# The Shadow More Than Light / Eight There is a peculiar malaise that settles over us when we realize that language itself has become our prison. Not the prison of limited vocabulary or fumbling articulation—those are merely symptoms—but something far more insidious: the prison of meaning that has already been decided for us, words that arrive pre-laden with the weight of countless prior utterances, concepts that have hardened into dogma. When I speak of joy, I am not speaking. I am merely activating a mechanism, pressing a button that sets off a recorded response in your mind—a faint echo of joy, perhaps, but joy nonetheless filtered through the sediment of your own experiences, your disappointments, your private surrenders to the ordinary. The word *joy* arrives between us like a courier with a sealed letter we can never quite open. This is why silence has always seemed to me the most honest of languages. There exists a theory—I forget where I encountered it, or perhaps I invented it in my reading—that human beings are fundamentally translators rather than thinkers. We translate the wordless world into language, yes, but we also translate ourselves endlessly: translating our impulses into acceptable behavior, our solitude into sociability, our knowledge into argument. We are always presenting a version, an adaptation, a manuscript revised to suit the audience. The shadow that falls across our words is not the shadow of doubt—doubt would be too easy—but the shadow of our own inaccessibility to ourselves. I cannot speak my own deepest thought because my deepest thought exists in a language that predates speech, a language of sensation and half-formed gesture, of the body's secret grammar. When I force it into words, something dies. And yet. And yet we continue. We gather in rooms and exchange utterances. We read. We write. Perhaps we do so knowing that the gap between intention and expression is unbridgeable, and finding in that very unbridgability something that keeps us reaching. The light we seek in understanding is always, necessarily, incomplete. The shadow—that darkness which clings to every lucid idea—may be the truest thing we know.

 
No one wishes to save me! I live, and this burden belongs to no single person in this world. The very thought of it makes my chest quake!
My student's mother has died. The little girl is in Class Three. Ever since she watched her mother's death right before her eyes, she has been traumatized. She speaks to no one, spends the whole day beating everyone in the house, and sleeps from three to four in the afternoon, exhausted. 
I asked her, Do you have friends?
She replied, No. I love being alone!
Because I tutor her at home, she didn't hit me. My student told me, Sister, I didn't give her rice today! See what she's done to my whole body beating me! I asked, Where is she? Call her.
She came before me. I held her close and asked, Why didn't you wear your sweater? Aren't you cold? She said, Everyone's mother dressed them in sweaters! I told her, So what? Your sister wanted to dress you in your sweater! Why didn't you wear it?
Then she clung to me and wept, saying, I said I wouldn't wear it, but why didn't she force me? Mother always forced me to wear it even when I didn't want to. When I don't want to eat now, no one forces me. Why doesn't anyone force me? Mother always forced me to eat. Why doesn't anyone force me anymore? Why doesn't anyone love me anymore?... And she sobbed and sobbed.
In that single small word—'force'—lay countless grievances, accusations toward the whole world. The sound of that weeping broke open for me the weight of what lay beneath. And so what appears before the eye, what we think we understand—it is not always, not ever, the whole truth! Outward appearance does not express the real character of a man. I told my student, Don't love a beggar, don't love God himself—rather, love her! God dwells in your sister. Love her so fiercely that even if you wished to leave her, you could not! Learn to use force. Love demands a kind of force. To truly love is to insist. Without that insistence, people grow wounded and withdrawn. Look, it is plain!
She needs to be loved like me! In 'A Mother in Manneville,' the author gave Jerry something once, and Jerry would gape at the gift and then at the author's face! He did not know how to say thank you. But when the author looked into his eyes, she could see—He only looked at the gift and at me, and a curtain lifted, so that I saw deep into the clear well of his eyes, and gratitude was there, and affection, soft over the firm granite of his character.
When the author asked, Have you seen her, Jerry—lately? Jerry answered, I see her every summer. She sends for me. Jerry had created a realm of imagination where he communed with his mother! His mother was absent, yet the sensitivity of his heart was enough to speak with her, to feel a mother's love. I have never seen you! Perhaps I never shall! And yet I have fashioned an imagined world where I speak with you! God knows how honest, how simple, how sincere I am in this communion. Eternal bonding does not require physical presence. If I leave you someday, can you ever feel my stupidity, childish behaviour & unconditional love?
I know I am a bothersome person to you! And yet there are things that must be said!

