Reflection: One Hundred Ninety.
……………………………………..
I keep her
with tender care,
in the shade wrapped by love…..
She has kept me
at the far edge
of her mind’s galaxy…..
Days pass just like this.
Never again
will I ask her
to account for
a single drop
of love’s countless tears.
Swallowing every drop of salt water,
I’ll give back drop for drop in blood—wringing my heart dry.
In time
I’ll settle my own account
forever, in silence.
Since you’ve survived
in my ocean of tears,
don’t bother learning to swim—
no need to fear.
However deep and vast
these waters may be,
you’ll survive just fine.
Stars in the sky
remain visible,
or stay hidden,
but the star of the heart
hides quietly in the mind’s sky—
you never looked,
so you don’t know.
Can you tell me,
what touch brings
two souls to meet?
Water hardens into stone-solid ice. Still,
ice breaks,
ice melts;
but stone—only breaks—lives, time, people!
Alas! Is this how it goes, or not?
The way you see me—the phone chimes with a message tone,
or silently a small blue light blinks on and off,
perhaps just a vibration. Amidst the busyness, at the first chance, the message is checked with interest—the heart hopes,
maybe it’s someone dear or someone whose message the mind was longing for. But alas! The message is mine!
Both mood and temper sour! The phone suddenly meets the table’s surface,
a bit too loudly! It happens like this, doesn’t it?
Those who wish to die do indeed die. Those who fail in their attempt to die and survive
are no longer who they were—they become someone else. The living and
the death-returned living—are never the same person. Pouring water on hot sand and then searching for that water—such foolishness. The sand will surely, surely absorb the water!
Yet some people spend their lives searching for that very water. Eventually they themselves become lost.
Oh, how beautiful these dry, crisp,
fallen leaves spread beneath the tree!
There’s something so enchanting, so dreamlike about it all. I feel like
gathering handfuls and running straight to you!
One anklet,
the other missing—lost somewhere.
A fragment of father’s letter—torn, at that.
Rainwater cupped in both hands—a few drops have slipped through my fingers.
Dreams in so many colors—faded now, arriving today.
Yet—
So many kisses,
deep embraces,
the scent of tea,
peanuts in a paper cone.
Though—
Dried flowers,
salt-stained tissues,
and ashes—of words that burned,
theirs.
Not lost,
hidden away—
A bottle full of tears,
a cloth doll,
an old paper boat,
a river in the chest,
an untouched brush,
one heart’s pain.
How much I long to give!
Nothing gets given at all.
Never wanted anyone
to take something against their will,
only because it couldn’t be returned—
that’s all.
Thought: One hundred ninety-one.
……………………………………..
Yesterday I survived a terrible accident. What was it, you ask? I’ll tell you. I won’t waste much of your time—I’ll finish in just five minutes. When I boarded the Duranto Express at Debul, the seat next to mine was empty. I was absolutely delighted! In a very relaxed mood, I was half-reclining, gazing outside, occasionally dozing off. Quite some time passed like this. Then—I can’t remember exactly, somewhere near Debpur station, three stations before my destination, or perhaps toward the end of the previous station, Sebatala—a man, quite respectable-looking, I must admit, and good-looking too, asked me, “May I sit here?” I stood up and made room for him to sit. I didn’t ask him why he’d come forward from the back—perhaps he was getting off soon and had moved to the front of the bus. That’s what I thought. For a long while I continued reading my ‘Memsaheb’ magazine, dozing—no conversation. Suddenly we learned that some foreign president was coming to lay flowers at a memorial, and the traffic jam would last quite a while. It was 3:40 on my watch, and I said rather loudly, “Well, there’s no telling when I’ll get home today!” That’s when my fellow passenger started chatting. Was I a doctor, what did I do, where did I live, was I married—this and that, many questions. I had no difficulty understanding his interest in me, and I could sense his particular attraction too! All women pick up on this ‘special’ attraction from men just by looking into their eyes. It’s the result of growing up in a patriarchal society from childhood. Yesterday I was wearing a red and black Manipuri sari. I could tell how he was looking at me. Most men rape women with their eyes, so I didn’t think much of it. These types of