Thought: Eight Hundred Fifty-Five ……………………………………………………… One. Every word I write has become you. How is it you've merged so completely with my suffering, my anguish? Sitting within me, you comprehend my life more deeply than I do myself, you understand the things I've left unspoken. I write everything sensing you—as if you were writing through me! How is this possible? The more I know you, the more I'm simply amazed... I would live for nothing else but to love you. Do you ever truly feel that this journey of mine could serve as an example for someone else? Am I really moving forward in my life in that way? You think about my writing, you give it time, and so the question arose. The truth is, I never think about things deeply; I write to escape my suffering; I've only been running, and I'm still running. Your attention to my words has birthed something reflective within me. All those events in this life that I've been trying to suppress—from now on, I will try to write them all down. Listen, sometimes I desperately want to have you near, but in that very moment it becomes impossible. What do I do then? I write you letters. My letters are the companion to my solitude. These days... I fear I'm troubling you greatly! In trying to burden you, I've neglected myself. I'm thinking—I won't trouble you so much anymore. From now on, when I remember you, I'll simply write, write and write, and keep it all to myself. You are an odd, radiant smile upon my shattered, fragile life! I am entirely yours, everything I have is yours. An odd smile upon a shattered fragile life, the classical union of hunger and joy—even if I touch you, touch you endlessly, I know you are beyond touch. Yet some moments are pursued by sleepless nights, and sometimes you become a terribly secret weeping. That weeping bloodies both memory and happiness. I say 'I love you,' saying it, saying it, but somewhere I halt—before I can break through my own stillness, you dissolve into a mirage! I understand: somewhere clouds have gathered. 'I love you' is no longer spoken! You know, when you touch me, I forget the entire world! The one I nurture constantly within my chest will never make me their destination; by day's end, they return to their own. Society's rules are terribly cruel! Perhaps your world doesn't know that even with locks hanging on the door, the gates still open, and right then, the heart's yearning shows the way through every path! One day I will bring you to me, openly, so I can love you. This is called 'will.' If I err, please dismiss it entirely and say nothing more to me. When you speak like that, I myself fall into doubt. I have no need to please you, just as you have none to please me. So in this place I seek something genuine, authentic—your true opinion. Isn't that only natural? Everything I say and feel comes from being a victim of circumstance. This is why I'm trying to understand life through your eyes. Much of it will align with my own thoughts, some won't. I'll contemplate those things, and you contemplate them too.
# The Plaster of Thought-Walls
To remain with you is a joy for me. This remaining, this staying—it is another name for turning back again and again toward one’s own life. A chance to truly live, even! Before I met you, I never knew how to sink into solitude. You scold me sometimes; I think of you constantly. I have so much to do, yet I forget it all and see only you. Tell me yourself—what do you gain by hurting a lucky woman like me? Think I’m foolish if you must!
There is no fault in things that serve people, that harm no one even a little. And yet you don’t say ‘I love you’ to me of your own accord—I have to draw it out! Should I laugh or cry? The one I love, I keep telling him, say ‘I love you’! Even if he doesn’t love me back, I love him. After I say ‘I love you,’ it’s all right if you don’t say it back.
I can feel that you love me. If you felt nothing of the sort, then I would know my love falls short. Around you there is an aching tenderness in me, and from that depth, a certain emptiness. I have such a strong pull to touch you, to reach for you, that these complaints come without reason. The ground where two people’s love stands is not the same for both. We respect each other—and there is nothing greater than that.
Come, let us die together before we finish living!
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Two. When suffering comes, I do not flee from it—I feel it through. Suffering has never broken me; instead, it keeps building me. To destroy me, you would have to kill me outright. There is no other way. When I feel utterly alone, when what is happening in my mind cannot be written out, then I want only to end myself. But to write it all down—that is joy.
Whatever becomes of me, let my whole life belong to you. May you live until the very last moment before the world perishes. No power exists that could break the person I am. I understand this in many ways. You remain always safe from all that is wrong.
Don’t speak to me of death. Every life matters—every life that has hurt no one and yet continues. You yourself don’t know what strength you carry just by being alive! Don’t entertain such hollow thoughts. Rather, let some of my years pass into you. We shall pray for each other—that we remain well, that we remain good.
Between us in my heart are countless things the world knows nothing of. How we spent our time together—only the Creator knows. I trust no one in this world, and yet I find myself wanting to trust you. In this life I have never harmed anyone, not until now. How many days are left? I want to spend what remains this way.
I don’t know how much I can make you understand, how much of me you will truly grasp. When the time comes, I will share the story of my life with you. People have caused me suffering, struck me, burned me deeply. And yet in all circumstances I have remained myself, as I do now. I only want to see what people do to me, and how far beyond it I can go. I only try to ensure that when people look at me, they cannot see what lies inside. If one day someone truly understands what is within me, from that day forward, they will find it easier to try to defeat me.
