- This is me announcing my existence—to you. Please! Give me a chance to preserve what little existence I have! Don't diminish me like this!
- What is it really? Tell me.
- Don't I have the right to give you something? Can't you trust me in anything at all? Or do you think me unworthy even of offering you a gift? And if that's the case, then perhaps we should end all this soul-connection between us right here.
- I want to know. Tell me.
- I want to surprise you. I won't tell. Please!
- I want to hear it. If you tell me, I promise I'll be surprised.
- Then it won't be a surprise anymore.
- That's fine. Just tell me.
- I want you to unwrap it and see it with your own eyes, to be startled by it. I want to astonish you. I want your wonder to linger in your eyes for a long time—that's what I want.
- I don't get startled easily these days. I take everything calmly, large or small. I stopped being amazed long ago. You can speak without hesitation.
- You didn't have to use the word 'without hesitation' about this. There's no hesitation in me! I know what I'm doing, why I'm doing it. I'm clear about my position. There's no room for doubt here. I've searched hard, struggled to find this, and I want to give it to you. It's something perhaps no one would ever think to give you, but if you received it, you'd be truly happy. My labor and love are woven through it.
- Tell me what it is.
- And many people come to help me financially, and I don't take it. Yet because you asked, I gave you the chance to stand by my side. Now honor your word! I can at least expect this much logical behavior from you.
- That's different.
- I know you can give this gift the proper respect it deserves. I want to send it to the place where it truly belongs! My means are limited. I'm creating this gift for you by stretching every capacity I have. And capacity doesn't mean only financial capacity! How many more ways can I explain it! I've already said so much! I shouldn't even have said this much!
- Just tell me what it is!
- I said I won't!
- Yes, you will.
- And if I have to name this thing, then I'll know that all our conversations until now were merely Facebook-dependent emotions (are they even 'emotions', or are they 'devoid of emotion'?) I respect you this much, but you don't respect my choices nearly as much. Can't I surprise you? If you say 'no' even now…then from this moment, right now, we should end this virtual conversation!
- Name it. You misunderstand things anyway. You've done it before. It's your nature. I don't mind your misunderstandings anymore.
- You didn't recognize someone like me—I'm sorry for your sake. You won't take it anyway, will you? Fine, no need. I'll return your money. Give me your bKash number.
- You can return it if you wish. I would have been happy if you'd just told me about the gift. I really don't get surprised much anymore—I used to, once.
- Give me your bKash number! I'll send the money back. But along with returning the money, I'll forget that I ever knew someone called 'you.'
# A Conversation on Love and Pride
“I’ve never shed a single tear for you—not one! I’ll forget everything. I’ll simply forget your name! And I can forget it quite easily, you know. Because I never needed your professional favors, never! Unlike the other ten people around you, I didn’t come to you with any selfish motive. Everyone comes to you for their own gain. They don’t knock on your door for you—they knock for what you’ve accomplished. Who comes to you just for you? Tell me that. Your presence or absence means nothing to them. Your writings, your words—that’s all they need! Anyway, give me the Bkash number!”
“Wow!”
“Just give me the number.”
“**** That’s it.”
“That’s the Bkash number, right?”
“You value money more than relationships.”
“Those words don’t suit your mouth anymore. Fine, I’ll send it by the 3rd or 4th. You are left forever!”
“Your life, your choice. (You told me once…Don’t leave me…now you’re leaving!)”
“You forced me to. After the 3rd or 4th, you won’t see me anywhere in the virtual world again.”
“Your business.…Liar! Don’t leave me…that’s it, isn’t it? Proud, stubborn!”
“Proud, stubborn? Fine! Such judgments don’t hurt me anymore.”
“You never try to understand the position of the person you’re talking to. I realized that today. Let me put it simply, listen. I won’t take anything from you that carries even the slightest monetary obligation. Not anymore. When you can fulfill your dreams, *then* I’ll take it—I’ll even ask for it. Not before. And I sent you money because I had surplus. In pursuing what my heart desired, I didn’t have to touch a single necessary penny. Besides, this wasn’t the first time I’ve fulfilled what my heart wanted.”
