Words of Welcome

(Most of us share a common experience with colleagues: hardly any of them truly think of us with genuine care. We are much the same toward them. So relationships among colleagues remain largely official. Those who must survive by working know this experience well.




Even so, each of us has some colleagues who keep us in their thoughts, and we remain sincere toward them. This is a kind of familiarity. Perhaps this familiarity is called 'friendship'. Fortunately, I too have some such colleague-friends. I know that in my days of trouble, I will find them beside me. They know that in their days of trouble, they will find me beside them.




One such friend is publishing a collection of his stories, a book that will come out at the Ekushey Book Fair. He asked me to write something about the book to be printed on the front cover flap. After reading the stories, I wrote this welcome-piece, somewhat in the style of a prose poem. I have kept the story titles unchanged within quotation marks in the poem.




I request you to read the following piece as a poem. I would be glad to know how you liked it.)




I remember spending some July evening by Jessore Road, lips touching a tea cup, passing time in conversation with someone. Even today that moment remains stuck on memory's wall: "July on Jessore Road"!
Even then I was searching for you, even now I "search for you." You tell me, what else is there for a failed man to do!
Days pass, yet somehow never quite end! Even today "that rainy day" sometimes returns.
Rain does fall—inside, outside! Believe me, the rain descends only "for you"...on my personal courtyard's edge!
Somewhere some "Neela's blue lotuses" seem to weep, I can just hear the muffled sound of that failed crying.
To live one must weep, must hear weeping. Of course, in life's eternal game of "blindman's bluff" sometimes a "surprise" comes along too!
Yes, the entity called life then truly becomes "true as a story"! Time flies on fortune's wings, life burns.
Flowing time rarely lets anything stay still, some existences without warning get their names written on the list of those "murdered"; then...even watching "love's white hours" becomes exhausting!
...When such thoughts come, I feel helpless. Really do!
Some "Singapore-returned Anowar Hossein" gets annoyed and sets out "in search of Nafiz." What is this annoyance about? Why can't the Anowars keep patience or faith after a certain time? Is it that time walks forward only to "deceive"? Perhaps the deceiver's life is more comfortable at day's end, who knows!
"For Tushi" someone may keep "waiting," though it probably never occurs to Tushi's mind, yet it remains so! Some "beloved" remains absorbed in the dream of becoming "father" to Tushi's child, thumbing his nose at all of life's necessities. Yes, remains so! Somewhere on earth someone always waits for someone, that's why the world is still livable!
I think such thoughts, keep thinking, and sometime drift away...to some place from which no one perhaps wants to return, just then father seems to call from beyond, saying, "My boy," don't go farther, Manik! No one else calls me Manik, only father did!
...What "affection" that is, ah, cannot be explained! Then one can bid goodbye to all the "tenderness" in the world without hesitation!
What I've understood through living years: to love, one needn't become a reckless superman! Even a modest man like me...who has within him even a little capacity to love...the eternal conflict of "Superman Versus Gentleman"—cannot devour him, even with his gentleman-being he breaks through doubt and falls headlong in love!
In that grace I live and flourish quite well—not by the blessing of some "sage" or God's messenger, but in my own way, my own manner. I walk on, stumble, recover and walk again. When some fugitive's gesture comes to feeling in some quiet leisure, I think: what is this pull backward toward a life that passes in regret?