When I come to Dhaka, I usually stay at Mahbub’s house. He’s one of my most beloved people, among my closest younger brothers. Of all the extraordinary good people I’ve encountered in life, he’s one of them. Aunty too treats me like her eldest son, and even scolds me from time to time. I generally don’t accept gifts from anyone. But last Eid, when Aunty gave me a new punjabi and said, “How can my eldest son celebrate Eid without a new punjabi?” I couldn’t say anything more. Today too I came up to his house. This morning while having breakfast with him, I shared some thoughts that I feel like writing down. (I made a slight mistake—the house can no longer be called ‘his house’ given how my relationship with this family has evolved. Sometimes excessive intimacy gives birth to certain rights. The house is now ‘my house.’ How easily a home is built with love!)
Back then there were no other channels; in childhood, plays would air on BTV at 9 PM. Naturally, fearing it would harm my studies, Mother wouldn’t let me watch plays. She would lock me in my study room with doors and windows closed, and watch TV in the next room at low volume. It was very difficult for Mother to watch plays that way—she could hardly hear the sound! Not much sound reached my room, but what I would do was peek through the window crack to see what Taukir was saying, how he said it, why Bipasha was laughing, how much she curved her lips. (Girls laugh like that anyway, but 12-13 isn’t the age to understand this.) I would wait like this for the hour to pass. If Mother ever noticed me stealing glimpses of the play, she would scold me severely. Then I would study a little bit again. That was the age of believing, ‘If I don’t study, it’s my parents’ loss, not mine at all.’ That hour would be neither studying nor watching plays. Once the hour passed, I was free. Since I wasn’t allowed to watch TV, after 10 PM it was my choice whether to study or not. Back then, not watching TV was a huge sacrifice. Sometimes what would happen was, Father would come from behind, place his hand on my shoulder while I had my nose pressed against the window gap, and say, “Want to watch TV? Go ahead, watch!” I would be overjoyed! When Mother saw me in the TV room, she would get very angry, and then Father would say, let him watch the play for a bit! After eating, he’ll study an extra 2 hours. “What do you say? You’ll study, right?” I would agree to that too! Back then it seemed like the play I wasn’t being allowed to watch was the most beautiful play ever. There were certain rules for watching plays. For instance, I could watch serial dramas, but not package or weekly plays. Because if you weren’t allowed to watch serial dramas, there was no point in watching any episode. Of course, when the power went out, there was nothing left to do. We would leave that to fate. For us two brothers, nights when the power went out were nights of sitting on the veranda, watching and understanding the night. My father was the teacher. (I’ve written about this in another piece, so I won’t write about it here.)
When I was allowed to watch plays, I could indeed study some extra time. Back then we didn’t have a dining table at home; after watching plays, we would all sit together on a mat spread on the floor to eat. Then Father would say, “Mom, let him watch TV sometimes. Otherwise he doesn’t study at all. One hour—neither studying nor watching TV.” (My mother’s name is Momota, nickname Mom.) Hearing this, I would dance with joy. Like a cat, I would snuggle closer to Father’s lap. Then Father would tell me, “Son, don’t do two things simultaneously when both need to be done well. Do dil banda, kolemachor, na paye behesht, na paye gor.” “Baba, what does this mean?” “It means, if you think about other work while praying, your prayer won’t be done properly. Studying is like praying. While doing it, if thoughts of other work come to mind, finish that first. Then study for some extra time. Prayer is the same. If you don’t do it at the right time, you’ll have to make extra effort later. Otherwise it won’t be complete.” I didn’t understand much back then. Just the words ‘Do dil banda, kolemachor, na paye behesht, na paye gor’ worked as motivation. Father would say this quite often.
Today I understand that as long as we’re on a mission, that’s our time of worship. If other thoughts enter the mind during worship, it’s impossible to receive the complete fruits of worship. Those who prioritize all other work while working to accomplish a particular goal—none of their work gets done well. Just as worship requires accepting tremendous hardship to move forward, similarly, while on a mission, it’s impossible to reach that goal by diving into oceans of comfort and pleasure. Any kind of studying is like worship. Without immense patience, sincerity, and willpower, no worship in the world would succeed. Prophets and great souls have proven this through the ages. During worship, one must accept much hardship and only worship. No other matter should enter the mind during worship. This certainly diminishes the blessings of worship, I believe. During worship, one must have the utmost reverence for intention. The weaker one’s intention, the lesser the reward. There’s a hadith: “Inna mal a’malu bin-niyyat.” This means every action depends on a person’s intention. If the intention is correct and one remains devoted to that intention, success is possible in any endeavor.
Intuition is much more important than logic. When making decisions about something, if you’re in doubt about what you should or shouldn’t do, ask the ‘I’ within yourself. See what it says. That’s intuition or inner knowing. Even if logic says something else, listen to your inner ‘I.’ Why? For two reasons.
One. You’ll often find that what your intuition tells you is somehow correct. Sometimes answers to certain temporarily (for the time being) inexplicable matters of the world remain hidden in some profound corner of our mysterious minds, which we may never discover. Suddenly, without much effort, such answers emerge as signals. The greater one’s ability to quickly receive these signals, the faster they can make the right decision at the right time.
Two. Even if you make a wrong decision because of your intuition, the mentality to accept whatever damage results and the ability to bounce back develops subconsciously within you. Suppose, instead of following intuition and going with logic, you make a correct decision. If that decision takes you to Level 5, let’s assume it would take 10-12 years to reach Level 10 from there. In my experience, I’ve seen that even if you follow your intuition and make an apparently wrong decision, dropping to Level 0, a tremendous regret works within you—a regret mixed with love for making mistakes while valuing your own feelings, along with infinite responsibility. The love creates such a drive within you, the emotional impulse pushes you forward so rapidly that you reach that same Level 10 with such force that it’s completely novel and miraculous by ordinary human standards. This might take you at most 3-4 years. Meaning, by properly utilizing intuition power, an apparently failed person can reach the same height, or even greater heights, in much less time than a successful person! There are countless examples of this.
“Brother, as soon as you arrived, you said they didn’t give you a blanket on the bus yesterday, so you couldn’t sleep all night in the AC cold, and the road was terribly bumpy too. You said you’d sleep for 2-3 hours after breakfast, then go out exploring after waking up. But you came and immediately started writing. Where do you get this energy from, brother?”
“It’s not about energy, Mahbub, it’s about passion. Not everyone can do everything. The work you love, you feel tremendous affection or fascination for that work, which might have no value to many others. But you yourself will remain sincere and faithful to your passion. This is very necessary. Passion must be loved, not given opportunities to grow, otherwise you won’t get anything extra from your passion. Sincerity toward it also removes the fatigue of your labor. People become tired not so much from physical causes as from mental ones, far more so.”
❤