The messages are not messages at all—they are a pure demonstration of my feelings! Please, understand that much! Don’t be like the others. Why did you call me? To humiliate me? Or to misunderstand me? A teacher once told me, Neeraja, give a person exactly as much value as you receive from them! For these three months, I have poured so much love into every message for you, and for every moment I have suffered thinking of you—I could have read so many books in that time, learned so much more! No one in the world has wasted their time the way I have! I keep making the same mistake over and over! Why am I like this?

Let you go, then. Leave! Be well. Alone, without me.

We should value a person only as much as we receive from them. We should spend our feelings only to the extent that another person holds them for us. Nothing one-sided lasts forever. If I cannot understand these simple truths by twenty-six, when will I ever understand them? How can your thoughts find space in a heart that has no space for me? Yet it does. Why does it? Never call me again—you don’t need to call the rude. Because this was love, it is natural that forgetting you would hurt, because I am human! And yet I will rise above it all the same! Humans can! Every time I stumble, I must dust myself off and stand again! I am setting you free! Wherever you are, be well.

I will not stay there anymore—not under any circumstance! I have made the decision not to remain in a place where my feelings have no value! And as a result of this decision, what I am gaining is: no one’s absence tears through my chest anymore, I can study in peace! I am sleeping properly! The one whose tears my crying could not move will not be moved by my death either! So one must love oneself first, before anything else! I have lived enough for others! No more. I may be rude, but with my love I have not been rude, I have not lied! If someone is truly human, they must remember that love even for a single second! They must!

Goodbye! So let it become just a status, for someone so rude as I am! It means nothing to me. But if you had written something more with that status—the kind of suffering it causes me—I would not have hesitated to give my very life to God in exchange for you!… Sir, it takes tremendous courage to stand before God and offer your lifespan, not just speak it aloud but truly mean it! I did not just speak it—I went to the temple and knelt before God and asked for it. God must have heard me, which is why I am so ill now! I don’t even know if I can sit for the BCS exam! Let me tell you, I am throwing down a challenge! Search the whole world and you will not find a single rude person who would say, Don’t leave me! Never ever! So why did you call me? I cannot stomach your humiliation, your misunderstandings. I am not in a mental state for this. I am human too, am I not?

Your strange similarity to my mother—she also seeks freedom from me, she also seeks relief from me, just like you! When love demands freedom, you must let it fly into the blue sky. I did that too! Go, I have set you free! You are left forever.

The most sorrowful person in this world is one who loves another with everything and yet must leave carrying only humiliation. Most sorrowful is the one whose death brings no pain to those close to them. Even more sorrowful is the one whose departure brings relief to their beloved. In this world, nothing can be forced into being.

Let no one else know—but I know it. In the ledger of power, my number is zero; in the ledger of loss, I hold the highest score! The last time, I lost even that final love! Do you understand this agony? *Stay away from me. Your name will be rubbed out from my life.*

Tell me truthfully—why did you call me so many times? Whatever insults you needed to hurl at me, couldn’t you have done it by message at least? I have no desire to speak with you ever again. And I am mentally and physically so disturbed! I don’t have the strength to digest your heavy, insulting words. I’m sorry. *Stay away from me and let me live without the existence of yours.*

What beautiful things did you say to me in these four months? Listen, I didn’t come to you with any selfish motive. In such a short time, it became love. But I’ve thought about it deeply. The longer it goes, the more weakness grows, and with it, my suffering. So it’s time to leave right now! And the greatest thing is—how can I even think of staying with someone who doesn’t value my feelings in the slightest? But you are the final blow. After this, before loving anyone, I’ll carry a calculator to tally up: how much did I give, how much did I receive?

