Reflection: Forty-three.
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That even the rain weeps so much—does anyone understand this? Everyone hides their own tears in the rain and gets away with it—but where will the rain hide its tears? Has anyone ever thought, even in passing, of this dearest friend’s suffering? Why is the ocean’s water salty—does anyone know? How much longer with science’s childish tricks? All the ‘whys’ of the world come to nest in one’s head. Sometimes, the mind rebels—by hook or by crook, it will gather all the ‘whys’ in its fist and hurl them into the basket of answers. Within oneself, an infinite ocean of ‘whys’ begins to spread. Mind joins with intellect, diving deep, searching for gems. Through persistent searching, it finds something here and there. Such precious heaps of jewels, the attraction becomes irresistible. Life gives them a name—associations. Do the value of such associations of life sometimes exceed life itself? I’m clearing my throat a little. The question arises: do I need salt, or saffron!? It becomes urgent! The critics laugh uproariously. Where is cheap salt, and where, pray tell, is expensive saffron! Is there even a comparison!? Cheap heaps of salt lying neglected by the seashore—you can get plenty for just four rupees! And saffron comes with such stories, only after so much sacrifice does one get saffron! This red gold’s price is quite steep too—nearly four lakh rupees goes out of the pocket for just one kilogram, goes into the pocket! Whoever has it is a very precious person. I understand it all, saffron has a royal bearing, it makes one a king too—but is its price in any way greater than salt’s necessity? Is food possible without salt!? It’s not possible, therefore, living without salt is not possible either. Yet, one can manage without saffron, one can reach death laughing and playing. How many people live tremendously precious lives without knowing about so many precious things! Therefore, however cheap or easily available salt may be—its true value—is no less than saffron’s, rather much, much more. Life too is sometimes like this…..people, in their greed for saffron—lose the real taste itself. They value price more than necessity. This very seeing blinds people eventually. People become blind and abandon the necessary to chase after the expensive!……..I have lost my father. This feeling, one whose father is alive will not understand. Father is there, father is not there—the distance between these two poles is more intense than imagination. When father was alive, one simply assumes that even in the very moment after neglecting father, father will remain there waiting to bear the next neglect. Among many, many saffrons, salt gets no attention. Salt is lost, man holds saffron in hand, writhes in terrible agony. Then there’s nothing left to do.
Today is father’s death anniversary. Fifteen years have passed. So much time, such a long time, passes so easily. Sometimes I feel like calling all the fathers of the world and saying—listen! Love your children much, much more—so that even when you’re not there, they won’t lack for love. Then again sometimes I think, let me tell them—what’s the use of loving so much? You won’t be by their side forever. This infinite love of yours will only cause your child lifelong torment. If your child becomes accustomed to your love, and after that habituation you leave, then where will they grope unto death, searching for that heavenly love?
Reflection: Forty-four.
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So much suffering, yet I shall keep laughing—this is what life means. I deliberately keep myself at a distance from people. In crowds, I am utterly misplaced. I cannot accept, cannot adjust. In my entire life, I have exchanged lengthy messages with only two or three people. Hard to believe, isn’t it? My friend list contains exactly fourteen people. With none of them do I really talk. I don’t like chattering endlessly just to pass time—not even with those I don’t particularly care for. Such antisocial tendencies have made me terribly selfish about myself and those I consider close. So when I message someone, a certain claim works upon them. If someone doesn’t reply to even a hundred of my messages, it doesn’t hurt me that much, but if they don’t read even one message, then somehow I cannot accept it, cannot bear it—a fierce agony begins in my chest. I simply cannot accept that my messages are unworthy of being read, or that there’s nothing in me deserving of attention! Please, even if you don’t read my message, at least mark it as seen. If that gives me comfort, even false comfort, it causes you no harm, does it? You are nobody special to me. (I lied while standing before the mirror of my own mind, for the sake of easier understanding.) Therefore, I am not the sort who should expect such things from you—at least, I wasn’t. Yet, whether I want it or not, whether you want it or not, many things change… they do change… with reason or without… knowingly or unknowingly… silently or aloud… Why do they change? When I seek that answer, where do I even find it? Right before my eyes, something is happening to me that shouldn’t be accepted, something I could easily walk away from if I chose—yet where is that walking away? Life changes, I change too… One day the sky promised to touch me. I am still waiting for that touch. It doesn’t come; I grow old thinking about it, yet it doesn’t come. My heart says, it’s nothing—the sky talks like that! I convince my heart, but it had given its word! Everyone says I believe others, so I am foolish. I wonder then—what is the one who makes others believe? Wise? Or a deceiver?
