights sending long messages and crying, waiting for your reply till morning, breaking my oath after being scolded and knocking again, thinking I’d never see you again and standing outside your house at eleven at night still in my home clothes, your tears, my tears…and so much more.
Early on, you left for Cumilla without telling me once, didn’t come on Facebook for hours and hours, wouldn’t answer your phone, and I felt as though I was dying with worry.
# The Plaster of Thought-Walls
Then there are all those nights we stayed awake talking—the way you’d say this and that just to provoke me, drawing it out until dawn broke. So many memories like that! In the beginning, every morning when I woke, your message waiting: “Good morning, I love you..” How many feelings came with wearing vermillion and bangles, with you scolding me about the conch bangles, with me first calling you “tu,” then just the other day calling you “tum” for the first time, and sometimes even “aap”—saying whatever came to mind in the moment… I keep thinking of these things.
Taking photographs just to give them to you, those days of wearing a saree just to show you—I remember them so vividly now. Whenever my heart felt too heavy or too full, the first thing was to message you, teasing you about being old, calling you my bird, calling you my myna, calling you my baby elephant—each of these names carries its own meaning for me, its own world.
Everything comes back to me again and again. My world has crumbled! Though truly, it was always meant to. What becomes of a world built only in imagination? Only I know what happens! I have no proof of any of it. And in this real world, nothing exists without proof. I’ll accept everything for your sake. Be happy. You must be happy, truly happy, peaceful, at ease in your life.
And yes, to you, to those two or three friends of yours, I’m a stupid woman, a mad woman—I’m accepting it all. You’re right that I have no work, no aim, no shame. So be it.
Despite everything, I love you. Even if I say it a thousand times, the thirst to say it again will never die. The prayer you cannot make because of lack of time or will—I will make that prayer to God for you. You shed one tear for me; in return I will weep for you my whole life long. My little elephant, don’t worry about anything, don’t worry about me either. Everything will be alright.
—
**Two.** Listen, my friend—how many grievances do you have against this sullen lover of yours? Isn’t that so? Tell me. What I say is this: let that shameless girl go. From my side, there’s only one feeling reserved for girls like her—poor thing, alas, poor dear!
And you, lover—pack your bags beforehand, arrange an address to flee to. Once she leaves, even the very ground beneath your feet can truly slip away.
—
**Three.** —What precious thing did your beloved give you, that you can speak of it endlessly, all day long?
—The most precious thing my beloved has given me is nothing but the constant, daily gift of neglect, given to me with clock-like regularity!
—
**Four.** There are some people who form emotional attachments far too quickly. It could be anyone—in any relationship or no relationship at all. A rickshaw-puller, perhaps a teacher, or a neighbor. These things harm them greatly. Such bonds of affection, such one-sided love—it destroys them bit by bit, every single day.
—
**Five.** Can I tell you something? You know, one must prove everything to people! I mean, whoever you’re with in whatever relationship, you must constantly prove you’re the best at it, and keep surviving on that proof. Yet one can’t always give one’s best, no matter how much one wishes to. And if in the giving, even a drop falls short, you’re immediately made to understand that you no longer deserve to be there—so you must step aside.
But I cannot say that because I failed to give, I too am suffering—there’s simply no way to make anyone understand that; nor does it help to say that what I couldn’t give now, I will later explain in excruciating detail.
When I see all this, I’m genuinely bewildered. We name a relationship “love” for no reason at all, yet it’s nothing but a give-and-take transaction. And in the very greatest of relationships, the same thing happens! It makes me feel helpless even to think of it this way.
Anyway, I keep making you laugh by talking about emotions, and you couldn’t even offer me a dry thank-you now and then! By the way, don’t you think there’s something—love, I mean—between men and women in this world?
Six. Will you answer me one question? Not a hint, but a straight answer. Since you don’t want me to stay, why won’t you let me go? Believe me, I haven’t slept properly in over a year. I’m terrified. I’m exhausted. I don’t even know when I completely handed my control over to you. I freed you long ago, the moment you wanted it, perhaps even before. But I’m not getting my freedom!
The truth is, stepping away from love isn’t really all that difficult. But what’s happening here is something else entirely. If I could make you understand by telling you, you would understand—understand exactly why I do what I do. But explaining is out of the question; I can’t even speak of it. I know full well you won’t let me stay. Spare me your courtesy, brother. You say go, and I’ll go home and sleep. Sleep for days on end. My quota of neglect has been filled. And if no one in this world neglects me even a fraction more, the account will still balance—it won’t be extra, just exactly even. No sane person could speak like this. My hand trembles now, it hurts to write this much. Save me. I’ll pray to God (because that’s all I can do). Shall I go?