The curious thing is that those who once thought me weak, saw me as solitary, and tried in various ways to harm me—harassed me, troubled me day after day—they now walk in the opposite direction when they see which way I’m headed. This quiet yielding of theirs, this bowing down without words, brings me a kind of mental peace. My life is not ordinary, yet my strangeness has never harmed anyone.
I have never loved anyone, never entangled myself with anyone. Only wondered: what if my presence caused them trouble? My path, the way I’ve lived—everything is so difficult, so complicated. Even if my heart desired it, I cannot blend easily with someone, cannot walk beside someone. There are a few people in my life who love me without any ulterior motive, who care for me, who respect me. I try, in turn, to honor them.
When you say “man,” I’ve begun to understand you. When you say “trust,” that too is you. And if love is something that exists, then it’s you as well…the thought of losing you terrifies me so deeply that I feel I’ll lose you even before I’ve truly had you. Often I think: everything that was simple has become complicated now.
Perhaps I don’t even have the right to love anyone. A futile life!
I need to cry. I’ll cry for a long time. If I can’t cry, restlessness will gnaw at me constantly. Life has taught me this is the only way to calm myself in any circumstance.
I’ve never brought my own suffering to anyone’s door. If I hand my pain to others, I cannot rebuild myself. I carry with me all that I’ve lost, all my suffering, all my humiliation. These are my strength. But now when my heart aches, you come to mind. Isn’t that what love is?
A Thought: Eight Hundred Fifty-Six
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I love you based on what I feel. I cannot do otherwise, because I’ve never walked any other path. Except for my studies, I’ve never really pursued anything else. My mind turns in no other direction, holds no other notion. I can feel you only as much as I can feel, and you see exactly that much of me. So if ever I make a mistake somewhere, it’s your task to set me right. That is your responsibility.
Every mistake you’ve mentioned to me—I’ll remember each one, never forget. Once you’ve said something to me, it stays. You needn’t repeat yourself. Even a small word from you holds great meaning for me. What I can do, I’ll say yes to; what I cannot, I’ll say no. There is no artifice in me. That’s why even forced, pretense doesn’t sit right with me.
Tell me, one thing keeps turning in my mind. By now you must understand—I’m foolish, there’s nothing in my head. I’ve said it myself: I can do nothing but study and paint a little. So why do you sometimes ask me to write? Are you trying to get me used to the work of reading books?
Don’t forget to write to me. When I don’t hear from you, I feel terribly unsettled. There’s something I need to tell you: nothing orderly ever comes from me, and if I have to compose myself to do something with you, one day perhaps I’ll lose the courage to love at all. I cannot survive anywhere by being something I’m not. I love the way you think. That’s why I love you—because you’re capable of thinking this way. Otherwise, is there any shortage of men?
We live with certain realities that, out of cowardice, no one admits to. Instead, we cover up so much of what we’ve lived through with invented this-and-that. When you can think clearly, seeing reality from so close, when you stand in that place—your thoughts pull me toward you from there.
On Facebook, I only watch cultural videos and paintings; I don’t really read much besides your writing. If I didn’t have to rush through studies and sketching, I would try to read many books, many authors, and I would give you feedback on every piece you write with such care. You wouldn’t have to ask me for it. Since I’ve been seeing you, sometimes I can’t even understand myself.
One by one, all the familiar faces from my life are falling away behind me! Only you remain, standing very clearly in every place. Is this my fault? I don’t want to love anyone this much, so now I’m afraid—if this madness, this emotion ever returns as pain, I don’t know what I’ll do. It’s not your fault. My whole life, even in crowds, I’ve felt terribly alone. Then you came, and somehow everything changed!
I’m not what you see me as. However hard I try, I can’t show you who I really am! It’s causing me a certain kind of pain. If I ever see you suffer, I can’t bear it. I keep thinking: isn’t it enough that I’m suffering alone? Why must you suffer too? Then I feel guilty, guilty. I blame myself for your pain.
I don’t want any wall between us. Suddenly, it occurs to me: why are you putting up with me? I love you, I like you—I understand that much. But I want to know why you’re going along with all of this. This question has come to me many times, but there’s never an answer. I miss you, and I keep on missing you. It makes me want to cry so terribly.
When I miss you so much, I scold you as I please. Tell me, who else should I scold? My heart doesn’t ache for anyone else—it aches for you, so it’s you I scold. I’m not doing any of this deliberately; it just happens on its own! What can I do? Tell me. Among all these people, you’ve come and left me alone. And yet even if I wanted to, I know you can’t come to me whenever you wish. But when you do come, even if I wanted you to leave, you can’t go back anymore.