Thought: Forty-five.
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Forget everything else for now—if I simply answered the phone, or met her—the Mahabharata would truly become defiled!—we both believe this! There’s a vast distance between understanding and accepting. What cannot be accepted is better left misunderstood. But somehow, for some reason, understanding happens anyway, while acceptance refuses to come. Tell me, did she listen to those voice messages I sent her? Sometimes I don’t feel like writing, but I want to speak. I want to talk endlessly, but I don’t want to write a single letter. Like now—I feel like having “a night-long conversation.” But alas, before the night ends, words run out, or the entire body begins to speak. The body’s words silence the mind’s words, or perhaps the body makes the mind speak. When the body makes the mind speak, the mind says terribly foolish things! Night transforms words along with people. Night-people are different people. Night-words are different words. With someone you fear falling in love with, whatever else may happen, you mustn’t talk at night. Each night is born with infinite power to destroy. Yet that desire persists, keeps on persisting. Along with the desire, I can hear something like a voice saying: Who will listen to your words? What do you have to offer? Are you the kind of girl one can talk to all night about things other than love? Well, do we love everything about someone because we love them, or do we love them because everything about them is lovable? Both are true, and both are false. At day’s end, only we are true. The rest of the world remains true only for the remaining time. I’m desperately trying to write poetry—the body of the poem comes, the feeling comes too, but that body remains merely the body of prose; I cannot capture it in the words of poetry. Someone who doesn’t write poetry will never understand what infinite helplessness such moments bring. In an exam hall, when a question you know appears but no answer comes to mind—in such moments, a fierce sense of ownership over that question is born. A sense of ownership grows over what I know but cannot recall when needed. And what is unknown to me, what isn’t mine, but which I can feel deeply enough to create it in my own way—when it doesn’t come to mind in times of need, my entire existence begins to feel utterly pointless. Everyone’s life contains someone like an unfinished poem they want to write, over whom they always feel intense ownership, no matter how unknown, unfamiliar, or belonging to someone else that person may be!
Thought: Forty-six.
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I have read books—very few in number. Whenever I read fiction, tears come to my eyes, regardless of what the story might be about. Why they come—I don’t know myself. A book that doesn’t belong to me, I never read. Even if I’ve been mentally searching for a book for a year, and while traveling somewhere I get five hours of free time and find that very book there, still I absolutely will not read it! Why I don’t read others’ books—I don’t know the explanation for this. I’ve tried reading them, but it just doesn’t work. In books one encounters so many kinds of people and characters; one can love them, hate them too. Sometimes that love becomes so intense that I want to touch the author. And when fierce hatred is born, I even want to murder the author. There are advantages to loving various story characters, and disadvantages too. For instance, if my beloved were a character in some novel, then no matter how selflessly I loved that character, the desire to meet or speak with them wouldn’t arise, because there’s simply no opportunity! Only an unfulfilled longing would remain in the mind—Oh! Why doesn’t such a person exist in reality? Again, even if I found that character in reality but my desires weren’t fulfilled, then I’d think it would have been better if they had remained a novel’s character—at least then, whatever else might happen, the enchantment wouldn’t have been destroyed! But reality says that imagining something wonderful is actually all emptiness—merely holding an ‘unconscious’ in conscious mind, and staying immersed in a heap of fascination. That holding—perhaps right, perhaps wrong. And more important than that is… well, I mean, I’m getting sleepy… I’m feeling like loving the vastness of the night sky very much… so I’ve closed all the windows and drawn the curtains. When I truly feel sleepy, what’s all this loving-loving about anyway?… Good night… Oh, one question—no, let it be, another night. No! Let me ask it. If I don’t, I won’t be able to sleep. Well, what if Facebook had existed in Rabindranath’s time! Alas… one Gitanjali written, and a thousand Gitanjali’s worth of comments! What would he have done then? Give me the answer, let’s see! I think Rabindranath truly had a lucky escape! Ah, ah!… I want to stay away from some beloved souls. This staying away isn’t merely for the sake of staying away—the intense desire to come close is what keeps me at a distance… You see, staying away keeps open the option of coming close, and coming close opens up the option of moving away! Let the first one remain forever! What’s really the point of increasing attachment? Let some attachments truly diminish. We too will be saved. Everything will merge into that same emptiness. Ah! Maya… in every breath, only maya… Now truly-truly, a hug to my dear one’s mind, good night to the person.