And yes, humans are such egotistical creatures! Very few people in this world come with selfless hearts! Those who do come—couldn’t we be a little easier, a little gentler with them? When someone sends something written with tears, the response comes: *you write so beautifully!* But when someone loves you and says something, you don’t have to give them a certificate—you have to give them love! Girls cook for their beloved not to get a certificate, but because they love to cook for that person. They even cook with aching bodies for someone they cherish, they prepare dishes they themselves don’t eat, just for that person. This is not certificate-seeking—this is love. She too wants a little love, a little tenderness. Men have never understood this simple thing! They eat good food and just hand out certificates, more certificates! They think the girl must be thrilled by that alone! I tell you, when someone loves you and wants to give you something, you shouldn’t demand an account! Love transcends everything! With whatever little sense I have, this much I understand! Anyway, instead of wasting time sending you messages over and over, even reading these two lines would suffice! Thank you, for all the adjectives and certificates of four months!

You’re calling me so many times—do you have something to say? I mean, you did help me with something three or four months ago, so I’m asking: is this about that? Are you calling for money?

– What do you mean? That’s why I called you—that’s what it seemed like to you? Is this how you know me?

– No, I can’t think of any other reason for you to call me. Thinking about it all day yesterday and today, I’ve come up with only one answer—for that, I mean for the money.

– Alright. If you’re happy thinking this and saying it over and over, there’s no problem. Keep saying it.

– Why are you calling? Do you have something to say? If so, say it.

– I have nothing but wanting to talk with you, to tell you stories. What else would there be to say, tell me? Is there any selfish matter between us?

– No, I mean—am I disturbing you because of this? Because I send these long messages?

Why do I speak in anger, for that?
– No, no! These things aren’t even on my mind! How are you? What’s the news? It’s been so long since we’ve talked.
– Nobody asks about me like this. Seriously, nobody in this world asks about my welfare. Why would you? There’s that old saying, you know—who washes another man’s cow! That’s how people used to talk. When my own master, the one who should care for me like a master cares for his cow, when even he doesn’t exist for me anymore, then there’s no one else in this world who exists for me either. That’s the truth of my fate. Whether I’ve actually lived or not—there’s my own mother who bore me, and even she doesn’t lose sleep over it. So how can anyone else in this world be expected to lose sleep? Really, who washes another man’s cow!
– Tell me, let me hear what you have to say!
– No, no, why would you listen! You called me because I send these big long messages, so you want to hear my stories? Is that it?
– It’s nothing like that.
– Then what else? Every time I talk to you, there’s always a fight. All I know how to do is fight. There’s nothing but fighting inside me, all the time. No, I have nothing to say. I already told you—I won’t send you those long messages anymore.
– “Who washes another man’s cow”—that’s such a beautiful thing to say. Where did you pick that up? Do they say it in your part of the world?
– No, it’s not just said in my part of the world. The whole world says it, in their own way. “Who washes another man’s cow” means—if you don’t have time for your own cow, who else will? And me, since I was small, always, I mean, whenever I never received love from anyone, I would go to everyone…as if my heart would whisper, love me! Love me! Finally I understood—there’s no one in this world capable of loving me. Because the most selfless love—a mother and father’s love, that’s the most selfless love in the world. And when I got nothing from that very source, then no one else in this world will ever love me. That’s only natural! That’s why even when I give someone a hundred percent, I never receive anything in return. I sit with my friends, talking, spending everything…okay, maybe I don’t have much money, but still I’m the one who pulls out money. They’re better off, yet they don’t pull out anything. Their pockets are rich, but my heart is richer. When we sit down to eat somewhere, I take out money from my pocket. But it turns out, after giving a hundred percent everywhere, I’m the only one who comes home empty. That’s all there is to it!
Before, it used to hurt. Now I think, it’s right, after all—the one who gives more cries more too. Someone said terrible things to me the other day, and I cried so much. Even when you say something, I cry a lot. Sometimes when you don’t message much, I cry—I cry so much. That day. What time was it then? It must have been nine at night. So someone, I mean my uncle, explained to me that, look, you’re standing under the open sky crying, it’s nine at night, do you realize? Not a single person from home gave me a phone call to ask where I am, when I’m coming home, whether I’m coming home at all or not! I’m the kind of person nobody thinks about. And there I was, crying.

