[Disclaimer: The figures of power and the corridors of influence depicted in this narrative are born entirely of the imagination. While the shadows of the human psyche are real, the characters who inhabit them and the state they command are purely fictional.]
As soon as Abir started the video call, Sneha immediately got up to turn on the light. There he was, half-lying on the bed in a white sando vest. A tornado was ripping through her chest, yet, desperately trying to look normal, she restrained herself and forced a smile when she said, It has been fifty three days since I last saw you! Oh my god! Abir said, That’s very weird! Embarrassing too! You shouldn't count days like that. Sneha replied, I didn't do this deliberately, trust me! But I hadn't forgotten a few things. That’s just who I was. The last time I saw you was December 15th. I didn't try to memorize it, it just stuck. What’s the date today? February 6th is slipping into the 7th. That means fifty-three days. I was so weak at math, but this stays with me even when I didn't want it to. What could I do?
Abir gave a slight smile. That look gave Sneha a violent jolt of energy, like a week's worth of power generated in a second- a literal powerhouse. She was obsessed with his smile, a fact she had been hammering into him since their first or second meeting. Abir rarely smiled. But when he did, it hit Sneha as the only pure, innocent thing left in a man. Maybe that smile was the exact snare that caught her. She lost herself in thought, gazing at the screen. Right then, Abir played the song 'Chhaya' by Blue Touch on his other phone and started singing along. Humming softly at first- "Songoto karone tomay ar ami bhalobashte parini, tomar proshner proti uttore kichhu likhte parini." Then, as he sang, "Chand kingba tomar alo amar boddo lage chokhe, mrittur coffin amar mure diyechi tomar arale," and hit a slightly louder note, he suddenly covered his eyes with his hand and burst into tears.
Sneha wasn’t ready for this. Not at all. Abir was sobbing uncontrollably. Even though Sneha’s heart was twisting in pain, she didn’t try to stop him. Sometimes crying brought relief. He was crying for some reason, so let him- Sneha thought. But that sight was ripping through her insides. Looking at it for long became impossible for her. Turning her eyes away from the mobile screen, she was desperately trying to restrain herself so that not a single tear fell from her own eyes. Abba used to say- in any situation, two people shouldn’t panic at the same time. If one fell apart, the other had to hold themselves together, no matter how much it hurt. Sneha was trying to do exactly that right then.
Abir was crying, just keeping on crying. Just like his smile was as simple as an innocent child's, so was his crying. Sneha sensed something, but she could not be sure. The song lyrics, that crying- connecting those dots, one could extract many meanings if they wanted to, but she didn't feel like doing it then. However, she could understand very well that Abir was desperately trying to say something but delayed it through this crying for some reason. Unable to bear that crying any longer, Sneha cuts in, That's it, stop. Enough. Don't do this. What's wrong? Why are you crying like this? Talk to me...did something happen? It's killing me. Stop. You've cried enough.
Abir stopped. Shaking his head, he said nothing happened. Then he said, Seeing your face after so long, I couldn't control. I'm sorry- and broke down in tears again. Inside Sneha’s head, the ledger of calculations had already opened. Whether the equations balanced out or failed, Sneha knew the absolute truth- today or tomorrow, she would have to leave Abir’s life, and these events were just small tragedies before that ultimate end! The moment Abir acted weirdly, Sneha pretended to be completely calm, but inside, she was shrinking into nothing, terrified of losing him. Seeing Abir crying and knowing they were going to break up anyway made her feel a heavy, suffocating weight- like a giant stone dropped right onto her chest, stealing all her air.
Seeing Abir’s non-stop crying, Sneha said again, Abir; look here, look at me. What happened? You wanna say something? Tell me, what happened? Speak to me. Don't do this, please. Stop crying. Trying to pull himself together, Abir said, I'm sorry. Sneha tried to force a smile and said, Why sorry, baba? Still weeping, Abir kept saying, After my mom, probably you love me most. But I can't reciprocate. The moment he said this, he burst into uncontrollable sobbing all over again. Sneha was at a loss for words. Abir had just said something massive. Whether he even understood the real weight of his own words- Sneha doubted it.
Was Abir drunk? But looking at him, it didn't seem so. Then what? Abir saying these things while sober meant he was genuinely speaking his raw feelings- Sneha thought. Although she used to believe that people speak the absolute truth only when they are drunk, Abir had proven many of her calculations wrong over the last two years. Yet, Sneha also understoodp- on certain matters, she wasn't wrong; rather, because of Abir’s own internal conflicts, reality, and surroundings, whatever he was trying to establish as the truth, those things were not entirely correct.
Sneha felt an intense, crushing pity for Abir. A man was crying, laying bare his helplessness over not being able to love her. Not being able to love, and not loving- there was a distinct difference between those two! Sneha thought, drifting a bit absentmindedly. That Blue Touch song- it was a wrong concept! It wasn't giving the right message. Over there it said: “Songoto karone tomay ar ami bhalobashte parini.” The word 'ar' (anymore) was the problematic part here. What did it mean? You loved before and then stopped? Were you forced to drop it, or did that feeling rot away? The matter wasn't clear here at all.