“So only your heart has desires? Mine doesn’t? Don’t I have the right to fulfill mine? Don’t I seem human to you?”
“You should fulfill all your desires—but not by burdening yourself. Your present situation doesn’t allow for extra expenses. When that day comes when you can easily spend your surplus and meet the desires of your heart for me without strain, then I won’t stop you. On the contrary, I’ll ask! But for now, I won’t let you. I’ve already said—if I didn’t have surplus, I perhaps wouldn’t have given.”
“Never mind! Let it all end here. Thank you for making my position so crystal clear.”
“You’re misunderstanding. I swear by my daughter’s name, you’re misunderstanding me.”
“I misunderstood all this time. Today I understand rightly. My body isn’t well either, so all this arguing doesn’t sit well with me. Everything about me is bad. Everything! I’m proud, I speak foolishly. But you know what? Amid all my badness, my feeling for you was pure, innocent! A writer who can characterize even me wrongly—if one reader stops reading his work from today, it won’t be much of a loss to him. If there’s truly any emotion mixed in these tears that roll down my cheeks, and if there’s such a thing as natural justice, then one day you’ll remember this proud soul, remember very intensely. By that day I’ll be gone, and even if you call desperately, I won’t come.”
# How People Lose People!
I almost gave my most cherished gift to the wrong person again! What a fool I am! You can rest easy. I swear, I will never give such a thing to anyone, as long as I draw breath.
I don’t like these aggressive replies of yours. Why don’t you just post a status about it, publicly humiliate me there, let the likes and laughs pour in—haha, hoho, hihi and all that. These past few days, you’ve become my habit. Even a day without talking to you, I couldn’t forgive myself. When you messaged, I’d laugh with abandon. If you didn’t mark it as read, I’d check my phone again and again. The mere fact that you saw my message was a reason for joy! You don’t understand what it means to be this anxious, do you? Because of you, a person laughs, a person cries. Does this feeling truly mean nothing to you? I was so wrong in reading people!
I didn’t lose you—you lost me. You lost someone who cried for you. Do you know when a person cries for someone? I do. Someone like me will never come into your life a second time. Remember what I’m saying. You’ll realize it later.
And I’ll send you the money as soon as I can. Some relationships don’t carry any obligations whatsoever—ours wasn’t like that. Thank you so much for teaching this foolish girl that truth.
“I’ve told you everything! Alright, keep the address.”
“…I saw your post. What happened to you?”
“Nothing much. Going to my in-laws’ place at twenty-six! Address: Apollo Hospitals, Dhaka.”
“What happened? You didn’t say.”
“I’m unwell.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Personal!”
“Tell me.”
“I won’t share it with outsiders! Thank you. Take care.”
“Okay. You take care too.”
“…Happy Birthday! All my wishes to you.”
“I was waiting for this message.”
“I sent it this morning. Only just noticed it now! How are you doing?”
“The person whose birthday it is today—her very birth is a sin upon her! There’s nothing auspicious about her birthday at all! When living itself is a burden, what difference does another year make? I don’t understand why people stick the word ‘auspicious’ to everything. For someone to whom it doesn’t apply, that word just sounds like mockery. Just ‘birthday’—that alone feels better, more restful. Let me tell you something beautiful today, shall I? My morning isn’t auspicious unless you say ‘good morning’! I could spend hours just staring at a message without even replying! Two small words—and they intoxicate me for hours on end! The power of words depends on whose lips they come from. Words that shouldn’t warrant a second thought—when they come from a certain mouth, a certain hand, we find ourselves thinking about them endlessly! Do you understand, writer?
Can everything in this world be understood from the outside? Does everything in this world happen by calculation? Some faces are beautiful only when glimpsed from a distance! Some people are meant to be felt from afar. With so much care, I wanted to place my beloved something into the hands of my favorite author. It didn’t happen. But tell me—if next year this phone doesn’t remind me of my birthday, will I remember it? Perhaps not. Why did I say “perhaps”? I won’t remember it at all! And that’s how it should be. But I—I will dig out the old messages that day. And read them again.