bad men emit a certain uncomfortable odor—they sit so close that you can’t help but notice it. Anyway, I was answering his questions in a very natural tone, looking the other way. In the course of conversation, when I learned that he was a doctor who provided free treatment to poor people in his village once a week, and alongside his medical practice ran an old-age home called ‘Shroyon’ in his own district, my interest in him naturally increased, and we talked quite a bit about the old-age home. I learned about his family too—where his children studied, what his wife did, where they lived; he told me all of that. The reason my interest in him grew was that I myself want to do something for helpless elderly people. I work with homeless children two days a week—as soon as I mentioned this, he said with great enthusiasm, “Why don’t you add me to your work too! I’m interested in working with you all.” Saying this, he asked for my number, and I gave it to him with a simple heart. He told me his name: Dr. Abdul Hai. While saving his number, a rhyme by Raiton was spinning in my head—”Abdul Hai kore khai-khai”…but such humor couldn’t be shared with someone I’d just met, so I suppressed it with a quiet smile. Since his house was within twelve miles of Debpur, he invited me to lunch as well. I laughingly declined. The car still hadn’t moved an inch. It was nearly quarter past four.
The doctor gentleman (until that point, though he had been sitting beside me, he had not even accidentally touched me in the slightest way, so I had to consider him a gentleman) said to me, “Shashi Apa,
It’ll be five o’clock before this traffic clears. You’ll be very late getting home. If you’d like, you can walk with me to the other side and catch a rickshaw. We could also talk about your school. I’d like to know about your work. Come…”
With that, he got out. I stayed in the car without getting out.
The game begins here.
The phone rang a moment later. The screen showed “DR. HI.” I answered.
“Hello Shashi apa,
Why haven’t you come down?
I’m waiting for you downstairs! Come down, come down!”
“Oh,
sorry bhaiya. Alright, I’m coming.”
Thinking it wouldn’t be bad to leave rather than sit pointlessly in this traffic jam, I tried to get off the bus. And this was my wrong decision. Why I was getting off—I truly don’t know. I told the helper that I’d boarded from Debul and wanted to get off here. Could I get some money back? I also asked when the jam would clear. I’m never the type of girl to ask for such a small fare back. But why I asked for money back yesterday, I don’t know myself. Through the window I could clearly see Mr. Hi waving and waiting for me with quite an anxious expression. The helper seemed to rescue me. The boy said, “We’ve reserved the bus all the way to Nimtala. We can’t take anyone else in your place. Sorry, we can’t refund the money. And the bus will leave as soon as the jam clears in a bit. Can you walk to Nimtala from here if you get off? The rest is up to you—do whatever you want.” I said, “Why would I walk? I’ll go ahead and catch another bus. Give me that fare then. But when will the jam clear?” “No apa, if I give you the money, I’ll have to pay the owner out of my own pocket.” Suddenly I noticed that none of the other passengers heading to Nimtala had gotten off the bus. I waved goodbye to Mr. Hi and settled back into my seat.
The climax was right there. Dr. Hi immediately ran to my window and said in a somewhat agitated voice, “Apa, are you out of your mind! There’s no telling when this jam will clear! You get off and come with me.” If he could have, he would have reached through the window and pulled me out through it! By then everyone on the bus was looking at me. I smiled and told him, “No bhaiya, it’s no problem. You go ahead.” “How strange! You won’t get off? I’ve been waiting for you all this time!” He forcibly pushed a packet of popcorn through the bus window, put on a fake smile, and went to stand a little distance away. His gaze was sharp.
Indeed, the bus departed within moments, about ten minutes before five o’clock. Within six or seven minutes, that saheb called twice — I didn’t answer the first time, and blocked his number after the second. Another call came from a different number. I recognized his voice upon answering and immediately blocked that one too. Just as we passed Choudhury Bazaar, an elderly gentleman who had boarded from behind at Debul said to me,
“Where were you planning to go with that man?