Then that elder brother told me: in this world, you will value a person only to the extent that you receive value from them. I said, is that even possible? He said yes, it is. If your presence or absence makes no difference to someone, why should you suffer for them? Even if you cried yourself to death, nothing in them would change. What’s the point of inflicting such madness on yourself?

Later I thought about it, and he was right. After that, I noticed my suffering decreasing greatly. Meaning, now I have fewer expectations from people. Take your case. You called me—in this situation, what should I expect from you? What should I believe about your intentions? A person called me, and I have some money of theirs, so I should think they called because of the money, no? Is it right to think anything beyond that? Then it would be called—expectation! But still, even saying it like that hurts, I understand that too! But where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to say?

— What a strange thing! What an odd girl! I called, and she didn’t even ask how I was! She asked if I called for the money!

— What else should I say? Should I say you’re capable of big words? You probably don’t know that the day you first called me, I couldn’t sleep all night—I was just too happy. This person called me! Can you imagine? The next time you called and said I was rude. Before I even heard that word ‘rude,’ I was still lost in joy.

So anyway, after my brother said what he did, I understood that what the world calls love—I mean selfless love—ultimately I’ll never have that. I’ve stopped hoping for it. So now I don’t think badly of anything beforehand… I think about what reason a person could have for calling so many times! I have some money of theirs that’s with me, it’s being held with me, maybe that’s why they keep calling repeatedly. They don’t call for any good reason—of that I’m certain. That’s why I asked: are you calling me for the money you have with me?

— Actually, here’s the thing: if what you just said isn’t born of hurt but comes from your heart, then I’ll tell you—you never understood me, never really knew me.

— That’s the only thing you ever say. I regard you as Rubi Roy. One day you’ll tell me, I’ve seen you somewhere! That’s why I thought that day, I should study, I really need to study. Seriously, when you hurt me I get very upset, very! I cry and then sit down to study. Tell me, can you even study when you’re crying that much? I need a job, at least for that reason I have to study. So I sit down to study even while crying. That’s all I have to say.

— So you’re really saying this from your heart. That thing you said—are you calling me for the money?… Wow! If that’s the case, then I’m telling you, you never understood me at all.

— No no, I didn’t say that. I said that from that day on, I stopped having expectations from anyone. That day I went to commit suicide, seriously, I went to commit suicide.

I don’t know if suicide is really such a simple matter!

There’s this boy from my neighbourhood—the worst kind you could imagine. He was so addicted to drugs, so violent, that nobody would go near him. People used to be genuinely afraid. So they put him in a correctional facility for two, three years. After he got out, he became a good person. Not just good—transformed. Now he laughs and talks with everyone. “How are you? How’s everything? How’s the family?”—that sort of thing.

I asked him once, “Brother, you weren’t like this before. Three years ago, people were terrified of you. When you walked down the street, people would take another route. But now look at you—laughing and talking with everyone! Where did all these friends come from? You had nobody before. Don’t you feel suffocated, brother?”

Then he told me something. He said, “Look, in this world, people always judge you from the outside. They only ever see the surface. When I was that crude, violent person, I was actually a good human being inside. I said what I thought—everything direct, unfiltered. There was a kind of spontaneity in me. But then I realized—the world doesn’t work that way. The world wants you to say sweet things, nice things, things people enjoy hearing, things that make everyone like you. Now I’m not actually the good person I used to be, but everyone thinks I am. Yet when I was truly good, everyone saw me as bad—because people only ever look at the outside. How many have the capacity to see what’s within?”