It will seem, after all, that I still hold you in my good wishes today! Then that moment will become truly beautiful! The joy of being able to think as one wishes is immense! Good night!
You have forgotten me. Accept it! It doesn’t matter! It has become a natural thing for me now. My good wishes remain with you.
– Good morning! I do remember. Only I don’t knock. I don’t enjoy being cursed at and tolerating misunderstandings. Because there’s no point in digesting such needless things. I don’t have patience or mental strength for all that. For me, living in peace is the final word. To me, a handful of peace is worth more than a whole world of love. Not love, but peace is what helps me live. I have no need for a love that demands enduring infinite turmoil to possess infinite affection. You cannot build a home of love while harboring unrest in your heart. You cannot live under such weight—at least I cannot. Whoever loves me and yet keeps me in unrest or discomfort in the name of that love, I feel no real affection toward them, let alone any pull. I don’t want such a devoted lover who is ill-tempered or short-tempered, no matter how much they claim to love me! When I see someone treating another unjustly, my blood boils! This is how I am.
A love that gives you a certificate to mistreat the person who loves you—that is not love at all, it is a psychopath’s passport. And to die would bring far, far more peace than to spend life drowning in infinite love with a psychopath! Let me say it again: in this world, love is not the final word—peace, only peace, is the final word. That person is truly miserable whom someone loves in such a way that they are not allowed to be themselves. Better to live in the indifference of someone and find peace than to live in unrest at the demand of someone’s love.
– I wanted to see you as the ‘star’ in the film ‘Shabd’. Everyone can make mistakes; you cannot. Yes, you cannot make mistakes! When your capacity to think about me is so limited, I have nothing more to say. When you, like everyone else, have explained me in the same way, I have nothing left to say! You saw only the body of my words; you did not see their soul! Fare well.
– Don’t judge me. No matter, whoever I’m, I feel really exhausted to tolerate all the misunderstanding and extremely rude behaviour from your part. I’m sorry.
Remember, if there comes a day when you’ll be left only with a few well-wishers, I’ll be one of them. It’s my promise!
Be polite. I know you’ve some bad experiences. But you can’t blame the whole world for it. You’ve no idea about what others are going through. Maybe yours is nothing compared to theirs.
You hurt me much without any reason. Your grief must not be an excuse for your sadistic behaviour. Believe me, I don’t care about love. I just care about peace, peace and only peace. If you don’t let me live in peace, your love means nothing to me. Rather, I start developing a sense of hatred towards you. To live, peace comes first, then comes love. Love means a live-and-let-live state. What kind of love is it that does not teach you to make the person you love happy?
– Sir, my respects!
By the time you read this, I shall be far removed from your social media channels.
Every text I’ve sent you, I’ve reviewed several times. Nowhere did it feel sadistic to me. Rather, each time I reread them, I sensed something like… wounded pride, if I’m honest. Though perhaps there’s something wrong with my nose! But tell me—ask yourself this: in the span of mere days, can one truly become that way toward another? Is it so easy, so immediate, to transform into a sadist or a psychopath in just these few days? I believe this: no one can keep you mentally tormented without your permission, without your tacit consent. Have you asked yourself that once?
You kept asking what gift I wanted to give. I never told you. I stood at someone’s door on a winter night, resolved to deliver you a perfect gift. The cold didn’t bother me that day, but it bothered my student—the one not wearing a sweater. When night fell, she came along with me. I was telling her, “Dear child, you’ve suffered so much today because of me, haven’t you?” She smiled and said, “No, ma’am.” You won’t understand why she felt no suffering. To understand that, you must know how to receive love. When you love someone, you can walk through fire with a smile and feel no pain anywhere.
Because that perfect gift was never completed, my relationship with that person deteriorated. They said terrible things to me. I listened in silence, said nothing. Tears fell silently; no sound escaped my lips. I’m telling you truly—even facing such a moment, I felt no pain that day. I began thinking anew about how to reach that perfect gift to you. Why? Please don’t try to understand, because you simply won’t.