I have nothing to explain to you, but what you were about to do wasn’t right. I didn’t like what I saw. I have a daughter your age, which is why I’m speaking up. You were about to get off with someone you don’t even know!” A lady who had boarded at Mohednagar and had been sitting beside me all this while — she had asked for and taken a lozenge from me earlier — also nodded in agreement. She told me never to get off buses like this with strangers. I replied, quite embarrassed, “No, we had been talking for quite a while… and then when I saw that none of you were getting off, I decided not to get off either.”
Last night alone, I had to block five more numbers of his. The terrible danger I escaped from still gives me goosebumps when I think about it.
Reflection: One hundred and ninety-two.
……………………………………..
Yodhon, I feel utterly helpless. The patterns I arrange for my life, the designs I grow accustomed to seeing — why does none of it ever manifest before me at the right time? Or why can I never reach there at the right moment — only my fate knows this. Everything simply continues to question me in this way. Carrying the burden of questions, I no longer wish to confront any inquiry. Every answer in my life repeatedly places me before new questions. Each answer inevitably carries several questions within it!
Paths come in many forms, and I don’t know why from birth until now, I’ve been allotted only the rough, stony road for my journey. I was born into a large family during a time of acute crisis. Even so, the family circle kept expanding, merely following the natural order of things. After me, five more new faces appeared one by one. Each day we had to learn just this: to survive, we had to strengthen our position. We had to move forward somehow or another. We grew up believing that if we kept trying, the Creator would surely help us. In time, my mother’s jewelry went to the pawnbroker piece by piece, other household items were sold. Then almost all the land we had in the village was sold off. The cattle and goats didn’t escape either. But when there was no arrangement to satisfy hunger, when father’s business kept moving forward by counting only losses, even then there was no one left to ask for loans. Neither neighbors nor relatives stood by us. Of course, our family had never cultivated friendship with any wealthy, compassionate person. From all sides came advice to sell our place in Dhaka and move to the village. Since then I’ve looked upon business with absolute terror. I know how risk upon risk can utterly exhaust a life. My school education began in just such circumstances. So inevitably, the poverty fund was in my rightful domain. For me, new books or notebooks were both equivalent to the golden deer of legend. That’s how I grew up. Skipping studies was therefore the ultimate luxury to me. How could that suit me? So studying was my sole devotion. I studied tremendously, tremendously, tremendously—I mean, I had to. I received all the affection that teachers bestow on attentive students at school. Along with waived fees and books, even new uniforms came through the generous compassion of kind teachers. This way I passed through school and went to college. By then my brother was studying at BUET, my sister at Jahangirnagar University. Both of them were constantly trying to lighten the household burden somewhat by working on professors’ projects. Right after passing the intermediate exam, the other two sisters also left home for months at a time, traveling from union to sub-district as teams working on various government projects. The rest of us were managing our expenses as much as possible by giving tuition and coaching classes. I tried not to have to study under any professor during intermediate. The decision was perhaps wrong, but I had no other option—how much more pressure could I put on my siblings! So through the combination of dreams and effort, the expected grade remained elusive, and I, who had qualified to study at Holy Cross College, tumbled from dream to reality. I had dreamed of becoming an architect. It didn’t happen. My elder brother had dreamed of becoming a doctor, but couldn’t manage it. Not getting admission to BUET or medical college, I enrolled in Microbiology at Dhaka University. I covered my own expenses for notebooks, books, and transportation, but one thought always consumed me—for my food and clothing, I was still dependent on my older siblings. I wanted freedom from this; I needed to stand firmly on my own feet—this realization pierced me constantly. While others sought dependence and dreams in their lovers’ eyes, I was desperately racing to find the formula for how to keep life’s burden in my own hands.
