Reflection: One Hundred and Thirteen.
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The girl was never like this. So foolish, so fragile, so utterly mad!?
Never, never at all!
Those who know her, they know.
Can one ever feel envious of oneself?
The girl feels it keenly these days. Her lost self—she truly cannot find it anywhere anymore. To find it, she would have to forget certain times—such beautiful, beautiful, beautiful beloved times, beloved moments.
To forget them…….impossible!!!
How will the girl survive without them?
The trouble is,
even with them, the girl can no longer live.
Still, days pass by. Vast, enormous days, each one somehow vanishing moment by moment! Days pass,
life passes. This is the law.
Every day, for reasons real and imagined, such irritation becomes attached to the girl’s life because of herself! Time never remains the same, lost time never returns, one must live with the time that is true in this very moment. These are not such difficult philosophical matters to understand. Yet why won’t these simple, straightforward things take root in the girl’s mind? Was the girl always this foolish before? Could she not take the simple simply?
Did life always limp along like this before?
‘The fear of loss’ is a terribly wicked feeling. And the fear of losing what one never obtained, will never obtain,
renders a person utterly helpless. In that fear, sometimes a person says such things, does such things, even becomes such a person,
that they are not at all!
The familiar people around her grow very irritated with the girl’s transformation,
making all sorts of accusations,
creating ‘ill repute’…….!? Yes, perhaps they do that too. Alas! Why don’t these people ever take time to consider how much pain must accumulate in a heart for someone to change so completely!
People who would place a hand on one’s head and offer comfort are becoming fewer. Someone who would try to understand another by breaking through walls of logic and argument—
such a person cannot be found today. Where is all that time anyway? Helpless idle people live in such a terribly busy world. They have so much sorrow. In this busy world, the sorrowful are terribly idle, the idle are terribly sorrowful.
Familiar old faces become busy. Busy am I,
busy are you,
busy is she. We are doing quite well,
aren’t we?
Memory alone remains unemployed for life. It needs a job, a job?
Even a small one would do. Memory desperately needs a job! It has no work, so it torments terribly. Give memory a job, a job?
Even a small one would do. Everyone has jobs,
only memory has no job. How will it
survive?
So it
stays in the head, torments,
torments terribly.
The girl mutters, keeps muttering……
Hold me close,
hold me very close. So intimately; so much so, that even the heartbeat stops.
The pain is mine…….tremendous pain. I feel like killing everything—even all the inanimate objects.
There is no one beside me to hold me close;
there is no one before me to kill,
nothing at all. Today I am utterly alone.
Reflection: One hundred and fourteen.
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Something has happened to me. Actually, I need a change. Desperately need one. The world I used to inhabit,
it has long ceased to be mine. What I wish to find,
this present world can never give me. Yet I live on. How do people manage to survive? I exist in a new world, clinging to my old one. What is the use?
I understand quite clearly
that I must bid farewell to this invisible world. The star whose light makes all other stars in the sky disappear,
whose infinite radiance dims the eye’s vision. It is better for the eye not to gaze upon that fierce luminosity. What claim can an existence make that cannot contain itself within itself?
February 23, 2017. You left. You might not believe it,
but that day I accepted you. Stay far away, yet may you remain at peace. In truth, through marriage people draw each other close, but I received you by drawing you distant. Are you laughing?
Are you thinking, can one really possess someone by keeping them distant?
Ah, but one can!
Don’t you see me now? How tenderly I shelter your sorrows and troubles with careful devotion;
I will always do so unless you ever choose to hide yourself from me. What do I receive in return? Eyes full of tears, beloved, eyes full of tears. This is my life. I have accepted it. Only punishment was allotted to my existence. That is why, since arriving in this world, only sufferings have been my companions. I will live counting each day,
until my punishment is complete.
I am laughing. Truly laughing. Do my eyes look distorted?
That’s nothing, my eyes are just like that. I’m telling the truth,
I’m not crying at all. My eyes are red, water streaming down my face? That’s
nothing. I am well. I can see everything clearly with naked eyes,
don’t need glasses at all. This is quite enough,
isn’t it?
Tell me? Don’t worry about me. The dark circles under my eyes? They’ve
been there for ages! Nothing new. Don’t worry about me. Sorrow is my faithful companion for life. Very, very, very faithful—more faithful than my feelings,
more faithful than my breath. I have suffered far less than many others. Today when I went to the bank to pay utility bills,
the man who stood calmly in line with his right hand missing three invisible fingers,
whose remaining thumb was held by his little daughter—could my suffering be greater than his?
Tell me? Perhaps Allah didn’t send me with a beautiful form, but He didn’t send me disabled either!
Even this is a great blessing. What would anyone have gained if I had lived as a disabled person?
Isn’t that so?