# The Plaster of Thought-Walls
Turning all these things over in my mind leaves me heartsick, and that’s why I’m angry with you. When thoughts come to me, if I don’t write them to you, my heart grows heavier still, heavier and heavier. All right then, go. I won’t treat you that way again. I’m sorry…. But this very thing I just said—that I won’t do it—I have no real control over that. Still, I’ll try very hard. Sorry again.
There’s something about you: you never say anything plainly. You twist your words so much that I genuinely cannot understand. When I want to know something, you never give me a straight answer. It infuriates me. In my anger, I write whatever comes to mind and send it to you. Then you grow angry too. After that, I’m angry with myself. What is all this, really? What causes it? Well, should I sit here inventing reasons if there are none to begin with?
You say nothing to me. You hardly ever get angry. And that makes me furious too. You’re not angry, and here I am quarreling about that! How strange! I really will go mad! Damn it all! I’ve been mad for a long time now—what’s the harm in it continuing? Of course, it’s better that you don’t get angry. Since I still can’t quite understand you properly, if you grew angry it would feel impossible to reconcile with you, and then I’d fret and fret until I stopped eating and sleeping and doing anything at all.
I dream that you’ll walk far into the world. I’ll point to you and tell people: if you mention my name to them, they’ll remember me. Won’t that be wonderful? I am beside you, and I will remain so. The fact that I can touch you—in that alone, I can walk very far. I never thought I would love anyone, believe in anyone. But look—I’m moving toward you on a kind of blind faith.
Watching you, I see that many people who carry great importance have become utterly insignificant to me now. Let my sufferings stay with you. I want to set aside so much else and hold only you. I will be here. You will be here too. And our creations will be with us. Along the thread of that creation, the two of us will walk together.
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**Thought: Eight Hundred and Fifty-Seven**
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Where I cannot approve of everything about my own mother who bore me—how then can I expect that everything about a person who doesn’t even know me will be to my liking? How is it their responsibility to make me happy? Why should it be? Are they in my employ? Do we share that level of friendship or understanding?
Even if I like someone very much, I must keep this in mind: which qualities in them do I actually like? If those qualities didn’t exist in them, I wouldn’t merely dislike them—I wouldn’t know them at all! There may be many aspects of them that displease me. But those aspects are part of who they are! Perhaps if I removed those parts, the person would lose those very things I admired. If the person I admire has no personal relationship with me, then I must remember this: they may not actually be a person I like—they may only be someone whose work I admire. The person I like and the person whose work I like are not the same thing. I do not probe into or dwell upon every aspect of a person I truly like. Never.
# The Plaster of Thought-Walls
From whoever has something good to offer, I take just that much. Beyond it, how they are or what they do—I lose no sleep over it. Must everything about me please my mother? And who is closer than a mother? Why should everything I am have to please you? Are you more intimately mine than my mother? Or is there some gain for me in winning your approval? If you decide to dislike everything about me because you dislike one aspect, then don’t come whining about it. Did I call you over and over, pressing you to come? The door you entered by—it’s still standing open.
Facebook is a theater of pretense. No one there is quite as they appear. I know plenty of devils who pose as angels on Facebook. I know genuinely wonderful people whose behavior online is quite dreadful. How can I form opinions about someone without even mixing with them, in a place where people cannot truly be known? Facebook is the modern mask-wearing ground for humanity. Nothing more. People do not show themselves as they truly are. For countless reasons—valid and trivial—people present themselves in countless ways. Without direct encounter, you cannot honestly say anything about anyone.
When I like someone, I generally don’t draw near them. Because they may not like me back. If I go close and they push me away, or if something they do wounds me, then I might suffer for it. So fear keeps me distant. A person and a person’s creations are entirely different things. Completely different. What use is it to me to know what someone is like? Am I about to marry them, that I must brood over it so intently? Will I be damned for their misdeeds? Am I their schoolmaster? Am I their boss? If liking someone comes with the condition that they must always behave as I prefer, then there’s no need for me to like them at all.
Liking, love, affection—these are mental afflictions. Why should someone else bear the weight of my troubles?
Facebook’s true name is Fakebook! Judging someone by what they do there is utterly impossible. People wear masks for necessity; sometimes, for the sheer pleasure of it, they wear them needlessly. If you lack the vision to distinguish between mask and face, you’re in trouble! Say someone buys a literary book, takes a photo of it, and uploads it to Facebook. If I then ask, “Are you planning to pursue a PhD?”—well, they might bristle, thinking: buying a book costs money, requires desire. That has to do with book-buying itself, not reading, and a PhD is light-years away! Or they might think I’m being condescending. How they take me is their affair. But asking about someone’s household affairs when I don’t even have permission to enter their home—that’s hardly courtesy. Here I am, a complete stranger who hasn’t even bought them those books, and I’m presuming to inquire into their personal business. On what grounds?
