- 'How do you cry, Tithi?' 'I have a very soft blue towel in my bathroom! I cover my face with it and cry!'...That's what it is—Tithi's blue-towel technique!
You know, there's an advantage to talking on the phone: even if you cry while speaking, the person on the other end can't tell. I really did cry today! You didn't notice, did you? Tell me, they say that after a certain age people become unwanted—if that day ever comes, will you leave everything behind and come to me? When no one wants you anymore, when your very presence becomes unbearable to everyone's eyes, will you come to me then, for the rest of your life?
I've thought about it—in the last days of my life, like Humayun Sir, I'll go and stay on Saint Martin's Island! If that day comes and I ask you to go with me, will you come?...I don't want to hear the answer! I want to live with the regret of not hearing certain answers! I'll imagine an answer, go to Saint Martin's Island, and wait for you there till the next life! In the next birth you'll sit on that island and write, sitting beside me! Even if you build a household with someone else, I won't grieve—but wherever you are, you'll only write sitting beside me! The body makes a home with one person, and the mind makes a home with another. Doesn't it happen that way? I'll keep looking at you, bring you whatever you need, never trouble you, and when you ask me to leave your sight, I'll go a little distance away and watch you from there. Before my eyes, something will be created that keeps accumulating in the world's diary. That sensation I'll witness, I'll feel. This much from one lifetime is all I ask!
…Will you remember? One day you will leave me setting my heart ablaze. I'm telling you truly, it will hurt me terribly to be without you! But some sorrows must be borne—what else can be done?
- I won't let go of your hand. I've said it, haven't I?
- I made an offering for you. I told God to give you some of my life! I've never had the audacity to give my own lifespan to anyone! Today I did! Why did I? To let someone else live instead of letting myself live! Is that what you call love?
- Let my life be yours! Your living is more necessary. This world likes to see suffering people win. You will win, you will be well. Just to see that, you must live. My living—it's not truly essential. I wasn't supposed to get anything, yet I got so much!
- No! My lifespan is useless! It helps no one! Tell me, what use am I while I'm alive? You're the one this world needs!
I'm not Facebook! My love is not Facebook! I sent that picture only to make you understand. Look at the offering plate. There—my mind, my feelings, my being, my heart, my faith…everything is there. Can you really not feel anything at all?
Tell me, will you let me hear your voice one day? People get so many things without even asking! And here I am—I asked and got nothing! Doesn't it pain you even a little, for my sake? Someone came into this world and got almost nothing. What will they take with them when they leave? Without a single good feeling, without a memory of happiness, I will leave this world! I'm nothing grand, I'm just a person! Don't you have any feeling in your heart for one person?
Will I hear your voice one day on the phone? Will you let me?
- Why wouldn't I?
It’s not asking for much! Good morning.
– That much is everything to me! You won’t understand. Has anyone ever come into your life whose voice you could wait for across an entire lifetime? Day after day standing by the window, phone clutched in your hand, restless with longing…if they call even by mistake, even once…has that ever happened to you? If not, then you are deeply unfortunate! The joy of waiting is no less than the joy of attainment. You remain deprived of that heavenly feeling!
Love me in old age if you will, laugh with me one last time! Good afternoon!
– And to you!
– It’s evening now!
– All right, good evening.
– Never mind! Never mind! If I hadn’t knocked, I surely wouldn’t have heard that! Before I free you from my love, I have a few small wishes:
1. Your new office address
2. Tell me the time and day when I can call you and hear your voice once
3. Never say ‘good morning, afternoon, evening, dusk, night’ to me again
…will you fulfill these small requests of mine before you go?
– Good evening!
– Never mind…I told you! Answer my message!
– Good evening…
– I said don’t!
– I’ve said it, and I’ll say it!
– I will let you go. Your existence hurts me. You can’t feel it…because you do not have the same feeling which I bear inside myself for you.
– Good evening!