You know, I’m terrified of mathematics. Everyone says if I were good at math, I could go far. Today I did all my math with tears streaming down my face the whole time. The drops kept wetting my notebooks and books over and over. Why did I cry so much? For whom? Thinking of what person? That person to whom my very existence is a source of pain? My being alive bothers you, doesn’t it? That’s how badly you see me.
I used to touch your writings before I knew you. I first learned that words could be touched and felt through reading yours. I truly wish I could touch some of your writing. Now I understand: someone who can write with such feeling may not actually possess that much feeling within. Writing requires far more than the capacity to feel—it demands the sharpness of the pen, the ability to craft sentence after sentence with perfect grace. Alas, those who write beautifully cannot feel deeply. Those who feel deeply cannot write beautifully. Writers can make others feel far more than they themselves feel. That is why the heroine in a writer’s work is far more fortunate than his beloved. Your words’ exquisite procession does not follow your heart.
In this life, you were the first to teach me to say “good morning.” No one has ever said it to me that way before! I never understood how lovely it could be to receive something like that so early from someone. From you, I too have learned to write such a “good morning.” Writing it—how wonderful it feels!
# A Dialogue of Wounded Hearts
I never truly learned these courtesies of speech. On Facebook, everyone wrote “gd mrning,” so I wrote the same, always. It never occurred to me that anything else could be written. Two simple words—”good morning”—could express feeling so beautifully, could bring such joy. Had we not crossed paths this moment, I would never have known. Just seeing that small message from you could keep my spirits lifted all day long. It felt like strength of mind given to me!
I don’t know why my tears are so worthless. Whoever I give my purest love to, from the deepest well of my heart, they somehow misunderstand and turn away. This has happened to me again and again. Always. My unalloyed affection for you—I couldn’t make you understand it. This will remain a tragic failure for the rest of my life. Perhaps I overstepped the bounds of what was mine to claim. Your message today will be a keepsake on the path of my remaining years.
You will never see me again among those two hundred thousand followers. I give you my word.
There was a line you wrote that I held dear: *I do not have the strength of mind to push away selfless love.* Why did you write that? Just like that, carelessly? Don’t you feel even a moment’s concern for what you set down? Tell me—does “Do not leave me” only speak of selfishness? Does it speak of selfishness at all? Is there no desperate plea in those words? No hint of claim or demand? Did you say it merely to say something, when truly it meant nothing?
Perhaps it meant nothing. Even after I disappeared from your friends list, every time I saw you active on Messenger today—and I saw it many times—something twisted inside my chest. In a month or two, perhaps everything will be right again. Will it really?
I am sorry for my sadistic behavior. Please, forgive me. I will never speak to anyone this way again. I only seem to misunderstand everything. Sorry for everything!
I’ve kept your address. Humayon Faridi used to drink tea at a shop near Jahangirnagar University, and he would deliberately leave unpaid debts there. He chose to remain indebted in certain places. I too want to remain in your debt. I will not return the money. There is strange peace in remaining indebted to someone you love. To understand this, you must truly, genuinely love someone. Love demands certain debts.
I will never tell anyone again: *Don’t leave me.* Not everyone can bear the weight of such words. I didn’t want to see you among those who cannot. And yet…
My everlasting good wishes remain with you.
—
I will not stop you. Your life, your rules. Let me remind you again—those words you sent day after day in a fit of hurt held attacks, wounds, misunderstandings, and blame.
I am a terribly sensitive person. Small things cause me pain. Even the smallest unkindness from others torments me for a long time. I cannot bear needless turmoil, and your messages were like blunt knives thrust without warning. Let me remind you again: do not hold the entire world responsible for your sorrow. Try to be a little more conscious, a little more human. Then you will find your own peace, and you will not diminish others. There is an inexpressible beauty in keeping someone well. The greatest human quality is the capacity to understand another’s suffering. Those who cannot stand in another’s place and truly see cannot possess this gift. It is called empathy.
Someone slips quietly into another’s life, takes their place, and understands their feelings from within. That is what true understanding means. To grasp someone else’s experience, you cannot use your own experience as the lens—you must use theirs. You have to shed all your ego, all your pride, and come to the person with nothing. Only then can you know them as they truly are.