My situation is similar in a way. I’m quite introverted, exactly like what you described about your old self. On the surface I might seem harsh, but inside I’m completely water—hollow, nothing there. I get angry, then two minutes later I go back to the same person. You can’t imagine—after four months of not hearing from you, getting your call made me feel as vast as the Pacific Ocean itself! All this time on Facebook I’ve been replying to people’s messages—good morning, good night—but beyond that there’s nothing much to say. So many people on Facebook want your time, yet they don’t understand that you can’t give time to everyone. Even if you have it. Since the time is mine and they’re asking for it, there has to be a reason—a real reason—why I’d want to give it. I don’t believe anyone gives time to anyone for no reason at all. Whoever gets your time deserves it; whoever doesn’t, simply doesn’t deserve it. Before asking anyone for anything, you have to ask yourself: why would they give this to me? Do you get time just by knocking on the door? Is time that cheap?

After that brother explained it to me, I understood. Why waste such valuable feelings like that? I realized—when you focus on your own work, there’s so much benefit in it. I used to never study, and now I do. I can think about myself, organize my life. So many other things have changed. And I thought: maybe that’s just how the world is. Everyone only looks at everyone else from the outside. Nobody sees what’s inside. You yourself said it—the present moment is always alive, and that’s what makes it beautiful.

But if you probe psychoanalysis a little, you’ll see that the present moment, the manifestation of it in someone—it’s never entirely beautiful. There’s always something from a person’s past lurking behind it. You can’t arrive at any real judgment about someone merely by observing the present without knowing their history. People change, and if you truly want to understand someone, you need to know why they change too.

So what more can I say to you! Now tell me, why have you called me so many times, really? I’m serious—nobody calls me this often. I’m the kind of person whose phone lies in a corner all day, and yet no one so much as inquires after me. I walk around all day—just walk and walk! I go to give tuition, I go to this shop, I sit in a garden near the house. But no one calls me. There’s no one to ask about me. No one has the slightest desire to talk to me. No one even bothers to know if I exist in this world at all. So when you called, I thought, surely he wants to insult me, or perhaps say something rude, or maybe…it’s about money. Now tell me—which of these three reasons brought you to call me?

– If you insist on thinking that way, then I can’t explain my position to you. And you won’t easily step back from that notion either. That’s what I sense. If you want to cling to that assumption, then I’ll understand that clinging to it gives you some kind of peace. But what a peace it is! To find comfort in misunderstanding someone, in causing them pain—even Niraja has to resort to that!

Everything you’ve said all this time, you’ve said without understanding me. You haven’t truly understood me at all. If you had really understood me, you wouldn’t have named even these three reasons. Since you already have and you’ve admitted that really you…

– No, not money. Money isn’t the real thing. And I didn’t say those things to you without reason. I already told you why I mentioned money. Beyond that, I don’t see any reason. It’s not as though this girl did this for me, or that, or this thing, or that thing, so I call her. There’s nothing like that. Why I called—surely not for any good reason, at least that I know. Now I don’t think about such things. I don’t think about anyone’s affairs anymore. You’re not someone I have to think about.

– All right. What more can I say now! And yes, you’re right about that. I usually call people for specific reasons—whether it’s because I’m busy or because I’m indifferent. But today’s call, I didn’t make it to you for any particular reason like that. And why I’m calling again and again…it’s simply to see how you are, whether you’re doing well, whether you’re eating properly, what news…just to know that much. There’s no other reason. If I have to give a reason, that’s all I can say.

– For all this time you had no desire to call me. Suddenly, these last three or four days, why did you think of me so much? Tell me that.

– I don’t know the answer to that. When there’s no self-interest between you and me, what can I say to explain why I felt like calling?

– No, no, you have to know. You’re not someone who calls me.