– What do you mean? Do you think I’m joking? Oh! Everyone loves you from morning till night, don’t they! Isn’t that so? Not me! I am someone from an entirely different world, of a different nature! I cannot say I love, love all day and night. I can only love. One who truly loves cannot say ‘I love’ so easily, so repeatedly. At least I cannot—my tongue grows stiff when I try to say it. I loved you selflessly! Write as much poetry and fiction as you like, but no one has ever loved you the way I have! And no one ever will! You might be able to console yourself with some satisfaction like ‘yes, many have loved me before,’ but what I’m telling you is the truth! I will remove myself completely from your social media! And I’ll do it tomorrow! When I’ve gone from your social media, you won’t search for me, will you? You won’t, will you?
– Stop overreacting. And, please please stop expecting from me. To me, even death is preferable to expectation. I don’t expect anything from anyone on earth. I hate being an object of expectation.
– You manage to write out long, well-organized lines when you’re quarreling! Good! Keep it up! Fine! So I’m the only one in this world who has asked you for everything! Now begin! Go on! Start using oxymorons, paradoxes, ironies to say harsh things to me! Start, please!
– I even don’t mind being hated! But don’t destroy my peace. I don’t care about love. I care about only peace.
– I’m destroying your peace? How wonderful!
– You’re causing me real pain. I told you—hate me if you must, but don’t torment me. Don’t harbor any expectations from me. You can be sure that even if I’m present at my own death, I will never hold any expectation of you. Not about anything! I’m afraid of emotional cruelty. I don’t want love—I want peace. Why do you mistreat me like this every other day?
I can’t speak to you; you have no expectations of me, so why should I? Try to keep things simple and natural between us. I’m begging you! Please!
– No expectations about anything? Why would I have any? People only have expectations of those they love! When I’m disturbing your peace, fine! I’m arranging for your tranquility! I’m not one of your novelistic goddesses anymore… the kind that expects nothing at all! Have your fictional characters do that. I’m a creature of flesh and blood from the real world. And what exactly did I expect that destroyed your peace so completely! How wonderful! I’ll send those money transfers to your account! For everything… bravo, bravo, bravo!
– You’ve misunderstood. I have no expectations even of those I love. When you burden someone with your expectations, how can they move according to their own nature? You cannot bind people—even to attempt it is a kind of sin. Those I love, I let them grow in their own way. I give them this freedom. The past bears witness.
– You live with your goddess, or goddesses! Bye forever!
– What kind of rudeness is this! Whether I live with anyone or not—what business is that of yours? How do you speak such nonsense without even knowing? Have I ever spoken of you with such disrespect? Shame on you!
– Sorry! I didn’t mean it that way!
Say something!… What! Say something! I said I’m sorry! I can’t think that much before I speak! Will you not talk to me anymore? Just tell me that!
– Why should I? So you can be rude every other day?
– Please, don’t say it like that! It hurts me too, to digest words like that. I’m human too. When you say something harsh, I cry—and I just keep crying. Is that all I do, be rude?
– You’re decent for two days, then you go back to your true self.
– I can’t lower my expectations of you! Is that my fault? You know, when you’re angry with me, I like it!
… Say something! If you must, curse me, but don’t just stay silent. Don’t get angry! I really feel you. Please, don’t leave me. You’ve become my world. Everyone around you has everything! But in my world, there’s only you! I have no one else, nothing at all! Perhaps time will change someday! That day I might stop bothering you with these messages! I won’t heat my head with absurd talk! I won’t hear your scolding either! Until that day comes, please bear with me! Ask your god to bring that time to my life quickly! I want to leave just fine too! I don’t like suffering like this, building expectations and hurting myself anymore! Think about it—what do I have? You have your family, your job, all kinds of busyness… what do I have but this pain? Yet I still can’t remove myself from here! I want to get relieved from this pain.
Are you still angry with me? I’ve decided—these few days I won’t cause you any more mental suffering! Before I leave, we should have some good moments together! I don’t want to be your harmonica; I want to be your cheap penny whistle. A harmonica has value; even if you wanted to, you couldn’t do just anything with it.