Either you loved, or you didn't, or you never did. What were you trying to explain with 'not anymore'? Your own inability? But without stating the reason for that inability, it was just announced like a school notice board- Due to unavoidable circumstances, all classes for today are suspended! Fine, but shouldn't the specific reason be stated? Wouldn't that be better? Everyone had the right to know. More importantly; you loved once, even if for a single moment, but if you hid that like some covert operation using different signals, it wasn't possible for everyone to decode sign language. Everything was so blurry, no clarity. It was like wrapped in some deep mystery!
Sneha could only read a few things by looking at the eyes, which she had figured out a long time ago. But every single time, after coming close and spending beautiful moments, whenever it was time for her to leave, why did Abir have to use all kinds of nonsense just to try and prove those things wrong? Why did he have to put effort into transferring a guilty feeling onto Sneha right before leaving every single time? Out of what guilt? Driven by what morality? Sneha got hurt by this. It tortured her, yet Abir kept doing this day after day knowing it well.
If he had put even a quarter of that effort into accepting this relationship as normal and keeping himself normal, many problems might never have grown big, Sneha still felt. This didn't mean Abir alone created all the problems, and that Sneha was just a helpless woman receiving pain. Sneha knew, and she admitted it too- she had never given anyone more pain in her life than she gave Abir. She had never loved anyone more than Abir either. Those two lines from the Blue Touch song were bothering Sneha so disgustingly right then. She started thinking again- either I never loved you at all, or I consciously didn't want to love you. What on earth did 'couldn't' mean? You loved but didn't want to? Or you wanted to but couldn't love?
Human psychology and attachments were sickeningly complex. During that forty-five-minute and twenty-seven-second video call that night, Abir spent nearly thirty-one minutes just weeping in broken intervals. But the core truth he wanted to bleed out to Sneha—he never said it. He failed to. He never managed to vocalize what needed to be said clearly at the exact right moment. He couldn’t do it. Probably never will. Instead, when a truth was meant to be buried, at the absolute worst hour, he would get wasted and vomit it out out of nowhere! Sneha was thinking about all of this while paying the Uber bill and stepping down at Fakirapool bus stand. Getting out of the Uber, she put her phone on airplane mode and went to the Ena Poribohon counter to see which bus was first in line to leave right away.
The counter clerk informed her that a bus to Sylhet would leave within five minutes. Buying a non-AC ticket for 550 taka, she went and got onto the bus. Right at the entrance, a disgusting smell of cheap cigarettes blowing out from the bus helper’s mouth made Sneha feel nauseous. It wasn't that she couldn't afford to go on an AC bus. Her only goal was to leave Dhaka as fast as possible. That was the only reason she had to buy a ticket for that specific bus without giving it a second thought.
Sneha was born in Dhaka. Raised in Dhaka. Outside this map, she had zero addresses. Her parents didn't have any either. Ancestral homes for both sides were rooted right here. She always had this theory- take her to any paradise on earth outside this city, and she would get hit by homesickness within three days, running back. Sure, the city was choked with pollution and screaming noise. Sure, you wasted half your life rotting in traffic jams. But this mess was hers. Her favorite place. Her safest haven. Yet, that night, this exact city felt totally, utterly unbearable.
Sneha desperately wanted to reply to Abir’s texts. He must be stressing out big time, she kept feeling. But her ego raised its head again and crushed that desire. A moment later, that arrogance melted down into a deep sense of hurt. Sneha noticed- the feeling of being hurt was much deeper and more intense than arrogance. The next second, she thought again- by what right did she pack this grievance in her chest and leave for an unknown city in the dead of night? For whom? It felt to her as if she was becoming a larger nothingness inside a nothingness, losing her way completely.
Shortly after boarding the bus, Sneha stepped out of her 38th and into her 39th year! As the clock struck twelve, she whispered to herself, Happy birthday, the saddest lady of the world! By then, a middle-aged lady sitting next to Sneha had fallen asleep and slumped onto her shoulder. Reminding herself that she wouldn't be able to endure a long journey in this bus, a stubbornness took over her. A stubbornness to inflict pain on herself, probably. Instantly, she made a decision- carrying the weight of that lady's head on her shoulder, she would stay on this very bus till the last stop. She’ll be the last soul to step off, after every single passenger had got down.
But where exactly the last stop of this bus was in Sylhet, she didn't have the slightest clue. Sneha twisted her mouth and thought- let it go wherever it wanted, she set out to go missing anyway! What was the point of thinking so much about where and when it would stop? Who or what was waiting for her? She had nowhere to go, nothing to do! No one was supposed to come close to her either. She felt that if she found a songwriter like Kabir Suman in front of her right then, she might have said- "Ei phatkabajir deshe shopner pakhigulo beche nei...O gaanwala arekta gaan gao...amar ar kothao jawar nei... kichchhu korar nei..."