Facebook is a fragile, counterfeit place. Whether someone is on your friends list or not is the most trivial of matters. It’s just a website, not a map of the heart.…I am afraid of you, because you have the terrible power to hurt with your words. Perhaps this comes from your own lived pain. But did I really deserve that? Step back into an impersonal space and think—you will find your answer. Someone hurt you, but that does not give you a license to hurt the whole world!
I could not quite make you understand the tenderness that has been born in me for you these past days. It remains my melancholy failure. Life offers us many things, and because we do not know how to receive them in time, we spend our whole lives weeping. Hold these words of mine in your heart—one day you will remember them. If my love is true, it will cross your mind!
You always say, Don’t judge me. I have never truly judged anyone. And someone who could decide to stand by me in a moment without even knowing me—I am not so thoughtless as to judge them wrongly. Perhaps my expectations of you were too great, which is why my words, from the depths of my unconscious, may have hurt you sometimes. I am not a woman weighed down by expectations. A girl who has endured such neglect, such injustice, such cruelty and torment—what expectations could she possibly carry? Yet I do not know why such expectations formed toward you. I have no explanation for it, not even for myself. You cannot bear the weight of expectations. Very well! But remember this too: not everyone carries expectations of others.
No one in this world has understood me. You—you have been here only a few days. So this is natural! I accept it. The night before last, I did not sleep. Those who have known me closely know how sensitive I am. Because of this sensitivity, my life has suffered so much over a mere Facebook matter! Something that is nothing to you—just another ordinary incident among ten others—for me it is the entirety of existence! Will you ever find another girl so foolish in this life?
Yesterday morning from eight until six in the evening I was on campus, getting my certificate. From the day before yesterday until now, I have been aching—aching deeply—for you. I just feel as though something is missing. There is a sob caught somewhere deep within my chest. It tries to emerge, but it cannot; it comes up to my throat again and again, forms a knot, and lodges there. If I cannot let that cry out, I cannot tell you what pain, what unbearable pain that is! The breath catches, the eyes want to burst with tears, and I feel myself the most wretched and helpless creature in all the world. A cry that cannot be shown to anyone—that cry destroys a person completely!
Everyone judges me superficially. I had thought that at least you would understand the genuine, tender soul that exists within this hardened person. God knows how wounded I have become! I feel as though someone has simply abandoned me and left! As if something, something vital is gone…
# A Numbness That Consumes
Such a feeling has been leaving me numb, paralyzed, in every waking moment!
Every morning I search my messages—has there come a good morning? A greeting? There hasn’t. Nothing comes anymore.
I will never tell you to be human, the way others might. Because these past days, I have understood you. I understand how deeply human one must be to stand on a stage without payment, driven only by the heart’s demand, to speak endlessly for hours—to pull so many people back from the edge of death, giving labor and time with no gain or reward. I understand the humanity it takes.
One day, when you have a moment, read the messages I’ve sent you this past month. Look at them again. See if something, somewhere, has gone wrong. I cannot bear that you misunderstand me. And tell me—did you even think of me once today? Ha, ha!
You fear me. And I…
Good morning! Good afternoon! Good night!…It’s all gone.
—
I really never judge anyone. Please please please stop imposing your thoughts on people. Either understand me or just leave me ununderstood. But DON’T misunderstand me. It creates huge pressure and makes me die inside. I’d rather be left ununderstood than be little understood or misunderstood. It creates pain, trust me.
Your arrogance, your attack, your audacity, your inhumanity…I don’t know if it’s good or bad, I don’t know if you deserve to act in this way or not, I don’t know if it’s right or wrong…But I definitely know that the conscience I bear inside myself doesn’t deserve such an attitude.
Be a human first. Everything else will follow. Your hostile and cruel attitude towards me makes me react inside with utter resentment.
—
Best reward ever! No one has ever shed tears and been honored with such beautiful epithets. The silent ones—they alone are valued this way. Life has nothing better to offer them!
—
I’m sorry for your teardrops. All your teardrops you gather are sent to me in the forms of poisonous arrows…Always! Days after days I’d to tolerate it. Can you please tell me…WHY? What did I do to receive your wraths?