A flute worth two paisa—you can pick it up whenever you like, toss it away on a whim whenever you please! I wanted to set your life afloat on melody, and then be cast away into that distance…
— Good morning!
— We hear the sound of leaves falling well enough, but we never hear the beating of each other’s hearts!
— Good afternoon… good evening… and then again… good night! In the end, good night.
— By the time you see this message, I will be gone in a few hours! November 7th—that was when I first spoke to you! One dawn I woke from sleep and found someone had written to me: “Good morning!” I didn’t even know a person’s morning could ever be good… at least once in a lifetime! That was my first knowing of it!
You said from that very first day… I’m not humane, I don’t know proper conduct! What if I said—you never truly felt my messages at all! You only read them, read them just for the sake of reading. My words reached your eyes, but never your heart. Did they even reach your eyes, truly?
I accept all your accusations and still ask: aren’t you a writer? Can’t you read what lies in people’s eyes? Can’t you hear the sound of people walking in silence? Then why couldn’t you understand me? Why? A person who shouldered the weight of all suffering before they could even properly comprehend anything—couldn’t you have felt that, at least a little? If nothing else, couldn’t you have valued them as a human being? If you fail to understand me, many dimensions of your life will remain incomplete. You said: *Your grief must not be an excuse for your sadistic behaviour!*
A person who in twenty-one years never saw the light of the sun. A person beside whom no one in this world ever stood. A person who, despite being a daughter, had to spend nights in strangers’ homes and on the streets. A person whom everyone—all her friends—belittled, always. A person whose own mother, in twenty-one years, never once held her to her breast, never once looked at her face with compassionate eyes… Tell me, sir… does such a person know only sorrow? Or is it that there is nothing at all to call “gain” in her entire life?… Which is it? Someone even her beloved abandons, because in this life… such a wild flower cannot build a home, no matter what else! You can love with the Neerajas of the world, but you cannot build a house with them! Such a person has no identity at all!
Has your mother ever tried to sell you to another man? Has your own father ever abandoned you from above your head when you were six years old? Have you ever had to hold your dead father’s cold hand in the morning? Screaming “Father, father!”—while no one answers, and then your mother comes and slaps you hard across both cheeks… has that happened to you?
When none of this has happened to you, you have no right to say anything to Neeraja. Not just you—no one who has never had to endure this face of the world year after year has that right! This Neeraja has repulsed twenty men and kept herself purer than a flower! There’s no need for anyone to write stories about this purity! Those who couldn’t understand the sanctity of this innocent face—I don’t need such a person in my life either!
Now to your account! You never loved me, and I don’t need your love. But I loved you wrapped in the mantle of purity and sanctity! I have asked myself many times whether I truly love you or whether it’s merely infatuation!
I have wept, I have broken, I have exhausted myself, and yet I have arrived at only one answer—I have loved you! A person I shall never see, whom I can never touch, a person whose hand I might hold walking together at twilight—never. Why did I love that very person? I have searched long for the answer, but found nothing! Thinking of him, I have collapsed in the middle of the street, I have been sick, and still I thought only of him! I have run to the temple to pray for his welfare, to make offerings, at a temple whose god’s face I have not seen for an entire year!
After all this, I am told I am disrespectful! I have never—even when I have spoken carelessly, without thinking who said what or to whom—I have never expected so much of myself to swallow! How can someone become the person of my heart when I cannot err before him, when I cannot expect forgiveness for a mistake? How can he become the god of my soul when he understands nothing of my heart, only my failings? How foolish I have become! Today I do not even recognize myself.
I can go to the temple tomorrow and pray for him, and the next day speak so harshly of him—if someone can think such thoughts, then he has never truly known me. That much I will say.