My three youngest siblings never had to truly comprehend the harsh realities of our household. But by then, a tremendous change had already taken place. When I was in eighth grade, my father suffered his first brain stroke—the most severe one. After that, he had two or three more strokes, each of them minor, what doctors call mild strokes. One of my father’s maternal uncles was a police inspector in Kolkata, and I heard he practiced homeopathy. My father picked up some rudiments of this healing art from him. We had an old wooden medicine box from those days. As a very small child, I too had my initiation into this world through my father. I could treat fevers, headaches, stomach aches, acidity, boils, or chronic ailments quite well—sometimes by consulting books, sometimes by matching symptoms without any reference at all. If I hadn’t been able to give my father Nux Vomica at the right moment during his stroke, perhaps many things would not be as they are today. Yes… perhaps! In any case, from that time when I was in eighth grade, my father gave up everything and became completely housebound. For twenty-one years now, he has been counting the hours until death arrives. It’s difficult to understand without witnessing how a person can keep both feet planted on this side while simultaneously preparing for the journey to the other side. A man eats, watches television, dissects politics with equal fervor, spins tales and entertainment with great gusto, yet tells whoever visits, “Brother, I already have one foot in the grave.” And indeed, that’s the truth. Even under the same roof, my parents have slept in separate beds for twenty-one years. And the infection continues to fester with devoted care; the doctor says this is how it will continue.
We siblings grew up hand in hand through struggle and conflict. The youngest three never experienced this hardship to the same degree. None of us older siblings wanted the pain we endured, the battles we fought, to prematurely rob them of the smoothness of their path. Yet the fact remains—they didn’t grow up on father’s money; they grew up under the burden of debt, sustained by the compassion of brothers and sisters. Nothing was ever readily available when they wanted it. Most of the time, perhaps they couldn’t even overcome the hesitation to ask. An uncomprehending resentment often worked within me: where was my father’s responsibility when other fathers took on their duties without hesitation? Of course, life didn’t stop amid this tug-of-war; it moved forward just the same.
I think about how my father gambled with life itself—leaving home before even finishing school, going into business, coming to Dhaka to buy land, marrying and becoming a family man, bringing eleven children into the world. The labor he put in during those first twelve years of his life became the foundation we somehow clung to, building our own footing. Without this small patch of land to live on in Dhaka, we might have been lost to some forgotten village, some floating slum, or back in the countryside. Everyone knows that even a king’s fortune runs dry when you gamble recklessly! But we didn’t lose. We turned things around. The very land that everyone advised us to sell and leave—on that land now stands a six-and-a-half-story building. Yes, built with loans, mortgaging the land itself, but that money is being paid back, principal and interest. The old debts we owed to everyone were settled with the salary money from my elder brother and sister-in-law. My brother has married; his two daughters are growing up. He’s even bought a car. Though he qualified as a magistrate, he didn’t join the civil service—how could such a massive household run on that salary? Today he earns excellent money as a consultant for the World Bank and UNDP! Still, his life is simultaneously secure and forever uncertain, because all his earnings depend on projects.
Here, now, each person’s life is in their own hands. My sisters married using money they’d saved from their own jobs. Even my youngest sister. What did I really give her? I managed small gifts, maybe ten thousand taka at most. Yes, perhaps Mother’s jewelry was remade—turned into bangles, rings, necklaces. The siblings contributed bits and pieces too. We’ve moved far ahead, leaving behind those blue-bruised days of hardship. I work in a cadre position that has at least some social value, along with security—which was my greatest desire during those uncertain years of the past. Yet life seems frozen, unable to move forward. Days come, days go. Night falls, dawn breaks. Life’s joys remain untouchable. Here life has withered away, my friend. I’m merely surviving in this stone-like existence, breathing in that sense alone. I no longer want to be stone. I want life—I’m constantly searching for a life. What I’ve received so far surpasses my wildest dreams. Who knows, perhaps something even more beautiful awaits me ahead. This very waiting has kept me alive.
Reflection: One hundred ninety-three.