Listen, don’t you understand that I love you? Can I call you *tu* for a moment? Will it anger you to hear? If you can’t tell me to go, then let me stay. May I stay? I won’t ask for anything beyond your means. I irritate you. What else is there for me to do? I was teaching them. The brats have stopped studying and started singing instead. So I thought I’d write to you a little.
Reflection: Seven hundred twenty-five
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One. A man called Humayyun Faridi. Quite a remarkable person, isn’t he? He’s spoken some wonderful philosophical truths—utterly practical things. He’s experienced life in such a splendid way.
Strange sort of people, aren’t they! It surprises me sometimes. But here’s the thing: they never got stuck on anything. That’s why they could enjoy life in that manner.
He could leave Subarna Mustafa even after such great love—managed to do this difficult thing, and could do many other things too. As far as I know, he loved Subarna Mustafa dearly. They didn’t live together, but the love remained unbroken, that much is true.
Love doesn’t need togetherness to survive.
If love isn’t written in one’s fate, togetherness won’t help either.
The heart is a strange thing. No one has control over it. Someone may be exercising control, perhaps not actually, but performing it so convincingly that it seems real.
Yet some cannot even manage that.
# The Plaster of Thought-Walls
Some admit it, some don’t. Basically it’s the same thing. The truth is, it’s stuck…you can’t force it to stay…you can’t hold it! Nor should you.
Staying together by force, or keeping hold of each other, without spoiling the bond—so much better to simply let them be as they are. Whoever isn’t meant to stay, won’t. Whoever is meant to—they’ll never leave, even if they wanted to. That’s the real matter.
If someone can live well in their own way, let them—without harming anyone. Life itself is the greatest teacher! The things it teaches…circumstances teach a person everything.
In Western culture…the main focus stays on *life*—on making life beautiful, on thinking that way. For that, they craft all manner of rules and regulations. And us? We do the exact opposite! We prepare our lives *for* rules and regulations! Life isn’t our focus—it’s culture, decorum, propriety.
So those who’ve managed to transcend this—many can’t accept them, but no one could stop them. Breaking through the limitations your own mind sets up—it’s not always so easy. That’s the real problem.
To simply let go of the daily, habitual life of clinging to straws, to release it into the river’s current when asked—you just can’t. Sometimes it’s reality that stands in the way, sometimes circumstance, sometimes the hypocrisy of yourself or those near you. *That* is narrowness.
Whoever hasn’t faced a particular situation can never truly understand it. They either pretend to understand, or they lie, or they show sympathy. At best they can imagine, but they’ll never grasp it the way the person living it does.
Not everything can be explained. Not everyone can be made to understand. Sometimes, you can’t even make *yourself* understand.
Life is full of unexpected gifts…right? Such uncertainty, so many surprises, so many unthinkable situations…sometimes it feels strange just thinking about it!
You can never know what happens to whom or when. Each moment stands apart from every other. Every moment trains you in some fresh kind of experience. Here, past and present build a bridge between them, and across that bridge alone you must walk toward the future.
—
Two. I’m drawing kisses endlessly on your eyes. Don’t cry anymore. I’ve only just finished crying. Give me the burden of your tears. I’m quite good at crying, you know.
I get so cold. You hold onto my body—yours stays warm, I know. I can go to you whenever I please, just by imagining it. Resting my head on your chest while I sleep—I love that so much. Such peace there.
I’ll place my feet on top of yours. Tickle you—hee hee hee. You kiss my forehead. Caress me, with so much, *so much* tenderness. And don’t you ever caress anyone else like this, you hear? Or I’ll kill you.
All these things I’m saying—when you wake up tomorrow and see the message, don’t start lecturing me! I’m just imagining all this anyway. Sleep won’t come, so what else can I do? I’ll rest my head in your lap, on your shoulder. On your chest, your back, your arms—I’ll bite you gently, so gently. Your lips…they’re so precious to me…! Sometimes I’ll hold them in my mouth for a long time, won’t let them go even if you ask. Hee hee hee. I’ll bite them till they swell up completely!
Place your eyelashes on mine.
Touch my eyelids with your petals again and again…take me to heaven.