—
Rather than using such forceful language as yours, let me say: Listen, you have lost an eternal love. You don’t know what you have lost…But only your Almighty knows it! Teardrops = poisonous arrows! What an oxymoron! I am not a pseudo-human being…rather I am a human being with a soft heart.
It’s fine then. From today on, every time your name crosses my mind, I will remember these messages! Your sentences make me feel how much manageable I am! Must one suffer if someone speaks two kind words for two days? Why? Is he suffering for my sake in return? You know what—suffering is never two-way traffic. Just because one person is hurting, bleeding, weeping, doesn’t mean the other must suffer too. Most often, one person cries and cries, while the other sits eating pizza and watching Tom and Jerry cartoons. One weeps, and the other thinks: he must have an eye condition—the kind where tears won’t stop falling.
The world is full of artificiality…there is no value of emotional bonding. Thank you…for everything!
– Stop it! Is this how you’ve grown accustomed to hurting people with your words?
– You have lost an eternal love! Ask for forgiveness from your Almighty if you are courageous enough. You have lost someone who can destroy her happiness for your happiness. If anyone gets tired of you, let them go away. You have walked away leaving my heart aflame. You have no insight to see through it.
Water, water everywhere, / Nor any drop to drink. May these lines descend upon the lives of all those people who were born with the infinite capacity to push away selfless love! True enough, but this line is not for you. (Don’t react again, will you!)
You have never noticed what I feel inside! I prefer eternal love to advertisement. You have made me realize how much important advertisement is to prove your love for someone!
Teardrops=Poisonous Arrows! These two words will haunt me whenever I am about to make the same mistake again.
Stay mentally strong (as you are) and blessed wherever you are! I beg pardon for my sadistic behaviours! And for showing excessive love (accompanied by ‘poisonous arrows’)! What a way of showing love, dear, making the loved one feel down! Bravo!! Let your Almighty answer everything for you! Take care of yourself. Bye…forever!
King Lear asked his third daughter how much she loved him. What she said made the king unhappy. When love is measured in terms of advertisement, superficial greetings, then it is better to leave the place silently than to yearn for being with the loved one.
I don’t want any more quarrels. I will never disturb you again. I feel your absence so terribly…do you feel my absence? The answer is…No.
There is a basic difference between you and me…When I sat down to eat, I would ask if you had eaten, because you would come to mind. Today too I ended with the same question…Have you eaten? If not, stop this quarrel with me and eat something. Your wellbeing means more to me than winning this argument. I will never knock on your door again. Those cheap emotions, worn thin under the weight of countless messages, will one day lie extinct in your inbox! And yet, days and years from now, I will pull out these messages again and again, and smile! Not everyone becomes Facebook. Some people keep certain faces in their hearts all their lives, with such care! Your face will remain thus in mine!
I hurt too! You could have said a kind word or two to me! But you didn’t…! Eternal good wishes be with you.
– Again, she is on strike! Good!!
– I want to send you a friend request! But why won’t it go through! Don’t leave me!
– That would be wonderful! Let the request not come!
– Please!
– Why? For making me feel low again?
– Your absence hurts me. Believe it or not!
– Do you love me?
– Some questions remain beautiful unanswered. I can assure you; your absence hurts me much.
– I got my answer.
– Don’t leave me!
– I didn’t.
– If you leave me, I will be shattered!…And one morning again, will you tell me ‘good morning’? I will be waiting for it.
– I will.
– Will you listen to a poem? Should I send it?
– Yes.
– We too…will settle the distance of this life in the next!…We will, we must!
– I’ve heard it countless times.
Very dear!
– Listen to me once more, afresh, today.
– All right!
– Shall I send you another song?
– Send it.
– If your heart weeps, come to me.…I speak from my heart—if ever you feel that nowhere in this world can you find peace, that there is no refuge for you anywhere, do not think twice. Come to me. I will receive you. From that day on, all your burdens are mine. You need only sit and write. Everything else is my work. I will gaze at you with eyes full of wonder and think, ah, what fortune is born into this world with souls like Neeraja! If I must sever my ties with the whole world for her sake, I am ready to do it!