Tell me? I didn’t get you,
I don’t grieve. Surely Allah writes each person’s destiny according to their merit before sending them to this world. When you came into this world, you were not written in my destiny,
I have accepted this.
Whatever I have written to you, whatever I have done for your well-being,
it was all just to claim that much more of you; had you stayed close, perhaps I could have done so much more for you. And if that very claim pushes you further away,
then perhaps that is for the best. Whatever Allah does, He does for good. Perhaps within this infinite anguish of mine some blessing lies hidden, which I cannot see now. However I may be,
however you find happiness,
may Allah grant you that. Stay distant if you must, but stay well. I ask for nothing more.
Reflection: One hundred and fifteen.
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I know this little letter too will find refuge in the dustbin by your feet. Still I write. Don’t think I write because I cannot contain the urge to write to you—I write to get this feeling out of my head. Putting thoughts down on paper feels so much lighter.
That day I could not see myself in your eyes. I used to think of eyes and mirrors as one. How foolish of me, wasn’t it?
In whose heart’s chamber I do not exist, how could I remain in the mirror of their eyes,
tell me? Do you remember,
some December about a year ago…….do you still have the red sweater?
You had called an unknown, unfamiliar Tithi to the bungalow in private,
that December winter afternoon…….you know,
looking into your eyes at the restaurant, I saw that old Tithi again, who had wanted to take your red sweater with her when leaving the bungalow. Believe me,
the Tithi who had wrapped you in all these years of love and affection,
she has vanished. I could not find that Tithi anywhere that day. The Tithi intoxicated with mere infatuation from the first day—I had buried her on the first day itself. Then why did she return again after all this time? Why can I no longer find myself in your pupils the way I used to? The familiar ocean of selfless love that has dwelt within me day after day, your eyes, your gestures have dried up that ocean of mine,
have made me utterly false and meaningless to my own existence. I fell into such confusion. Can one distrust oneself? To such an extent?
You don’t know, will never know what it is like to distrust oneself,
to become a stranger to yourself—what terrible anguish it is. It hurts, it hurts so much! Do you understand?
I have no idea how many bodies you have tasted completely. Perhaps that’s why sitting merely side by side with someone, wanting to know oneself through the language of eyes,
a little laughter and half a touch—you don’t count any of these in your calculations. But truly speaking,
for me the matter of having my beloved’s company is not quite the way
you think it is. That’s why I had requested you
to tell me the equation of your expectations and gains regarding me. You didn’t tell me. Of course,
it’s not that I sit here expecting your answer. How childish people become! Even knowing no answer will come, how many answers does one imagine sitting within one’s own mind! However one wishes to live, that’s all there is to it!
I had asked you,
isn’t this evening wonderful?
You said nothing,
just looked toward the glass at the corner of the table and smiled a little. Perhaps you were thinking,
how foolish this Tithi is! Isn’t that so? One who crossed the ocean long ago,
to ask her how it feels to wet one’s feet in water!
Oh, how naive!
After eating at a restaurant, you have to tip the waiter;
in genteel culture,
at least ten percent of the total bill—did you think I didn’t know this silly manner either? You were in the washroom, I paid the bill in the meantime. As we were leaving, one of the restaurant boys followed you,
and immediately you asked me whether I’d given a tip!
You think I’m terribly foolish, rustic, uncultured,
don’t you? Fine,
so you asked, but do you know what surprised me? When I said “How strange” in response to your question—then you asked me again,
Answer me!
Yes? Or no?
What did this mean?
You had assumed that I actually hadn’t tipped, and was trying to dodge the matter by saying “how strange.” Right? Shubho,
looking at you, I want to say again: how strange!
Don’t be angry, just think for a moment—
at the end of a meal, someone asks you, did you tip?
How would you feel at that moment?
Remember one thing:
just because I’m shameless with you doesn’t mean
I’m shameless to the whole world and to myself. You think I’m shameless,
fine. But believe me, Tithi is not shameless;
Tithi has only one fault: Tithi loves Shubho.
I’m not without character or shameless, I just never want to let character or shame rise above love. That’s it!
Thought: One hundred sixteen.
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It’s great fun to pass by the floating restaurants early in the morning. I see life’s bustling arrangements have taken over half the sidewalk. On one enormous oil-slicked griddle, someone keeps frying hot parathas,
while another keeps calling out:
Eat here, take away, hot hot hot……… From the small griddle beside it, fried eggs keep being dispatched to plates of paratha one after another. In the busy running and shouting of the tiny, seasoned restaurant boys, life’s tide rises in the restaurant. People sit waiting on narrow benches after ordering food. Some still have sleep in their eyes,
they finish breakfast in that drowsy state and wait for tea,
as if that sleep will only break when hot tea touches their lips! Others sit comfortably with their feet up on chairs as if it’s their very own home!