Listen, even if we never see each other, love me so much through messages that I won’t need love for the rest of my life! Does that sound foolish to hear? Let it! Who else will I be foolish with if not you? I’m mad, so what? I’m not mad with anyone else. Mad or stupid, whatever I am, you can’t leave me. I won’t let you go anywhere!
Three. Why are you offline? I don’t like it. You work and you write too, of course you’ll be busy. Listen, it’s not you I feel sorry for—it’s me. I just want to cry. Do you have anything to feel sorry about? Or do you lack people to feel sorry for? Why do I feel this way? You know, I’ve tried so many times to leave. Whenever I wanted to knock and walk away, I punished myself.
Last night I poured hot tea on my hand on purpose. A few days ago I fell and got cut in several places near my stomach. I rubbed salt and chili powder on them. It burned terribly, but not talking to you burns me more. At a college event, a girl in high heels forgot and stood on my foot—I didn’t ask her to move, deliberately. There was a lot of blood. It really hurt a lot. I endured it to test my own tolerance.
I’m not telling you these things to gain pity. I’m telling you that I’ve inflicted on myself every kind of physical and mental pain just so I wouldn’t turn back toward you. So tell me—why can’t I do it? Even my psychiatrist has given up hope on me. I desperately want to run away to a place where I could never talk to you again, where I couldn’t see you even in dreams, couldn’t touch you. Believe me, I’m not saying this for effect—I mean it truly. Really, it hurts me to cause you pain. If I say something careless or hurtful to you, even by mistake, I hurt first. That’s why I’m so careful with my words.
Do you know why I ask you to stay? I’m very afraid. I only ask God for a little sleep. I can’t sleep properly for even an hour straight—I’m afraid. I’m going mad, aren’t I? You understand everything, don’t you?
Thought: Seven Hundred Twenty-Six
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One. Will you stay with me? There’s no commitment between us, never has been. Will you just let me stay in name only? Everything I want, I’ll ask for in words alone—I won’t actually need to have them. When it’s time to leave, I’ll go, and you won’t have to say a thing. I won’t even message you every day, much less call. And I probably won’t want to see you either—just ask for it in words. I’ll listen to everything you say. Even if you scold me, I won’t say anything. I’ll just whine a little, that’s all. Will I stay? Can I stay? I’ll just be on this side of the mobile. Will you let me stay?
Have you ever noticed the cat near you when you’re eating? It can only meow, can’t speak. How many times it’s sent away, and sometimes the cat even gets beaten for meowing too much.
# The Plaster of Thought-Walls
Until the meal is done, if there’s a chance of scraps, the cat just sits and waits! Tell me, have you read Bankim’s story about the cat? Doesn’t it stir something in you? They only look at the food the people throw away, yet people discard it without giving it to them. They just sit there looking, unable to say a word. Later, driven by hunger, they steal. How long can one endure?
That’s me too, just waiting and looking. I’m only asking for the leftovers from your plate. Nothing extra. You’d throw that away anyway! So why can’t you give it to me? If it fills someone’s belly, would you just throw it away regardless? I promise to make myself smaller than a cat. Will you give me the scraps you’re about to discard? I’ve been asking since forever! Please, just give. What harm will it do? What more will you do with those old, picked-over bones anyway? Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t. Unlike a cat, I can’t even steal stale food. I’m lower than a cat!
I know you quite well, at least in some ways. I know full well that telling you anything won’t help. Still, I say it thinking—what if, by chance, something reaches you! And as for replies, forget about it; you walk right past my messages. Even so, I keep checking—did you see? Did you acknowledge? Your single letter means more to me than a thousand of my messages. If only I had even two pice worth of value to you!
Anyway, you know I can make people laugh really well, don’t you? Who else would tell you jokes at this hour of the night? Everyone has some talent or the other. Not everyone has the gift to make people laugh so late—some are simply born with that kind of ability.
You’ve left my life now. These days I’m very afraid. Your absence uses me in every moment. You don’t even talk to me anymore. Since I’ve known you, I’ve learned that silence owes words a tremendous debt!
Two. I already know that either you won’t even read my message, or if you do, you’ll send back something the way one replies to a foolish child. I don’t mind that. I have some things I need to say.
I got a new job—I probably didn’t tell you. Getting a job like this with just an intermediate certificate is almost impossible. My luck has been very good here. The salary is much more than before. I’m actually afraid seeing so much money. But the work is seven times harder than my old job. Most likely my studies will end at twelfth grade; I won’t get the chance to finish honors. It doesn’t matter. I’m happy anyway. Ha ha ha…
I’ve bought things for everyone. I bought several things for you too, searched hard for them. You get annoyed whenever I buy something. I never bought anything formally. I bought things just to see a small smile on your face. Because it’s money I earned myself, not money I borrowed from my parents. I thought you’d be happy. But you never were—you’d scold me instead.