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Today at iftar, I managed to get my younger brother wonderfully engaged in setting the iftar table. I feel like an accomplished manager. Our mother has rendered her sons completely useless—though naturally, the brothers among seven sisters would be useless, what’s surprising about that? Our brothers won’t lift a finger around the house, yet they’re constantly delivering grand pronouncements. Then my temper shoots beyond the seventh heaven, if there’s anything higher than that. Over the past few days, handling college, cooking, serving, household management—taking leadership in everything, managing it almost single-handedly—I kept thinking it might not be possible anymore. I can’t do it, I’m failing.
With no college today, I managed to do some shopping myself and cook peacefully. Today’s menu: spiced chickpeas, onion fritters, potato cutlets, salad, chicken shashlik, lentils, fried pointed gourd, rice, luchi, semolina halwa, and sherbet. Along with fruits (dates, bananas, pears) and yogurt with flattened rice. Household management, cooking, serving, and above all, work—everything together is impossible. When you have to do it all, you don’t feel human anymore during those times. In the family I was born into, without working, my very existence wouldn’t survive. Thank goodness I got into the education cadre—transfers close to home are easy, and besides, the pressure is somewhat less, so I can give time to the house too. Otherwise, this cherished household would have gone to hell long ago!
This was possible only because of that madness I did over you back then. If that madness hadn’t seized my head, would I have studied so much? Thank goodness! Even now, remembering it makes me laugh! That’s why they say, whatever happens, happens for the good. My wish was always to have such a job where I’d work only two or three days a week, spend the rest of the time decorating the house, giving time to my beloved, dressing myself up for them. I haven’t chased money all this time, and I won’t now. Whatever leisure I have, with that I’ll create my own heaven. Just stay there with me, won’t you?
The last few days, excessive pressure has caused me much physical distress, and my mood wasn’t right either. I either didn’t answer my two younger brothers or scolded them with every response. Now, in the cool breeze, after the day’s toil has eased, I’m returning home from college through the wonderful road of Deundi, pushing past the calm green nature. I feel bad for scolding them. Tell me, do they understand that when I scold them, it hurts me more?
A gentle rain is falling. My mind has been restless with so many thoughts for so long now. Everything feels good, yet nothing feels good. What is good, the Creator always determines that for us, yet we humans often lose patience.
You haven’t been responding properly lately. Where you actually are, whether you’re busy or not—who knows? Suddenly, if my call or message puts you in trouble, thinking of that, I don’t call or text anymore. This is my one hope—if sometime here, understanding the opportunity and timing, you respond!
How are you now? It would feel good to know.
How do I make them understand! No prayers or supplications will work. No saint, fakir, or healer can change anything about me. Nothing will change until I want it myself. And how can I say what I actually want? Accepting anyone other than you is beyond my capacity. Yet this too is true—getting you is not possible for me. I’ve realized that in this life, I can neither make anyone happy nor be happy myself.
Are you getting annoyed listening to me?
Go ahead, be annoyed! But these things I have to tell you—that day if you hadn’t convinced me otherwise, I would have really married Tanvir bhai. By now Tanvi wouldn’t be calling me apu but bhabi. Perhaps our family would have grown from two to three or three and a half by now. I wouldn’t have gotten a job, wouldn’t have had any independence. Let it be as it may,
a person of somewhat weak intellect,
a bit hot-headed by nature, utterly simple and foolishly arrogant—life would have passed with such a person! He would have played new tunes on his guitar just for me! Of course,
such easy verdicts about any life cannot be given until that life has actually been lived. Why don’t they understand that whatever else may happen by force,
a marriage cannot. At least I don’t believe in such marriages.
If you hadn’t spoken to me that way, would I have ever broken down my barriers like this?
I don’t think so!
Today you’ll tell me again to put up those barriers,
to suddenly go far away—no, I cannot do that. If you can’t draw me close, at least never push me away.
Thought: One hundred and ninety-one.
……………………………………..
Nature burns in the scorching heat,
Let all love burn with it!
Let rain come darkening the sky,
Bringing with it—unlove!
That’s better!
Hey you stars,
listen!
There in the sky
sitting silently,
you see everything!
Can you tell me,
why isn’t she well?
Will she ever tell me?
Oh, what rubbish!
Who am I to her,
that she would tell?