When someone buys books on the philosophy and psychology of suicide and uploads their pictures, must I still ask, “Brother, when are you planning to do it? Just let me know! If I find out, I’ll board the first-class train straight to heaven!” You might say: what’s the harm in asking? What’s the harm in telling? Yes, you’re right. There’s no harm for you. But there might be for them, mightn’t there? Or should they bear the risk of landing in trouble just to please you? Beyond harm, there’s also offense. How can we ever know from a distance what might disturb or embarrass another person? And here’s another thing: never thrust yourself in front of someone and say, “Brother, I’m quite fond of you; therefore, you must live this way, that way!” Whether you like them or not—if it means nothing to them, why would you spout such nonsense? Do you truly have nothing else to do? Or have you no sense? Or is it that you have everything but lack shame? When you like someone, hold onto that one reason you like them. They didn’t arrive in this world bearing the responsibility of being your complete package of preference!
You cannot ask anyone—stranger or not—about anything personal. You may like them, but you still cannot ask. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind if someone unknown asked you that same thing, but they might. Will you decide for them what upsets them and what doesn’t? What you could speak about for hours without consequence, a mere whisper from them might land them in serious trouble. Will you then come to rescue them from that trouble? You won’t even be findable then. Or if you are found, you might lack the power to save them anyway! It is far better to understand a fox’s contempt and stay vigilant than to suffer the love of an ass and fall into ruin.
If you dislike someone, avoid them. If you don’t care for them, don’t look their way. If you don’t look at them, neither they nor you will be left standing in the street.
If you like someone, you won’t like everything about them. If someone makes you like all of themselves—and only because there’s money in it, or some purpose is served, or there’s some compulsion—then they can dance before you as you wish. Otherwise, don’t expect it of them.
Never ask anyone about personal matters unless they give you permission or there’s genuine intimacy between you both.
If you dislike someone, they don’t cease to exist. So there’s no use in marketing your dislike like a fly buzzing around their ears.
Almost everything you see on Facebook is a mask. If you don’t know someone personally, you may never get the chance to see their real face. Never verify a face by looking at the mask, nor disbelieve a mask by looking at the face.
To follow your way leads to immortality; to follow my own mind and live seems more pressing for me. Keep this in mind if you come to my wall, and if you cannot keep it in mind, do not come.
If pride is the root of ruin, and if I am proud, then should I fall, I shall fall—not you. There is no need for you to weep over it.
I owe no accounting to those I am not obliged to answer to, and I will never offer one in response to their words; rather, I grow deeply irritated. To explain myself to every Tom, Dick, and Harry is to render myself endangered and miserable.
Before the senseless, the shameless, the discourteous—if you display humility, civility, decorum, and the like, you invite trouble. They do not deserve such things. I have taught students for many years. I know very well: dress a monkey in trousers and a shirt, and it will still need the cane.
Here is good news for you all! To grasp what I’ve said above, you need not be a rocket scientist! You possess all the modest intelligence this requires—every bit of it already sits in your head! Thank you!
Reflection: Eight Hundred Fifty-Eight
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One. Just as there is danger in baring your body before one before whom it has no business being bared, so too is there danger in laying bare your heart before one before whom it has no business being laid bare.
Delete it at once and show no one, ask no one to help—absorb it the moment you hear it and tell no soul—there is little difference between these two.
Two. I bought some books. You may see them.
My thanks to Roupyarup, Bangladesh’s largest and most trusted online jeweler for silver ornaments. Every book I’ve bought these past months, I’ve bought them thanks to the courtesy of my younger brother and his wife’s silver ornament online shop, Roupyarup. Indeed, even the fees I must pay Streamyard so that you can all enjoy my career chats for free—Roupyarup covers that too!
Now tell me: should I not promote the very institution that sponsors my labor of love? Should I instead dance to your tune? Note well: any negative comments about Roupyarup, or any frivolous laughing reactions, shall result in immediate and careful removal from this page. Mindless frolicking on my wall is forbidden. If you have idle time on your hands and wish to frolic, go frolic elsewhere.
Books cost money. Career chats cost money. These things require sponsors. Money does not rain down from the moon. I mention my sponsor on my page—as much as I please. If this is hard for you to bear, there is no need to force yourself to bear it. All options for not bearing it lie open before you. Thank you.
Three. Whether people praise me or condemn me, I am amused.
Where no one is indispensable to our lives, there arises no question of tolerating the unnecessary.
Show weakness, and you will be struck!
Four. The pain a creative person endures in making something can be compared to the pangs of labor. The difference is: labor pains bring physical agony, and the one giving birth can cry out and say, “I am in great pain!”
On the other hand, the infinite mental anguish of creating something—this compulsion to rearrange, to shift it here instead of there; to reshape it, make it look better; to question whether this scene should be cut out? No, leave it, it’s fine as is; but I could do better; why, despite all this thinking, does nothing good come to mind; I’ve been sitting here all this while, and yet I can’t seem to draw anything worthwhile—these relentless blows and counterblows of thought are in no way less painful than the pangs of childbirth.