Anyway, I don’t want to give you anything anymore. Even if we meet, I wouldn’t ask you to take it. If I don’t want to give, why am I telling you all this, right? I’m quite unwell.
Even in all this—the fact that I’m not lying in bed but managing such taxing work—brings me such peace, and I feel at peace speaking of it too, so I spoke. The things I’ve bought, I bought them with this very thought in mind: that I wouldn’t be able to give them to you. I’ll keep the gifts with me for some days, then pass them on to others.
Three. But why am I talking so much? I should have left long ago, you know. You know how I am—whatever I do, I try to show anger…but it lasts at most two days. And now it’s come down to ten minutes! I may have become a bit difficult, but surely you won’t treat me with such cruelty because of that? It’s absurd!
Do you know you’re a heartless person? I’m afraid I’ll go completely mad for you someday! I can see this quite clearly. I can’t forget you for even a moment. What does all this mean? Sometimes I’m so angry with myself! Why must I keep remembering you like this?
It’s certain that I’ve become addicted to you at the final stage. Completely, fully addicted. I can sense it.
I’m mad already, I can tell…and in just two years I’ve reached this state. After a few more years I’ll be utterly, completely mad for you! And you’ll remain as cruel as ever!
They say affection diminishes with time! But no…every single day I find myself loving you anew! What is it about you? Tell me.
*If ever this extraordinarily beautiful city of love should vanish,*
*May love find shelter in a ruined new city,*
*And may you remain, O enchantress, as a symbol of immortality!*
Four. Actually, I often forget who I am, where I stand. Rights are such a thing that even if obtained through error or deception, they become a habit of sorts. Then one can’t quite let them go.
Yet a lie is still a lie! I should keep that in mind. Yes, I will. Making or hearing many things in jest is never the same as truly taking them to heart.
In the end, everything remains confined to this messenger’s theatricality. I forget this sometimes too. I relate fantasy to real life.
I’m truly such a fool! O God, I am sorry, aren’t I?
Five. In love, we willingly embrace a kind of bondage—sometimes even unknowingly, in our subconscious. But this too has an end. Worn down by blow after blow, even this comes to an end eventually.
Nothing in this world is indestructible. Life itself is not indestructible, so how could anything else be…
Yes, though love may seem indestructible on the surface, the bondage willingly embraced in love, through loving, is not indestructible. Sometimes, as sorrows accumulate, they build such a mountain of resentment that under its immense weight, even this system of bondage grows weary and surrenders.
And then comes eternal liberation! But that liberation is not joyful! It is liberation drenched in pain, soiled with anguish, bloodied, scarred! Love is the only prison where captivity itself is supremely desirable. There, bondage is truth and nature; liberation is not!
Oh, how strange a thing love is! It shatters all rules and conventions, arrives like a tempest, and in mere moments sweeps away all the world’s hesitations and restraints!
**Reflection: Seven Hundred Twenty-Seven**
………………………………………………………….
One.
# The Plaster of Thought-Walls
Sometimes it occurs to me that one should not love anyone so entirely that if they ever leave, you cannot bear it and must stop living altogether.
Perhaps it is better to love with a little distance kept between. Life is not such a fragile thing. It is a gift from God, placed in this world through the hands of godlike people—like one’s mother and father. How can such a precious gift become meaningless simply because one person walks away? What sense does that make?
Is such love even right, truly? The greatest problem of mankind is this: people become so busy and desperate to love others and to receive their love in return that they forget to love themselves entirely.
Is that not also too much?
And yet, can anyone keep themselves properly intact? Is there any such thing as right and wrong, proper and improper in love? Does love obey any logic or reason? Love simply happens—that is all there is to it.
Can one love while calculating what will happen if they do, or what if they don’t?
Love is such a feeling that not even a nanosecond before it arrives can you sense it coming. Love is such a feeling that it lies utterly beyond explanation.
How it feels to love cannot be told and understood through words. To understand it, one must experience it oneself. Love is not a feeling one can explain to another. Love can only be experienced. How can you make someone who has never loved understand what love truly is?