This wanting to know,
is therefore only futile!
Won’t you tell me!
Will you tell me,
sweet star?
Do you too, like everyone else, act only from self-interest?
No one says anything. Nothing feels good. If only someone understood!
I love you!—what a deep feeling,
yet sometimes on this vast earth there isn’t even one person to whom one can say this small sentence of merely two words. Or,
whoever that one person is you want to tell,
to them perhaps this phrase has absolutely no depth. So it remains unsaid. Whether one has a BF,
GF or husband, wife has no relation to whether these words are spoken or not.
After receiving a small message, you honored me by changing from addressing me as ‘you’ (formal) to ‘you’ (intimate). I remember,
what had I sent?
Don’t be afraid, all our words will remain between us. All my feelings of sorrow and pain are shared only with you. These words of mine are written solely for you, thinking only of you. So I will never share them with anyone else. Will you stay with me like this always?
When I feel utterly suffocated, I look at that sky through the window. I take a deep breath, as if bringing myself back to life anew! When my heart grows heavy with sadness, I seek you out! Because you are my open sky, my free air, my boundless nature. Will this opportunity to immerse myself in nature not always remain open to me? I can no longer bear the excessive vigilance of the people at home. I must work, I must pursue additional degrees, and yet I cannot travel alone—what is all this! They can torment me well—with their endless refrains of “stay around Dhaka, stay around Dhaka” they would happily keep me confined to the house—stay home, tend to father and mother, brothers and sisters. Call me whenever anyone needs anything, I’m always here! Just be the ever-ready servant, that’s all. Doing all this, they made me quit three jobs. What was gained in the process? All the unrest falls on me! How can I find peace even at home, when every few days it’s “meet this suitor, meet that suitor”—how much more of this melodrama can I bear! Life has become monotonous, I no longer find joy in living.
It would be quite something if I could just abandon everything and die. Life means nothing but a heap of suffering! Fortune offers no support either. It just keeps spinning me around! What more will life show me?
When a person assumes some great role, we common folk forget that they too are made of flesh and blood like us, nothing different. They too have hearts, they love, they feel sorrow! Our expectations transcend the humanity of the superhuman, reaching far beyond! Then we can no longer forgive them. But a human being remains human! So even the superhuman cannot transcend the limits of their humanity! Why can’t we accept the small chapters in a great person’s life? Don’t we have those same things? Everyone has them, otherwise how would that life be complete! This is how our endless search for the infinite continues within our finite bounds!
Reflection: One hundred and ninety-five.
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If two people stand at opposite ends of a road of fixed distance, even if only one person starts walking, the distance is eventually bridged. But the distance in relationships never diminishes through solitary effort alone—sometimes the distance even increases.
“Have you had dinner?”
After all this time, coming to you and asking just this simple question has become a personal matter against me in your eyes, hasn’t it?
In truth, I deserve nothing from myself but disgust. No, you’ve done right…
It’s just that I sometimes forget in my needless one-sided love that the boundaries of what is ‘personal’ vary greatly from person to person. I’ve truly grown only in years.
Tell me, did you ever eat ‘kotkoti’ as a child? It was a sweet made of jaggery studded with nuts. Sometimes it was so hard that when you bit into it, you couldn’t quite tell what had broken—your tooth or the kotkoti?
Father would scold us terribly for eating such things. We’d buy them in secret. They were such fun to eat. Because we bought them secretly, the taste seemed even sweeter! That secretly eaten kotkoti was as sweet as a stolen kiss. Have you ever eaten this kotkoti?
In the silent night,
in the vocal storm,
came a wind blowing.
A handful of wind
I have stolen,
only for you.
Night’s feelings vanish before dawn arrives. This, they say, is love! Why doesn’t such sparrow-like love come into my life?
Or does it come indeed,
only to flee because I cannot receive it?
Along a path one inch wide, two-inch thorns have walked crosswise for many miles. If you look,
there is no bloodshed,
yet know for certain that there has been cutting—somewhere else,
unseen.