Why did you do it, then?
– Well, I suppose I need to think a bit more before answering that. The truth is, I called you simply to see how you were doing. What else could there be! If you want me to give you a specific reason—insist on it, demand it—fine, I’ll tell you: I called to see how you were. Nothing more. There’s no hidden interest, no ulterior motive, no agenda here.
– I’ve known you since November 2nd, perhaps. And now it’s nearly the end of January. In these three or four months, it never once occurred to you to call. Whether I was alive or dead, you didn’t care to find out. Whether I ate or didn’t eat—what business of yours is that! So many people go hungry and survive. Are you supposed to check on all of them? Is that even possible? You… yes, on Messenger… asked if I’d eaten? …and then sent just that, not to actually know anything, just to send something, obviously. Dried chilli tastes good with other food, but you can’t eat dried chilli by itself. Actually, you know what, you can feel whether someone genuinely cares or not. A person can sense that. Nothing like this came up all these months, and suddenly now you’re asking? Why this sudden urge?
– I can’t bear so many questions. I never thought a single phone call would require such elaborate justification! But this much I’ll say: there really is no such reason. I haven’t called you before—or perhaps I have, I’m not sure. But yes, I’m not the kind of person who makes many calls. For me, calling someone doesn’t simply mean caring for them.
– I know that.
– Well then, good!
– I know you’re not the kind who calls often. That’s exactly the point—why would someone who doesn’t call suddenly call so many times?
– As I said, I wanted to know how you were! And consider what you yourself said: you never called, and then suddenly you did. Why? Well, these three months that I’ve called you, for me that’s been fairly normal. This is how I am with calls. I’m not really one for frequent calling, and I don’t write long messages even over text. People tell me—my colleagues do too sometimes—they say, sir, you write such long pieces, people need time to read them, yet your texts are so brief. We have a group on Facebook Messenger. There I just send things like “Yes brother, I’m fine,” or “Yes, I got the email and forwarded it to you, check your mail.” That’s all from me. Meanwhile they write epic narratives. There’s a group on Viber too, and they write so much there that I got fed up and left! Some of my seniors are even offended that I quit. But most people in that group just gossip and promote themselves. They say, I did this, I did that. Reading their messages, it feels like I just sit around cutting grass! Besides them, nobody else does anything—they just cut grass and fry vegetables on the veranda. I got disgusted and left. One of my seniors asked, aren’t you on our Viber group? I said, well sir, actually no. He said, never mind! You did the right thing, brother!

I also feel irritated when I see people exaggerate and show off, but once I’m out of those spaces, I keep quiet about what others might think. Everyone does self-promotion there, and I can accept that much, but the gossip that goes on—I don’t care for it. So I told him, Sir, that’s why I left. Besides, everyone in the department already sees me as somewhat useless, and that’s actually my greatest advantage. Whatever I do, nobody really pays much attention.

So that’s how I am. I’ve been explaining all this so you understand my position. I don’t want it to seem strange or unusual to you. I’m a small person, and there’s much to enjoy in staying small. The big don’t fit everywhere, but the small fit comfortably anywhere. I need just a little space, and that space is always there—it works out! And as for keeping tabs on you…

—Huh! What’s the use of all this? When you get angry, you write these long, elaborate texts. What do you call that?

—What do I call it? It’s the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings! Ha ha ha! So when I get angry, in Wordsworth’s words, it becomes the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. And you’ll notice—you’re a literature student, I’m not, I understand literature poorly—they’re usually quite sincere and honest. Now, as much as I understand it, what I think is that poetry isn’t really about meter. To me, wherever human feeling and emotion are most intense, that’s poetry. Take prose, for instance—it doesn’t convey human emotion as powerfully. Prose is softer; it touches gently but doesn’t hold on. Take Bhaskar Chakraborty, for example. I don’t know if you’ve read him. He’s one of my absolute favorites, absolutely my favorite writer. I joke and say, if someone wants to stay sad, if they want to cry, they should read Bhaskar Chakraborty—it’ll work. Looking out at rain falling past a window feels a certain way, and reading Bhaskar’s prose feels exactly like that. Though he’s primarily a poet. Poets write wonderful prose. Like Nirmalendra Guin’s prose, Shankha Ghosh’s prose, Joy Goswami’s prose, Srijato’s prose, Shakti Chattopadhyay’s prose, Sunil Gangopadhyay’s prose. Reading their prose makes you feel: ah, what a blessing to be alive and taste such exquisite writing! If only I could live a bit longer! Thank God!