—
**Two.** I have begun to live on the remembrance of your love, a little more each day,
If ever fate’s game should call me away on some wayward path,
Then let this joy—this living-by-the-thought-of-your-love—
Remain as debt entered in the ledger of accounts.
I sent a paper boat upon the water, bearing your name,
When it reaches the shore, do not turn it back, I beseech you!
Keep me alive through the diary of love—
Let me live by its pages, and let those pages keep me alive.
—
**Three.** In all this world, no one will be at once happier and sadder than I am, if what I am now beginning to understand—though I never wished to—proves true, or if the true context of this feeling becomes wholly real.
What might have happened had things been otherwise, I do not know. But in this moment, I am the most helpless person in all the world, for I do not know whether what I feel now, what I have come to understand from countless events, is truly what it seems. And yet I lack the audacity to place myself at the center of these events and think myself so important.
My only prayer is that some of my thoughts might never prove true. Though my own tears lighten my own burden, the tears of the person most dear to my life—the one without whom I cannot pass a single moment—never lighten anything. Instead, they place me in a state as ghastly as death itself.
This suffering cannot be borne. The wellbeing of a beloved can make one forget one’s own suffering. But the suffering of that same beloved can never allow one’s own wellbeing to truly be well.
—
**Four.** The Bollywood actress Rekha dearly loves to compose and recite poetry, though she rarely displays this remarkable gift publicly and keeps it as hidden as possible. Some verses from her own collection, recited in her own voice, I find extraordinarily moving. When you listen to them, you feel that without her voice and the particular way she speaks, it would be impossible to call those verses poetry at all. You can find them easily on YouTube.
# The Plaster of Thought-Walls
At different times, in praising various celebrities or stage performers, he would employ his poetic flourish—his gift for the *shayeri*. I have been attempting to translate into Bengali some of his favourite verses, which I have heard from his own lips on different occasions.
*What you wish to say, speak it out—*
*do you know the shame of silence?*
*This, my dear, is love’s secret,*
*but do you truly know love’s secret?*
*There is a vast difference, O lover, in the giving of the heart and the taking of it.*
*Even knowing the surface of affection,*
*do you grasp the delicacy of this bond?*
This *shayeri* was rendered by Rekha in the film *Umrao Jaan*:
*Now that you stand before me, I remember nothing,*
*else there was surely something I needed to tell you,*
*something I can no longer recall at the sight of you.*
In Yash Chopra’s remembrance, these words fell from Rekha’s lips:
*Love someone so completely*
*that no desire for any other love remains.*
Once, in an event celebrating Shah Rukh Khan, the renowned Urdu poet Gulzar—through Rekha’s voice—gave us these lines:
*Have you ever seen the soul? Felt it?*
*Burn the body a hundred times, it remains but dust,*
*yet if the soul burns even once, it becomes gold.*
*Have you ever seen the soul? Felt it?*
—
**Thought-Wall Number Seven Hundred Twenty-Eight**
One. I no longer wish to know anyone intimately. To watch someone too closely, to understand them and all their deeds too deeply—it no longer appeals to me.
Distance is better. If bitterness tastes sweet from afar, what harm is there? At least one need not suffer the pain of calling it bitter when it draws near! That itself is good.
Sometimes distance itself is the greater blessing.
# The Plaster of Thought-Walls
To call a beloved person the wrong person—the unbearable pain of that—compared to which, the ache of this visible distance hardly seems fierce at all!
When one must draw near and convince oneself that the beloved is the wrong person, distance becomes preferable to that closeness. Far preferable.
Yet in that distance, one retains the freedom to call the beloved one’s own. There, at least, one is spared the obligation of strangling one’s feelings into silence.
No one truly wishes to know anyone closely! Certainly not the beloved. Because when the beloved draws near, they cease to be close. The beloved is never truly intimate. More often than not, closeness destroys what was beloved—the near and the dear move in opposite directions. A person may be dear, but they cannot, in any real sense, be near.
From a distance, one can see, think as one wishes, and remain well. That is what is good. To come close and suffer—it is unbearable. The pain is too much. So the more distant the beloved, the dearer they remain, the more truly one’s own.
I often feel myself the most helpless creature in this world. I do not know if I truly understand myself. There are many things I think that perhaps no one else thinks, things perhaps I myself am nowhere near in substance.
Sometimes it seems my well-being is a kind of hypocrisy. I am not truly well. Sometimes I think I am excessively introverted. Other times I think I am foolishly confusing myself with my own writing, overthinking, needlessly. This is perhaps not what I am truly thinking.