Everyone around them is family. Some will start all the world’s work right now!
For the past half hour, they haven’t had a second to spare. They create unnecessary commotion asking for food to be served quickly. In the rush, Mizan drops the cup during tea delivery and gets slapped,
while bringing bidi for Romij Miya, Selim stays cheerful after pocketing three pieces for eight anna,
even while pocketing the 3 taka change, Rafiq’s greedy eyes don’t leave the customer’s hand.
Table six,
forty-eight ready,
thirty-five—-with all this nonstop shouting, the restaurant aunt’s head gets heated this early morning.
When will the food come to the table…….such greed!
Greed! Eyes, hot parathas, dal and vegetables,
fried eggs, milk tea or liquor tea—all together create an interesting aroma that wafts from the restaurant.
Hey you rascal!
What’s your name?
Sir, whatever you want to call me!
Why? Don’t you have a name?
“No sir,
we don’t have any names. Call us whatever you like, no problem at all.”
“Hehehe, you’ve said something precious indeed… go fetch a cup of that strong tea!”
Nameless Kamal runs off to bring the tea. Indeed,
what need do they have for names?
Whatever anyone graciously calls them, that name carries them through life just fine. They remain happy this way. These nameless Kamals bring forth life’s celebration in this small restaurant even at this early hour, dragging and pulling it into being. Let there be hardship, let there be sorrow, let there be poverty—still,
life is beautiful.
Reflection: One hundred and seventeen.
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Since quarter to eight yesterday evening the rain has been falling, and still continues to fall. In this damp weather, with a dampened heart, I left my bed. The moment I peeked into the balcony, a gust of wet wind struck me; looking outside, wet streets and drizzling rain. All of this makes the mind feel even more melancholy! Doesn’t it?
The clouds are calling,
calling in long, slow rhythms. The clouds’ such cadence suggests that the entire day will pass this way.
Oh yes,
I haven’t mentioned—
when I woke today,
I saw beyond sleep, floating away in rainwater, a letter
written in silver letters on blue paper, in your handwriting. No other name, but in the address of your letter was the name that suits me best.
In the dream I was reading your letter,
your and Swagata’s pair of cheerful faces floated in the background,
like flashbacks in cinema. What beautiful language in the letter,
what a weaving of words!
Only you could write such a wonderful letter to someone. There was mention of a gift in the letter, a green stone locket hanging from a gold chain. A magnificent token of love. You wrote, if you wear it,
I’ll know you agree. Don’t worry, I wasn’t the addressee, even in my dreams I cannot be presumptuous—I am that helpless! What could be sadder than this? Before I finished reading the letter, a gust of wind came from somewhere and swept the letter away from my hands; after that I couldn’t think of anything,
I woke from the pain of losing the letter.
Does any of this make sense?
What’s the point of dreaming meaningless dreams? Outside, the rain is picking up, a fine drizzling rain dancing in the breeze. The rain’s body flies about, changing places. It looks wonderful to watch.
In this twilight dawn
the wet-winged birds gather
swimming through sky,
pushing clouds aside
in such sweet, honeyed tones
what do they say in their chirping voices.
What plays in their minds
I desperately want to know.
Do they too, with sleep-heavy eyes,
feel like calling out
to someone dear with great tenderness?
May someone whose “Good morning”
would delight you,
embrace you in the dawn’s gentle love and say—”Good morning!”
The sky-touching mountain of silent resentment sinks to the deepest ocean floor in this tiny bit of love… The dry, crackling leaf that doesn’t fall even in fierce storms will drop at the faintest flutter of a small bird’s wing… That little bird is love itself!
The one to whom you often want to pour out all your sorrows, knowing they won’t feel hurt hearing them, yet never do—such boundless resentment is love.
You know, lately I don’t even feel resentment anymore. Sometimes I deliberately throw life’s umbrella far away. I burn tears in the rain, soak happiness in the sun. Rain or sunshine—both are mine.
I no longer drown in longing.
I never seek pain in indifference.
In silence and solitude, I simply watch.
The ocean’s salt water crashes violently against the shore again and again, dragging heaps of sand into its embrace and muddying itself. Really, what fault is it of the sand?
Sometimes I find myself terribly monotonous even to myself. Then I want to give myself eternal freedom from my own presence.
Thought: One hundred eighteen.
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A huge shoe showroom by the roadside. In the glass-walled square space outside—oh my, so many balloons! I feel like sliding a long thin needle through the glass crack and popping each and every balloon one by one. What if someone sees me? Pfft! Not a chance! Standing there like a perfect gentleman, I could destroy all those balloons! No one would even notice! Muhahahaha…
But alas, the sound! Balloons make noise when they pop! Can’t balloons be popped silently?
So many things in life get stuck on sound just like this. Otherwise, how much could be accomplished!