The creative person cannot cry out, “I’m struggling terribly to give birth!” and so this suffering goes unseen. Instead, if they dare share it with an ordinary person, they’re met with derision: “What’s all this drama about, friend? It’s just a small task—I could do better if I wanted to. But why would I? If there’s no money in it, why bother? Where’s the time? You think I’m a fool?” I’ve even received a comment beneath my writing: *Stop typing away so much—you could’ve made good money just standing at Nilkhet corner with a typewriter.*
I am, of course, not surprised by any of this. When someone understands nothing and makes no effort to understand; when someone assigns no value to something, they will say such things if they must comment on it—it is only natural. And then there is the eternal rage and jealousy of the incapable! Still, it would be well if we refrained from commenting on things we do not understand, or understand only halfway.
A child enters the world through union—that celestial bodily pleasure. All creation, on the other hand, enters the world through inspiration—that ineffable mental satisfaction. The joy of physical union and the joy of creation offer roughly the same measure of solace. Neither exhausts a person into despair.
When a creative person finally brings their creation into being as they envisioned it, they experience an indescribable happiness. Let me add something tangential here: if you observe carefully, you’ll notice that most of the world’s creative people fall into three broad categories. The unmarried—those who spend their entire lives alone. Those who marry and retreat further into solitude. The creative journey is a terribly lonely one. So if you wish to be happy in life, it is best not to marry a creative person.
But as I was saying! Every day, thousands of ordinary people give birth to children from their own bodies. Creative people, meanwhile, give birth to their children through mind, feeling, thought, sensitivity, eyes, and hands.
Being a parent and being a creative person are not the same thing at all. Anyone can become a parent whenever they wish, at whatever age; but to be creative simply by wanting to be—that is truly impossible! Creativity demands love and discipline; there must be the substance of creation within.
Those whom I, or any administrator of my page, block—whether for reason or without—we harbor no anger toward them, though we do feel hurt and irritation.
When someone’s presence becomes a source of annoyance to you, and you are not bound to tolerate them, or their presence makes no difference to your absence, what would you do? Ask yourself the question, and you’ll have your answer. We are all occupied with our own tasks, are we not? Who likes those who impose themselves and cause irritation?
I cannot be said to have blocked you without reason. In truth, I’ve only accidentally blocked one or two people now and then. But accident itself is a reason—it’s not the absence of one. We’re sorry we don’t have the time to take legal action against all of you. Otherwise, the sheer volume of falsehoods and assumption-based information that some of you write on my wall and elsewhere, spreading hatred far and wide, would warrant lawsuits morning and evening.
A poet from Bengal’s Middle Ages, Mark Zuckerberg, spoke the truth rightly when he said: “Peace and truth stand above all things; nothing stands above them.” You are the people I love. One can survive the loss of love, but the loss of peace makes survival terribly hard.
I am a small person with limited mental capacity. I can scribble a bit and speak a little. I love you all. Those who, ignoring my affection, have ended up on my page’s block list and will end up there—they can read my writings from my website if they wish, listen to my talks on my YouTube channel. My page is not necessary to see my posts.
Admittedly, one or two have ended up on that list despite my regard. Hold no grudge. I made this mistake solely for the sake of peace. I know that just two boys in a class can ruin the entire class’s peace and discipline. When those two go wild and turn the class upside down, the rest sit quiet and watch. In that moment, for the sake of the class’s peace, the teacher, forgetting, may throw out two or three more along with the two troublemakers. The act is wrong, but the class settles down.
With hand on my own heart, I’m telling everyone: believe me, I love you!
**Reflection: Eight Hundred Fifty-Nine**
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**One.** Looking at this faithful body, I bid farewell today! We two have walked together for so very long. In this life, there have been many who accompanied me and then left me. This body alone has remained, bearing all. Was there ever a greater beloved than this body in all my life!
Now the time has come to leave this friend too! This is a strange time, a time I’ve truly never known before! Today I think of how young I was—I don’t even remember how young—when I first fell in love, when I didn’t understand love, when I loved foolishly, when simple, foolish love kept me alive, when I bound love and endlessly sought life through it, when again and again promises broke their bonds more than love did, when my soul trembled only in fierce love, when even madness became easy and pulled life along—then only did such a thing happen: I told love, don’t leave me, come what may, but stay! What I told love then, I tell my body today! Love left me then, and today I leave my body. That’s all the difference there is!
Believe this:
After you’re gone,
Thinking of the world won’t make me weep—
Only thinking of you will bring tears.
**Two.** Forbids you to do it; if you don’t, then scolds you.
Go to clean the bathroom and she’ll say there’s no need to clean it. Don’t clean it and she’ll say, I married off my son, and still I have to clean the bathroom myself!