Yet I still wish he would rebuke me, so that I might become more human through his correction! No one has ever disciplined me, no one has ever loved me either! The man does rebuke me, yes, but he does so misunderstanding me, not from love. I wish I could provoke his anger! I wish to ask his forgiveness without having done anything wrong…! Ah! How good it sometimes feels to lose willingly! Whoever has not learned to lose of their own accord has never learned to love. Love itself means letting the beloved win, no matter what. I have lost, I have wept, I have loved! But I have seen—I truly cannot go on. To bear the weight of one-sided feeling and walk forward—I did not understand before how difficult this is. I am alive enduring pain for someone who does not even understand me, let alone my suffering!
No, this time I must take leave. The more I see him before my eyes, the more my pain grows. I cannot be the goddess of his imagination! I am a person, not a goddess. I have sorrow, I have feelings. When I love someone, expectation is born within me. I can remain indifferent to someone only as long as I have not loved them. I truly do not know whether it is possible to love someone genuinely, without even a trace of expectation or demand! I tried, but I cannot.
Today I have visited your profile several times to understand what is happening in my chest. I saw—it hurts so much! Tears are coming from within. I feel a kind of pain. My insides are drying up and again and again I think something is missing, something is missing! Something is leaving me and I cannot stop it no matter what. I feel empty, nothing but my chest heaving with sobs. This has never happened before! Why does my chest feel like this now? In all this time, we have had nothing but quarrels—except for one day: December 24th! That day, both of us spoke in a daze, spoke so much! Why could there not be a few more days like that?
That day will be etched in the diary of life… Write this day down in the ledger of your heart; remember me, wherever you go, however far we drift!
From today onwards, I will walk carrying every fragment of love you have given me, gathered over these few days. When sadness overwhelms me, I will search for you on YouTube and listen to your voice! I was listening to it today too. I must leave now, truly leave! Otherwise I cannot survive! From every direction, from every corner of my inner and outer world, from the boundaries of my consciousness and the unconscious—today there echoes only ‘you, you, you’—that deafening sound pouring into my ears, rendering me utterly deaf! The night grows longer! That ancient night of a thousand years! And with it, expectation swells! Some foolish, pointless expectations. I want to clasp your feet with both my hands, squeeze them tight, and cry out—don’t let go, don’t abandon me! I’m telling you the truth, I want to cling to your feet! To let go of the one from whom parting feels like death, the person who has merged into my very being in feeling and belief, without whom it is truly impossible to imagine anything else—the one I laugh for and weep for—as long as there is breath in this body, I could do anything to keep that person in my life. Today I have no ego. Let him stay beside me my whole life… on that condition, there is nothing in this world I could not do. ‘I am a weary soul, and all around me the ocean of life foams and churns; it was the woodland maiden Banolata Sen of Natore who gave me rest for a moment.’ I cannot forget you. I will remember you till my last breath. I had suddenly begun to dream of living. For a while I forgot that not everyone in this world gets to dream!
Dear writer, will you remember me? A person came into your life who caused you mental anguish all day, spoke nonsense! And alongside that—someone wanted to hold your feet, wanted to live with their face pressed to your feet! Tell me, did I ever truly come into your life? Or was it only you who came into mine? Why doesn’t this coming happen from both sides? Why does only one person end up suffering?
Every morning that comes to my life will never be auspicious without you! Sir, no one has ever wished me ‘good morning’ before. I never knew that when someone says ‘good morning,’ such joy could flood through! I’m saying it again.
In the next life, after settling all our quarrels, on some rain-washed evening we’ll eat puchkas together! Will you remember?
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good dusk, good night! What miraculous, powerful words—capable of mending the heart!
I never understood that I would come to love you so much! Truly, I never did! Now I must go! I must flee right now with this mistake, with this pain willingly received! If I delay, all paths back will close! Take care of yourself! And yes, I have no complaints against you! You are a simple-hearted, earth-like soul—the kind of person whose feet one wishes to hold and stay with, to touch and see! Have you ever looked at me that way? Seen me with such eyes? Am I only bad? Is there nothing good in me at all? But what if in the next life I am not born again? Then will I never have you? What if it never comes to pass that… we quarrel, we wage war, yet we cannot let go of each other’s hands?
Two people who cannot live alone without each other… could we not become two people like that?