Yet I cannot accept this entirely: is a person’s writing only writing? Does their mind never reflect itself, even partially, in what they write? My path and my letters’ path are not one. I am not as my writing is.
I cannot insist with certainty on what I feel. This makes me feel even more helpless.
Still, I wish with all my heart, and pray regularly, that my beloved ones be well. Truly well, as the word means. Let them have that goodness alongside whoever brings it to them. May those who care for them, and whom they care for, always remain well, always sustain them.
They need not believe these thoughts of mine—that is another matter. But this is what I wish always. Whatever troubles come into their lives, whatever suffering they endure—none of it changes this wanting-good for them. I do not expect them to wish me well in return, or do something for me in exchange. I have tried—it does not work that way in me.
Whatever colour the kite may be, it will fly in the sky of whoever it was bought for. This is the natural law, the rule of this society, a sort of sacred duty.
And yes, buying the kite itself is compulsory. This is either helplessness or, sometimes, grace. Often one sees that even if you do not buy a kite for yourself, you must buy one for your beloved, for those you love. Then you must applaud as their kites soar in their sky.
To live in this life, one must know how to clap—at one’s own joy, or at another’s. Life is nothing but a series of acceptances.
# The Plaster of Thought-Walls
No miracle of any real significance happens here.
Two. The day you understand how deeply I loved you, you too might wish, perhaps, to ask time itself to give back that moment—the moment of us becoming *ours* together. I carried resentment too…I had carried it. Seven and a half billion people on this earth have no idea how many times you nearly left me drowning in your hurt—but just as surely, you could never have known that among those seven and a half billion, I never once lost you. Not once.
Has anything ever been completely lost from life till now? Or could it have been, even then?
That I withered away every night in the hunger of your love—can even that particular night make me weep separately now?
Think back: your bank account wasn’t full then either, yet my chest was brimming with sorrow. Your wish for goodbye today is simply the true reward of my love’s failure.
Not trying to forget you, but rather—I had already forgotten you even while making mistakes about you! That’s all the indulgence of sorrow is…today, time grows terribly scarce.
Three. Whatever injustice I have done to myself all these years, or am still doing—in that crime, I am guilty, at least a little.
In trying to keep everyone well, in loving everyone, I forgot to keep myself well through loving myself—I likely don’t even notice this anymore.
Not through injustice to myself, but by giving myself even a little priority, by protecting myself each day with great care—this is what one must learn to do.
It’s the Creator’s promise to nurture people…it falls to people themselves to help fulfill it. As time passes, this responsibility only grows, duty grows with it—but one’s own wellbeing doesn’t grow alongside. If you’re this false to yourself, nothing good comes of it. You must keep yourself well. You must spend time and money on yourself.
Not only in keeping everyone else well, but in keeping yourself well too…you must be responsible to yourself.
Walking along the shore of life, gathering shells of illusion, don’t let love itself get buried beneath the weight of that very illusion…
Four. Why does it take only a second to remember someone living nearly a thousand miles away?
How can there be such visual distance between two minds, yet their breath suddenly ring in your ear?
Why does something said a year and a half, or two years ago, feel as though you’ve just heard it?
Why does a beautiful moment seen in a dream suddenly align with reality?
Five. Not everyone deserves everything, do they? When you love someone who doesn’t even know how to love, who understands nothing of what trust means—and you lose that trust through loving them—then at least dying while keeping faith is sheer foolishness.
No one like that deserves the kind of importance that asks for life sacrifice. Before casting pearls before swine, one should think at least once.
Yet sometimes circumstances become such that there’s nothing anyone can do! Then the fault isn’t one-sided, nor even two-sided. Some things simply cannot be brought within the scope of judgment. Is this destiny? Who knows! Strange, isn’t it? Tell me?
Believe me, I can’t arrive at simple conclusions anymore. Too many factors come into play on their own. When you place yourself, one by one, in the shoes of everyone involved in an event, a thousand realities unfold before your eyes, and then judging right from wrong becomes trivial, and you feel unworthy to be a judge.
Why write all this? Let me tell you the truth.
I abandon the whole world’s work for this: to see you. Desperately. Perfectly. With tenderness. With eyes soft as affection, I want only to see you. There is no one else in this world worth loving—you eclipse all others. And here is the strange grace of it: not having you, never possessing you, and yet I love you more fiercely still. I love you truly! Promise me you won’t leave. Don’t go from me. I’ve said it now.