Don’t eat and she says, the daughter-in-law doesn’t eat anything. Eat and she says, we have to feed her with our own hands. I married off my son, but the daughter-in-law has to be cooked for and fed. Yet no one in the neighborhood knows it’s the daughter-in-law who does all the cooking.
Once I thought the woman must be cold as water. Now I understand—she’s hotter than fire!
Before marriage, everyone seems absolutely wonderful!
And after marriage, absolutely everyone else seems wonderful!
A person is truly known in two moments: when disaster strikes, and when they marry.
The in-laws all say, what sort of work is a daughter-in-law supposed to do?
I go to the kitchen and find—mountains upon mountains of unwashed dishes stacked high!
Three. This night…
For some, love is breaking after twelve years!
For others, a household shatters in twelve minutes!
Night deepens, sorrow deepens…
Four. I’ve read ‘Jagari’ again. Who would believe this is Satinatath Bhāduṛī’s debut novel! Not a trace of awkwardness, not a single moment of a new writer’s hesitation, runs through the entire work! Reading such prose drains away one’s own courage to write! I keep wondering—how does someone write such things? Doesn’t it hurt to write them? Don’t writers understand that not everyone in this world is made of steel, that some are utterly unsuited to existence itself? A character like this—I haven’t been able to create one despite all my trying! Tell me, do they too weep while writing?
I weep. I’m afraid. Don’t those whose pens produce such things suffer? This character Bilu—I don’t even know her! So why did I cry so much for her? What is she to me? Where did this pull toward her come from?
Why does it hurt me so deeply? Some people are simply born to weep. Had I to be among them? I can’t make anyone understand these things! The fact that I cry over stories—those are just stories, after all! But in reality, those for whom I grieve, those I love, those I think of with such aching tenderness—I cannot speak one word to them. Everything I say comes out muddled. So they think me mad, though I’m perfectly capable of speaking clearly. Why can’t I speak clearly before someone I hold dear?
In this life I’ve never managed to make anyone understand anything; instead, some people have simply misunderstood me entirely! When I try to explain, they only misunderstand more. I’m exhausted! Since I can’t make myself understood, I stay silent now. What’s the use of trying? I’ve done it so many times! What good has it done? I’m not saying I need friends. But I don’t need that many enemies either! What do they gain by making an enemy of me? If they looked even a little, they’d find enemies far worthier than I am! So why must I be the one they need?
My words pile up inside me, I can’t say anything. Some strange bashfulness keeps me from opening my heart before anyone! Words accumulate, layer upon layer, until they become mountains. I can’t even cry the way I used to. I never knew before that crying takes such strength. These days my chest aches terribly.
I am emotionally a complete failure. The Creator sent me into this world brimming with an ocean of emotion, but He sent not a single soul who would value even a fraction of this feeling. I cannot hold onto anyone, cannot even force myself to try! I’ve never truly learned to possess. Tell me—how can someone I have to force myself to hold onto ever be a person I truly love?
In every place, there exist certain people for whom something stirs within—a kind of feeling, almost magical. I weep wondering if they suffer. It brings me joy to think they are well. I cannot explain it any better than this. I’m not skilled at making myself understood.
I don’t cry before anyone, only smile. Perhaps that’s why everyone finds me hard, impenetrable, and simply moves on. No one comes to stay with me; they come only to deposit memories. I can’t ask anyone to remain. No one seems to even consider staying by my side—everyone leaves. Perhaps the very sight of me makes them want to depart. And depart they do, and forget. Everyone forgets, only I cannot. I forget no one. My heart burns with grief.
No one stays with me. No one wishes to stay with me. I am the kind of person—there is nothing to do with being beside me.
Thought: Eight Hundred Sixty
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One. As a people, our cuteness knows no bounds.
When we watch Sani-didi’s intimate life in short films, we wonder in amazement: doesn’t her husband see all this?
When we watch Susanto-da’s unenlightened writings and speeches, we wonder in amazement: doesn’t his wife see all this?
What do we really want? Didi’s husband? Or didi’s creation?
What do we really want? Da’s wife? Or da’s creation?
When we tug and pull at another person’s husband and wife like this, don’t we accumulate sin? Is there not an ounce of brains in our hearts? (Does the brain live in the heart or in the liver—I can’t quite remember; maybe the liver! If any of you know, kindly inform me.)
To understand that Josim-Alamgir-Rajjak-Faruk-Manna never actually pushed handcarts, never built homes and cars through sheer labor, how much older do we need to grow!?
Two. Who is a friend?
A friend is one to whom you can openly admit: she never actually annoyed me, she only knocked to tell a story. I found her face displeasing, and that’s why receiving the knock made me terribly irritated.