Thought: Forty-seven.
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“From beneath her pristine white shirt, her breasts emerged……..” This line was the first indecent sentence I ever read in my life. Back then, I read absolutely nothing outside our prescribed school textbooks. However, the way I used to read those books—I scored poorly on exams, but found immense joy in reading. I thought then: what’s the point of getting all those marks? Joy is everything! Those who watched me read and thought I’d turn the world upside down would see on result day—the world remained exactly as it was, but I had turned upside down instead. After Class Five, my roll number never reached one again—it progressed geometrically: two, four, eight. Even numbers drew me closer. I remember reading in Class Seven or Eight then. Mouri was the first girl, a very good student. We shared a good friendship. For no particular reason, the girl loved me deeply. I have never in my life judged anyone by who they are, what they do, and so forth—I only see the person within, and I want people to love me only if they can love the ‘me’ inside me, not for anything else. I have always been quite ordinary, inside and out. My female classmates in those days lived much more comfortable lives than I did. The gift Mouri would receive on her birthday cost as much as our entire month’s grocery budget. I never participated in that unhealthy competition of showing off with expensive gifts on special occasions, never gave anyone gifts, but still received love—far more from their parents than from the friends themselves. However, all love carries pain. I had to endure plenty of that too. One day, Mouri insisted and took me to her house. Entering the drawing room, I saw it decorated with expensive artifacts and furniture, with a massive bookshelf full of books in one corner; everything in the house felt unfamiliar, only those books felt like home. “Have you read all these books?” “Mm-hmm…..want to read some?” “I don’t really have a habit of reading books. Okay, give me one or two.” Mouri gave me two books with the condition that I had to return them—one was Robinson Crusoe, the other’s name I don’t remember……..I was sitting at home reading that travel narrative whose name I can’t recall……suddenly that particular line caught my eye. As soon as I read it, it began blazing—in my eyes, in my mind. Again and again, I’d flip to that page and read only that line, thinking: is someone watching me? I forced myself to think, “Shame! Shame! Do such things really get written in books!? Does Mouri read these? What’s the point of guarding her so much!?” Being her parents’ only beloved daughter, Mouri always had an uncle with her as a guard. He would stick to Mouri like a shadow all the time. I used to think he was the only one who didn’t stay with Mouri during bathroom breaks! He was there all other times. Utterly insufferable! Mouri thought this bodyguard was to prevent her from falling in love. However, I don’t know how effective that guard ultimately proved. I heard she later fell in love with one of her medical professors—a doctor—and married him……..Anyway, reading that line made me feel something strange inside. For the first time in my life, I suddenly felt grown up! Something happened……..something…….that cannot be explained in writing, something like that. I immediately hid the book! Not from anyone else, but to save myself from myself—I hid the book.
How many years have passed now……time after time, willingly, unwillingly, or through the grace of generous modernity, how much has been seen, read, known, heard. Yet that feeling from a single line remains in the same unchanged, imperishable state. Perhaps it will always remain so. Some first experiences, some primal sensations—it’s impossible to erase them completely from body and mind. Now I don’t read any book unless it’s my own, but the very first book I read belonged to someone else, and that book……..After SSC, Mauri had moved to Dhaka. I can’t remember if I returned those two books of hers. If I didn’t, I’ve truly done something terrible! With you as my witness, I’m saying ‘sorry’ to Mauri! “Sorry, sister, truly sorry…..” Not returning books is also a serious crime! When someone, thinking so well of you, trusts you enough to lend you a book, and if you end up keeping it, how awful does that become? Some people forget to return books. That too is a kind of delusion. That should also be punished. My only punishment—I’ll have to eat puffed rice soaked in Sprite…..hehehe……..