Bhaskar has several prose pieces. Like ‘Shoyonayan.’ And if you ever want to cry but somehow can’t, then sit down with Bhaskar Chakraborty. Reading Bhaskar, you’re compelled to cry, your heart must sink, your mind must calm and settle. Reading Bhaskar, you’ll feel as though it’s raining outside. The sunlight ahead will seem gentle, and you’ll want to touch it, nature will seem melancholic, this life will seem simple. You’ll feel that everyone is sad and melancholic like you. You’re not alone in your misery. Everyone walks the same gray road of sorrow. Bhaskar Chakraborty is a strange man. His own life was very tragic too. You’ll understand if you read his diary. I have an uncle, Plabon. He’s one of the most well-read people I’ve ever known.

I love him deeply, hold him in high regard. The man has known little of what the world calls success. In the worldly sense of the term—that measure by which we gauge achievement—Prabhan knows nothing of it. In Nirendranath Chakraborty’s poem, Amlakanti yearned to become a ray of sunlight but could not. Perhaps Prabhan never wished to become one, yet he has become one anyway. But he harbors no interest in success of any kind. We call ourselves failures when we fall short of what we have sought. Prabhan never sought worldly success, so in this matter at least, he knows no failure. If there is any failure in my elder brother, it lies elsewhere, not in the realm of worldly achievement. So, all things considered, one cannot call him a failed man by any measure. How can he fail in a battle he never entered? Those without ambition are truly blessed. They bear no burden, feel no urgency to go anywhere. They have no rivals, no failures. They possess only a small piece of life—nothing more. They need nothing else to live.

Prabhan is a different sort of man. He is fond of me. For some reason beyond all my logic and understanding, he loves me dearly. He calls and asks, “Badda, how are you?” Speaking in the Chattogram dialect. “What’s going on with you?” he’ll say. “What’s going on with me? Nothing much, brother, same old, same old!” That’s how he speaks. He reads extensively, remembers what he reads. In all my life, I have known but one or two men who have read so much—Prabhan is one, and the other is Sunay. Sunay is Joint Director at Bangladesh Bank. He’s in America now on study leave. He is successful in the worldly sense, unlike Prabhan. Sunay too is a prodigious reader—the most voracious I have ever encountered. He reads without marking his books. I, on the other hand, cannot read without underlining; if I don’t mark a book, it feels as though I haven’t really read it at all. Sunay retains everything he reads—without marking a single line. And I, despite my constant underlining, can barely retain anything. I hold these two men in immense reverence and affection. There is much about them I do not like, much that contradicts my own views, yet I never dwell on such things. Their knowledge, their wisdom, their reading, their inner world—these captivate me utterly and bow my head in reverence. I could forgive them a hundred faults with a smile.

Prabhan introduced me to Bhaskar Chakraborty. One day, in conversation, he said to me, “You must read Bhaskar Chakraborty; you’ll love him.” Then one day I said to him, “Big brother, Bhaskar Chakraborty never wrote prose—he wrote only poetry!” He laughed and replied, “You’ve said exactly what I think! His writing is so suffused with feeling that it deserves to be called poetry rather than prose!” Bhaskar Chakraborty has written little. His output is sparse. But whatever he has written springs from profound understanding and deep feeling. While reading and long after, his words cling to you—to your body, to your soul. So I joke and say his work contains no prose at all; it is all poetry! Here are two lines from one of his poems: “Blood carries poison, beloved, / and now life fades, slowly, slips away.”