Three. Those who, in childhood, found no latch on the bathroom door due to poverty, and so grew up singing while bathing—they are the very ones who, in adulthood, market their inboxes to the public and end up owning cars and houses.
Four. Cheap minds, cheap ends.
Five. My eyes are heavy with sleep, yet so much writing remains. They say there will be exams next month too. On my left lie roughly ten scattered books, a keypad-phone, and a smartphone.
A list of everything I must do today is wedged beneath my glasses, right within reach. Beside it, coiled earphones…a newly bought brush…a key ring…hair oil…
At my feet, a standing fan humming softly. In one corner of the bed, my ochre kurta, which I took off just moments ago. Beside it, crumpled and tangled, lies the quilt I wrap myself in.
Last night I slept only three and a half hours. I’ve always slept little at night, but this little! From six in the morning until nine-thirty. At six, while having tea, I was watching a live show. I fell asleep in that very state.
I was wearing a sleeveless shirt and palazzo pants; I undressed, naked. Only today did I realize that my single bed is the size of an entire map! I lie curled in one corner like a new tenant. On my table: scissors, glucose…
No, I can’t pick up the pen anymore—I’m exhausted. I’ve just eaten my fill and lain down. I need a bath now, I need sleep, and I need to set my scattered thoughts in order. All three things are equally urgent right now.
My eyes are closing… I’ve never seen such sleep, such drowsiness in these sleepless eyes before! Am I perhaps…!!
All right, all right! Listen, at least let me put my clothes on. A naked corpse would look terrifying! Please, listen to me. I’m not like other women—it doesn’t take me long to get ready.
Wait…my clothes…
**Six.** These days there’s no faith in relationships, no relationship in faith. When I see someone desperately throwing themselves into a relationship, I’m truly astonished.
They say with their mouths they want to be entangled in a relationship, but really they want to love. Or to be more precise: they come together because they want certain needs fulfilled. They came, and then came conflict and strife. I see no point in loving or keeping a love in which one person gives the other no peace, in which words become blows, hard language creates discomfort, in which suspicion becomes an ocean to be set adrift upon.
Yes, many of us can say that good things might happen in the future, right? Why think only of the bad? If we were to sit quietly and think a little, to examine the relationships around us, the state of things in our present time, we’d find many answers.
We can never love anyone completely. If we did, we wouldn’t hurl such arrows of accusation at each other. True love means loving a person with their faults and virtues both. We’ve only learned to love beauty; we still haven’t learned to love the unbeautiful.
When I myself don’t know how to read my own heart, don’t understand it, can’t keep it at peace, how can I expect another to be exactly as my mind desires? That itself is foolishness! So instead of finding fault with others ten times over and creating turmoil, it’s far better to think once about my own mistakes and remain at peace.
Yet relationship doesn’t always mean bitterness. Often you see that one of two people is very patient, or can understand circumstances well. Those relationships are magnificent, and they last.
If you spoke with a thousand people in the world about relationships, millions of arguments and counterarguments would emerge. If we agree that each person is right in their own way, then our respect for others will grow. But before that, it’s essential to respect ourselves. The day we can understand ourselves properly, only then can we understand others even a little. We don’t understand ourselves, yet we grow desperate to understand others!
Force cannot make a relationship work. Finding fault cannot bring selfless love. If neither of two people moves from the ground of their stubbornness, force cannot keep those two together.
A Thought: Eight Hundred Sixty-One
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**One.** All of us have our own story. We each have our own beliefs and thoughts. They are as they are; we are exactly the same. They move as they move; we move precisely the same way. They are not as they are; we are not as they are. Living as we live, becoming like them in time, we eventually shape ourselves in their image. What they are, we fundamentally are.
When we want to know someone, we say to them: Tell me the story of your life. Tell me what you think, what you like, what you dislike—tell me everything. Tell me where you’ve come from and where you’ve arrived. Tell me both. I want to hear about you.
# The Plaster of Thought-Walls
Only if he speaks of himself with complete candour will he truly be known. What he conceals can only be guessed at, never known. Apart from himself alone, whatever anyone else in the world says about him is almost entirely conjecture. And conjecture almost always errs and fabricates.
If we truly wish to know him, we must let him speak. Whatever he says, we cannot silence him, cannot coerce him into saying what suits our mind. Most importantly, we must guarantee him complete freedom and safety in his speech. Survival through silence matters more than becoming immortal through words.
We are each a biography, a story unto ourselves. What we feel and don’t feel, what we believe and disbelieve, what we have witnessed in experience and haven’t, what we know and don’t know, what we think and don’t think, what we do and don’t do—all these things break us and remake us. This breaking and remaking continues throughout our lives.
If we consider the body’s structure and other basic needs, the differences among us are scarcely worth mentioning. But the stories of our lives—these are what make us different from one another. Different people, different stories, different lives. In that sense, everyone in this world is unique.