Thought: Forty-eight.
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When anger comes, I don’t know what others feel like doing, but I want to shower the person I love with affection—as much as possible, even more than possible. Either proper physical tenderness, or just the caress of the mind. Many don’t understand the caress of the mind, thinking the body is everything—that’s when anger comes, truly terrible anger. The place of a mind-thief is far above that of a body-thief. Mind-theft lasts a lifetime, but body-theft? That’s merely momentary. No one understands this simple truth. When such thoughts arise, in rage and sorrow I’d tear at my own hair, but there’s no way—because I have very little hair! How little, let me tell you… it can’t be counted, but seeing it makes you want to count—that kind. I get so very angry. Love is needed to feel anger, but expressing anger requires a certain right! Expressing anger without that right diminishes a person—in their own eyes, and in the eyes of the one they’re angry with. Love too gives birth to a sense of entitlement, but that poor entitlement is quite helpless—it can’t accomplish everything. Uff! Writing all this and my hand is burning. So often now, burning my hand—has this become routine? Strange! Why am I, fool that I am, glorifying this hand-burning so beautifully? Apart from understanding, even slightly, the infinite suffering of burn unit patients, there’s absolutely nothing good about it. What’s happened lately is that whenever I ask someone something, everyone responds, “I don’t know.” “I don’t know” is such a cutting remark! It means I’m worthy of hearing cutting remarks. It makes me want to cry—huhuhuuuu… I can’t cry, because when I cry, I want to lick up and devour my own tears. What a wonderful taste tears have!
The beautiful gladiolus on the table—why is it making my heart feel worse instead of better? Just thinking this made me angry at the flowers! Away with them! I won’t look in that direction anymore!
Thought: Forty-nine.
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Perhaps one can love people deeply, but not every shade of love can be given to everyone, even if we wish to. This is a very natural limitation—of life. For some reason, this age-old limitation hurts the most. The radiance of life’s colors often remains trapped within love’s various boundaries. I can give my mother boundless love—but since my father is no longer alive, how can I help her forget the pain of not receiving his love? I may give my brother the finest sisterly love in the world, but it won’t diminish his grief of losing someone dear, won’t ease the ache of not receiving love from that cherished person. My brother may lovingly arrange all possible worldly comforts for my sister, but if the person meant to blend into her life forever doesn’t hold her close with love, then nothing else feels right. When such things happen, living feels like nothing more than waking up and waiting for night. I may give much of my life’s time to ease a dear friend’s loneliness, but how can I give them their loved ones’ affection? I might surround a little child with expensive toys, favorite foods, and delightful heaps of fulfilled wishes, but how can I give them their parents’ love? I pray that every person honors each relationship in their life with its due respect, with love. And if they can’t, let them sit at a distance, soaking chanachur in Mirinda! And refrain from forming new relationships. There are some people—masters at breaking old bonds, grandmasters at forging new ones! Huhaha… One thing. I can love someone special selflessly, deeply, but them, I mean… no, never mind, nothing, nothing! I thought about it—no! Mirages aren’t false; false is that which, without being a mirage, behaves like one. I told someone today… loving people and helping them—do these two things knowing you won’t get them back. If you want love in return for love, help in return for help, you’ll only suffer. So either do it selflessly, or don’t do it at all—if you want to stay well. Expecting anything makes suffering inevitable. I felt the girl was hurt by my words. But I didn’t say anything wrong. Then why was she hurt? Some people can’t accept the truth, yet they can wait for the truth’s torment. Let them! I won’t speak to anyone like that anymore. Let all the world’s joys remain well in their own way, return again and again… Sometimes I feel that both giving love to people and receiving it are terribly wrong! So wrong that such wrongness cannot be forgiven! As if there’s a deep resentment toward love itself, surpassing people. Actually, the greatest truth—that truth which hides within truth’s heart. Within one truth many lies are hidden, some truths are hidden too. The peaceful coexistence of those lies and truths is what ultimately makes the truth true… Alas! Night fled and became morning… yet why won’t sleep come? I’m angry at myself. In anger, my breath grows short.