And yes, I’ll send my gift to your old address someday! Even without an address, don’t so many things still reach the heart? Isn’t that true? If my intention remains pure, you will receive the gift one day!
Will you come to me in the next life?… What kind of pain is this that breaks this chest… Listen to the song. Feel it a little! This is my last song sent for you! When you have time, listen once! We will never talk again, your texts will never come, I will never hear your voice again, no one will ever send me good mornings again, I won’t be able to know how you are… Even if these things don’t burn you, they will burn me every day, every moment! This world keeps track of the dead, but no one keeps track of the living dead!
— Good morning!
— You should have read every line I sent, at least once! If you can, face me, face my words, come to reason! You won’t, will you? No matter! I won’t cause you any more pain! You are free, you are liberated. My best wishes!
— What else should have been done besides writing that? Give me some advice. In argument, argument only multiplies. We didn’t come here to win. A relationship between two people… this is not a war, it’s a place of feeling—there’s no obligation to win here. Life is not a debate competition. Winning in words with someone—this very thing is a kind of childishness! I don’t like it. I don’t have the strength for it, nor the patience. I must be getting old… The game of winning and losing no longer appeals to me. I only want to feel silently. If someone wins at it, let them! Can anyone truly be defeated in word games? Let whoever wants to, win. Let them win and be well. I won’t even enter that fight! For me, that fight has no value—so what is there to think about winning or losing in it? I want to face life, not life’s arguments. Life doesn’t run on logic; life runs on some feeling, some experience. No one wins in word battles; you only lose friends or make enemies. What’s the point? If you want to win, then go ahead, you be the victor! How can I lose a fight that isn’t mine? And where am I losing anyway? I don’t think of you as an opponent, so with you I have neither loss nor victory. I don’t want to win; I only want peace.
— We could have at least talked properly today! Whenever I see Niraja, blood just rushes to my head! No matter! I will never be the cause of your pain again. I’ve said it!
— Did you eat this morning?
— You should have read what I wrote, at least once! You didn’t read it! And I’m leaving in a few moments! I need some time! I will never be the cause of your pain again.
— I read it. Why do you keep saying one-sidedly that I don’t read anything you write? Is it right to say such things so carelessly without knowing?
— From November 7th to December 28th, for all the bad behavior I’ve shown, for all the pain I’ve caused—I’m asking forgiveness for everything! Your development number is still that rural number, isn’t it? And it would have been good if you’d told me the new office address!
— Why?
— There’s a need for it! And if you don’t tell me, there’s no need! I have the rural number! And I won’t force you if you don’t want to tell me the office address!
I don’t want to go through any mental pain! We need to have some good moments! How about it? Have you eaten? We won’t fight for these next few days! Really, we need some good moments! I don’t just want to be your anger, I want to be your gentle smile too.
– I’ll eat. I was writing. Have you eaten?
– Yes! Your eyes are terribly beautiful! No one ever said so! I’m saying it today. We think that the person we love, who is close to us, doesn’t need to be told their good qualities. If she’s beautiful, there’s nothing to say that she’s beautiful. If her cooking is good, there’s no need to say at dinner that the food turned out well. If one day she happens to look beautiful, we can get by without telling her so. We really don’t appreciate the people close to us. We take them for granted. We think, she’s there beside me anyway, why make such a fuss over her? When someone else does a job, we praise them to the skies; when the same person close to us does it, we don’t even notice. Tell me, if I never said one kind word to a beloved person while they were alive, what good does it do to place flowers on their grave? Does a dead person smell the flowers? What use is it to gaze unwavering at eyes that have closed forever? If you really have to give something to someone, give them the smile at the corner of your lips while they’re still alive. What’s the point of drowning them in tears after they’re gone?
You know, the other day you actually had a quarrel with someone over these very eyes! We won’t fight for these next few days. You’ll remember?
– I asked if you’d eaten.