We are most truly ourselves only when we express ourselves exactly as we are. In all other moments, we are like someone else. We may lose everything, but the stories of our lives will never be lost. Whether we know them or not, speak them or not, show them or not, these stories will remain. Their existence will never fade.
People change, but the place they occupied, the story they lived—these endure. If we ourselves forget our stories or choose not to remember them, when this very day becomes a story someday, will we still condemn it to oblivion? If this is how it is, then is everything about us—this living, this surviving, this alternation of joy and sorrow, this sound and silence, all of it—is it all a lie?
All that we have, had, and will have; all that we are, were, and will be—none of it is false. Hiding something doesn’t mean we can deny it to ourselves. All our truths spill out despite us. Our stories speak of us whether we wish them to or not. What is true remains true whether it is expressed or unexpressed. Let us live in such a way that when we stand before the mirror, we can at least comb our hair in peace.
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**Two.** There are certain matters I think you should know.
Read what I write, and you’ll feel better.
If it doesn’t appeal to you, unfollow the page. Simple as that. I won’t come to your house and drag you back, I won’t send the police to fetch you, I’ll never ask you to follow my page. You can live in peace. Until now, I’ve never asked a single person to follow it—quite the opposite, I block many people every day. Even doing all this, I’ve crossed a million followers; if the count drops to a hundred, I’d do the same.
Whether you stay here or leave is your choice, your need, your will. It makes no difference to me whatsoever.
This isn’t arrogance. It’s a love of peace.
What’s on this page? Only my writing, only what I have to say. Nothing else! This is all there is here! If you’re looking for anything beyond this, you won’t find it.
I don’t write with anyone else in mind, and I couldn’t even if I tried. If what you need isn’t here, you’d do better to move on. I don’t write to meet your demands.
Here’s the amusing part: reading your comments, I’ve seen what topics you want written about. I have plenty of pieces on those very subjects—long pieces, too, and genuinely useful ones. I chose that phrase “genuinely useful” deliberately and consciously. But you won’t read them, will you? You’re far too busy! I’m apparently your unpaid servant, expected to conjure everything up and hand it to you monthly! You search for mathematics in love posts and love in mathematics posts. You’re all little boxes of confusion!
Most people want motivational writing, isn’t that so? In Bangladesh, as far as I know, not just beyond me—no one even close to me has written or spoken on this subject the way I have. So why not read those pieces? Why not listen to them? Everything’s free, doesn’t cost you a paisa!
If you’re irritated, don’t come to my wall. Unfollow the page to stop the notifications. There’s no need to say much more about it!
Why do I write? Why so many posts? What’s wrong with me? Why all this love? Why have I lost my mind? Who hurt me? Why the suffering posts all day long? Don’t I have work? Doesn’t my wife see all this? Why am I still hung up on my ex? I’m married, and yet…? Has my page been hacked? How can I write so “irresponsibly” from my position? Why do I post such pathetic, lame drivel? Why am I darkening your moods with emotional posts? Have I gone mad…and so on and so forth! What’s the point of comments like these, really? What do you gain from doing this? I genuinely don’t understand.
Do you know me personally? Have we mixed in life? Have I mixed in yours? On what grounds do you judge me like that?
You’re cheapening yourself. Don’t like it? Then don’t look my way, simple! Did I twist your arm to look at me? Did I beg you? Can’t you unfollow or block? Learn from someone else, look it up on Google. Save yourself, and save me too! The math’s simple enough!
Whether you love me, respect me, idolize me, came for motivation, looked for BCS advice, were told by someone to follow me…blah blah blah… what’s any of that to me, friend? Why do you keep trying to tie me down with all this meaningless talk? Am I your laying hen that I’m obliged to produce eggs at your pleasure?
I write, brother! How will you find me in my writing? Do writers exist in their own work? Or if they do, can you ask about them without personal acquaintance?
I’ve written millions of words by now. Just in the “Plaster of Thought-Walls” series alone, there are over eight hundred and fifty thousand words so far, not to mention the rest! Tell me yourself—is it possible for me to be present in every single piece? Is this a newspaper page that you’re desperately hunting for authenticity?
I am speaking again: my writing is merely writing. I am not in it, nor are you, yet we are all there. If I am present in any of it, I will write that out explicitly in the post itself. If I do not write it, then do not—under any circumstances—comment by dragging me into it, or any member of my family, or my livelihood, or anything of mine; do not pointlessly invoke words like BCS/government job and the like. Such comments reveal your lack of sense.
How many more times must I say this? What do you gain by diminishing yourself in my eyes?
I have respect for you—hold onto that space. Does respect not evaporate when you irritate me? You come to every post and leave the same sort of comment over and over, wearing me down! What else can I do but block you? What would you do if you were in my place?
Be well.