I bother you less these days, don’t I? You’ve learned to ignore—good for you! You survive, and I survive too!
I rant to myself on my own wall,
for there’s no place for me in your chamber. Have I become quite a nuisance in your life? You know,
I am terribly traditional!
I cannot quite change with the times. You know, don’t you,
that old wine has more intoxication, old relationships more pull. And I am stuck in one relationship! In my case this is
not pull,
but actual death!
One who understands love, who truly loves—
how does such a person turn away from truth,
tell me?
What is most true to me, that conquers death—that is my love!
Where shall I leave it behind, tell me?
There must be some trustworthy platform to come and stand upon!
Such is my fortune—
no one else possesses the worthiness to connect with faith. My faith is too precious—it doesn’t come easily,
doesn’t break,
doesn’t form easily either!
If I destroy it, I myself will be destroyed!
Perhaps that’s why no cart moves on such light pulling!
I sit as if frozen still—like an immovable mountain!
One day I shall touch that sky—standing alone and erect in that expectation.
Or else the sky will touch me—in that expectation of infinity.
Questions, it seems, become meaningless when they reach you! Yet this foolish heart remains needlessly waiting for answers.
Someone has been given so many answers—now I need at least one question!
Thought: One hundred ninety-six.
……………………………………..
We have such a dire shortage of meaningful work and purpose. Give us something—anything—to do!
We cannot bear to enter our own toilets for the stench,
so we venture into others’, searching desperately for microscopic traces of ancient excrement on their commodes. Finding filth is all we need—we are fundamentally a dung-obsessed people. The smell of excrement keeps us awake,
which is why we remain vigilant. Our favorite pastime is gazing with lustful eyes and protruding tongues at others’ graceful posteriors. Few nations can match our dedication to posterior-worship. We are a licking people—feet or buttocks, it matters not!
Our sole occupation is wandering from backside to backside of innocent people. Living from posterior to posterior! We lose sleep over whose backside we haven’t examined. We find all the world’s fragrances in others’ backsides. The posterior is truth, the posterior is religion. All worldly pleasures lie in others’ backsides! Only the posterior is real! What is the point of living if we cannot keep track of how many times another person defecates and urinates daily?
What meaning does life hold if we cannot inhale others’ foul gases?
Our brains function only on the vapors from others’ posteriors.
Both our envy of others’ success and our coveting of others’ wives have reached epic proportions. We cannot sleep for the torment of why another man’s wife should be beautiful. Envy is not merely our possession—envy is the treasure of our hearts. This is precisely why no adequate English equivalent exists for this word. Naturally. They have no need for such a thing. Those who are capable themselves—why would they weep at seeing another’s capability?
Only those with no achievements in life cannot celebrate another’s accomplishments. Remarkably, they cannot escape this vicious cycle of jealousy. Once someone becomes enslaved to envy,
they can never easily become master of their own happiness. Those who can, do. Those who cannot burn with spite. This is the law of the world. This thing called envy is so thoroughly mixed into our blood
that not even one percent of it exists in their urine. And when do they have the time?
They are not, after all, veranda-squatting people like us. Not all of us can achieve,
but some can. They achieve,
therefore, we weep at the sight of them. We don’t merely weep—we chase after them, barking and howling. Our nostrils find greater pleasure in posterior odors than in the fragrance of flowers. Occasionally they release gas,
and we inhale it, considering ourselves sophisticated. Their gas emission,
our gas consumption—this is life! We carry ourselves as though
all the world’s stench emerges only from others’ anuses. It never occurs to us that not everyone desires to survive by inhaling such gases. We firmly believe that in this world, only our own posterior is a factory of fragrant air. Again, our traditional posterior syndrome! Of course,
everything in its proper place. Crown on the head, toilet tissue on the backside. Some people are born to spend their lives as toilet tissue. They dwell always with excrement. Nothing suits them except excrement-like substances. Therefore, to keep yourself free from stench, maintain a safe distance even from those close to the envious person.
The honest truth of our hearts: I am impotent,
but why shouldn’t I therefore pinch your child?