– No! I didn’t sleep all last night! I’m sleepy. Will you tell me your office address? Won’t you? Alright, so you can’t tolerate me, isn’t that it? Do one thing instead. Even if it’s by mistake, just love me once, and then you’ll see—looking at me will feel good, thinking of me will feel good, listening to what I say will feel good, my writing will seem organized, even my sharp and harsh behavior will seem sweet. If you loved me, even seeing my protruding teeth would seem beautiful like that…If you ate my cooking, you’d see, even eating my unsalted food, you’d be enchanted!
– A message came on your phone. Check it. That’s the address.
– Shall we share some love, what do you say?
1. It was a time when the unthinkable became the thinkable and the impossible really happened.
2. That it really began in the days when the Love Laws were made. The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much
3. If he touched her he couldn’t talk to her, if he loved her he couldn’t leave, if he spoke he couldn’t listen, if he fought he couldn’t win.
4. …instinctively they stuck to the Small Things. The Big Things ever lurked inside. They knew that there was nowhere for them to go. They had nothing. No future. So they stuck to the small things.
5. And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. Big Things lurk unsaid inside.
6. She hadn’t learned to control her Hopes yet.
7.
Being with him made her feel as though her soul had escaped from the narrow confines of her island country into the vast, extravagant spaces of his.
‘The God of Small Things’—you haven’t read it, have you? Please, will you read it? For my sake, at least?
– Good evening!
– Did you read my letter? Nothing I write matters much to you anyway, does it? Don’t bother reading it, please!
– I did read it.
– Thank you! You are The God of Small Things…to me.
– I’m a horse’s egg! Have you eaten anything? Where are you now?
– God of Small Things! Who makes the love laws? Society does, right? But the lovers have broken those conventional rules and regulations imposed on them by society. I too have loved you in just the same way! That’s why you are my God of Small Things. It’s a love where my desires are so small! A brief reply, or just wanting to hear your voice! Or a blank page, crisp and white, folded in an envelope—where so much could have been said that nothing was said at all! “And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. Big Things lurk unsaid inside.” That’s what love is, isn’t it?
Tell me, if I ever disappeared from Facebook—though it’s such a trivial thing—wouldn’t you think of how someone used to send me those long messages? Wouldn’t you miss all the old irritations? Wouldn’t something cross your mind? Tell me truthfully!
– I called you. You didn’t answer.
– I don’t have mobile balance! Please, just tell me—will you remember me at all?
I was there for two months! No matter how—in neglect, in indifference, in scorn! Won’t you remember even once, someone you no longer say ‘good morning’ to? Someone who no longer pours their heart out to you without reservation? Someone whose voice used to make you burn with anger?
You will dwell silent, within my heart! I might not make you understand what I feel inside myself for you. Be happy wherever you are! Day after day, I was getting mentally attached with you…Believe me, it made me die inside. I need to be detached from you, otherwise it will make me suffer in the long run. I will be waiting for hearing your voice after death. Death will help us meet together. Your absence will hurt me until I leave the earth. You did not read my unsaid feelings. Your existence will never die until my breath lasts. Don’t leave me in the afterlife. Take care of yourself. Eat properly, sleep well!
I was not merely Facebook! The love that came untimely, unprepared, within me—it was not false. I have left you for making you feel happy. No one will ever disturb you. No one will ever break the syntactical structure again, scattering pure, sacred words in their careless way! You will dwell silent, within my heart! I have shouldered alone all the punishment that love brings. If memory strikes, I will weep sometimes, or hide my face in the pages of a book at my study table and cry soundlessly! Since that day, I have not seen the morning anymore! I have withdrawn myself from that otherworldly joy of witnessing dawn! This is the punishment I have accepted with bowed head! A man opened his window for the first time in his life so that morning could enter his room. I learned to love the morning only for you.
For the first time in my life, I have learned to see how beautiful the morning is! And yet I—I shall never see the morning again. I will spend the rest of my days confined, locked away in these four walls!
– Good morning! How are you? I’ve thought of you so many times these past few days. You’re well, I hope? How are things? How is everything going?