What to do! I had to bury this intense desire to puncture the balloons and walk straight ahead.
Ah, those balloons! Ah, life’s desires!
A day comes only once. Just as you want to say many things to your beloved person every day, or write to let them know so much, sometimes you also want to refrain from bothering them for at least one day. I hold my own hands down and somehow get through some days without troubling my beloved at all. But when the day truly passes—a day comes only once—thinking this makes me very sad. The day I didn’t say anything to my beloved will never return; I’ll never get a second chance to say or write something. One day’s opportunity never comes as another day. My words from that day will become stale—why would I worship my heart’s deity with wilted flowers? Let my beloved be annoyed. I will trouble them. If they are truly beloved, won’t they understand my love and bear this little bit of my bothering?
No, one cannot always do that. Yet life makes its peace. Life’s name, sir, is “whatever you can bear, you must bear.” When you learn to love dried flowers, you no longer need to remain intoxicated with longing for fresh blooms’ fragrance. That waiting which has no end—its first hour and its last hour are the same, are they not? Even a locked door that never had any key carries the existence of life within—waiting for what, who knows, that door stands still through eternity. When a mountain that holds love, affection, tenderness, the strength to live—when such a mountain suddenly vanishes like a mirage from before your eyes, it hurts terribly… But a mountain that truly doesn’t exist, that never even was, to cling to such an entirely false mountain through imagination, love and affection, to hold it firm before your eyes through sheer belief—that surely is far more painful. Sometimes life, not finding happiness, begins to think of sorrow as its own and starts loving it.
I reason with myself—
Don’t be angry, my friend,
Who knows when it might fly away,
This paper lantern called life.
Life pauses, yet doesn’t stop. Life is the reflection of that morning which, deceiving noon, seeks to find the dreamy night; it does whatever needs doing for this; alas, even when night arrives, the dream still doesn’t come true.
Thought: One hundred nineteen.
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Class is going on, a tissue-thin silence all around. Our department’s angriest ma’am is delivering her lecture in English so rapidly and with such incomprehensible pronunciation that I can’t understand anything. It’s not that I’m sleepy, but I’m trying desperately to bring a drowsy expression to my face so I don’t seem unbearable to ma’am. Just as people try to forget their sorrows and take life easily by getting drunk on alcohol, students try to forget their boredom and take class easily by losing themselves in the realm of sleep. Despite much effort, I can’t manage that expression; instead, I’ve given birth to a poem about IR in my head—
Oh University,
Carrying IR in your chest,
You’ve set me on
Fire!
If you weren’t you, Dear,
I swear to God,
I wouldn’t give a damn
Care!
Utterly worthless, quadrupedal poetry (don’t read “quadrupedal,” read “quatrain”), yet this is what’s dancing in my head. I feel that if this poem somehow escapes my mouth just once, ma’am will immediately grab me, thrust a Nobel Prize into my hands, and strangle to death forever a rare poetic talent.
Class continues—that thousand-year-old class. All of ma’am’s valuable words are going three-quarters of a hand’s breadth over my head.
I’m thinking, how good it would be if many things in life passed over our heads like this! Trying to understand life, we ruin life completely.
Beloved, to wish for death for someone dear to you—it is unbearably painful. May no one ever experience such a thing. A friend of mine often says,
“Pray for my father that he dies quickly.”
I know
how much anguish drives my friend to say this. His father’s death throes are unbearable to witness!
If he were to die, he would find peace instead. Why does Allah make someone suffer so much before taking him, when He will surely take him anyway?
I cannot find an answer to this question. Seeing him, I understand
that death is not so easy that one can have it simply by wishing.
You love someone, and they love you back. In such love, you will suffer, and so will they.
You love someone, but they do not love you back. In such love, despite the absence of reciprocal emotional flow, you will still suffer.
What does this mean?
Love is
such a happiness or such a sorrow that never depends on whether the flow of emotion is one-way or mutual.
In one who loves,
some sorrow will always flow. This is their destiny. In crowds of people, they become silent. The eternally alone “I” within them embraces them even tighter. Against the current of many rushing feet, they stand still,
watching the people around them and thinking: all these countless people—running and running,
for life’s necessities,
even for its non-necessities; sometimes alive,
sometimes vibrant. They watch and ask themselves,
Well, are all these people truly living? Who knows how many are also dead! For what strange reasons people die so many times in one small lifetime! The dead know perfectly well that they are dead. No one else knows this secret, nor is it possible for anyone else to know.
If humanity’s obligation to remain alive were merely the breathing of each moment, then people would survive!
Because it is not so simple, people suffer so much.
Tell me, beloved,
the pain of forcing myself to sit trapped in this professor’s class for fifty minutes because I enrolled in university, and the pain of wrapping myself in the intoxication of you because I have fallen in love with you—is it the same pain?