The bus lights killed out soon. Most people were either asleep or half-asleep. Near the door, the conductor lit up another trash cigarette, bleeding that toxic, cheap stench back into the air. Sneha's stomach flipped instantly. Right on cue, the driver blasted Kumar Sanu through the harsh speakers! Kumar Sanu was crooning over there- "Tu pyaar hai kisi aur ka, tujhe chahta koi aur hai...Tu pasand hai kisi aur ki, tujhe maangta koi aur hai..." Pa-the-tic! After listening to that utterly agonizing nineties track by Kumar Sanu and Anuradha Paudwal for a while, Sneha voiced her annoyance a bit out loud.
Though it didn’t scratch the deep sleep of the passenger resting her head peacefully on her shoulder at all. Was this woman drugged by a highway gang or something? How can a person sleep so completely knocked out! Sneha took a glance at the lady's face- she was sleeping with such absolute comfort, as if there was nothing more blissful in this world than sleep! Actually, maybe there wasn't. When was the last time Sneha could sleep properly? She couldn't even remember. This too was a highly pa-the-tic matter!
Pronouncing "pa-the-tic" twice, just like Professor Saifuzzaman, a smile crept onto Sneha’s face despite all the irritation. How many times she had heard that word in that exact pronunciation during her first semester at varsity was beyond count. Prof. Saifuj was reckless with that word in that specific delivery! He used to teach the English 101 course at IUB. His cartoonish face flashed before Sneha’s eyes after ages. Raising one eyebrow and staring over his glasses with one eye, the professor had made sure every latecomer in class heard that word in that exact tone at least once! Of course, it wasn't just for coming late; to Prof. Saifuz, everything in this universe seemed "pa-the-tic"- exactly how Sneha was feeling right then. But the torture from the bus’s harsh speakers couldn't keep Sneha busy with thoughts of Prof. Saifuz for long.
The song changed by then, of course. But only the song had changed, Sanu and Anuradha didn't. In fact, the next track was even more terrifying than the last! What on earth were those Indian lyricists smoking in the nineties to write these songs and ruin an entire generation?- Sneha thought! The male voice was screaming, "Bin tere kuch bhi nahi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i main..." Actually, screeching would be more accurate! Then, making all kinds of unrealistic promises to his lover, he announced, "Main har gham utha lungi, teri chahat mein." And the idiot lover actually believed that, replying to him all head-over-heels, "Tera saath jo choota, yeh waada jo tootah, main khud ko mita doongi, teri chahat mein..." Drop dead!
At that moment, Sneha felt that if she had the phone number of that song’s lyricist, she would call him right then and say- Kitni jindagi tune barbad kiya aise jhuthi lyric sunake, meri bhai! Tujhe koyi jahannum me bhi ghusne nahi degi! Wow. After saying that in her head, Sneha realized, she actually spoke Hindi pretty well! Another smile crept onto her face. But thinking about how these cheap, fake-promise songs of the nineties- blared out in harsh volumes at every street corner, salon, VCR, and cassette shop- infected a whole generation with romantic fantasies, she wanted to call those lyricists by a misspelled name, the kind of mistake you make when you first see the name of a Nobel laureate like Machado in bengali.
The victim of these lyrics…Muhtarma Esne-e-e-e-ha herself...who was making an aimless journey toward an unfamiliar city with the weight of a strange woman's head on her shoulder, and that too while nursing an uninvited, unentitled grievance in someone's life! At forty years old, this shouldn't feel adventurous at all, and it didn't feel that way to Sneha either. But by a stroke of bad luck, her childhood was spent listening to those exact songs! She was still representing a generation that committed suicide over a failed love, even at this age, as if her age was still stuck at twenty-one! Just a moment before that, it was as if her age wasn't thirty-nine, but twenty-one! And she was wishing herself a happy birthday for stepping into her twenty-first year, calling herself the saddest woman on earth A poet who was also a lover- there shouldn't be a single soul sadder than them in this world, Sneha reached such a conclusion after a lot of thinking. A poet falling in love meant falling into failure. Poets had no right to get love back in return for love. If they succeeded in this matter, who’s going to survive the heartbreak and write the damn poems?
For the first time, Sneha feels a massive wave of anger toward her own poetic identity. For the first time, Sneha felt a massive rage toward her own poetic self. For no reason! Utterly pointlessly, she blurted out to herself- what the fuck did anyone even achieve by becoming a poet in this world! Actually, she wasn't annoyed with all the poets in the world, she was only annoyed with herself. But on that lonely night of her birthday, she just wanted to dump the burden of that annoyance onto an entire community to feel a bit lighter, that’s all! Then Sneha felt that being a poet, a lover, and a journalist at the same time in this world meant spending your life as a symbol of misery and poverty.
Sneha had no regrets in her heart regarding financial poverty. Money was like dirt on her hands…no…she thought a bit more…that was not an appropriate comparison! Some dirt on the hands didn't wash off that fast; rather, it could be compared to the speed of light. Yes! Money came at a tortoise's pace and left at the speed of light. Today money would be there, tomorrow it wouldn't. If it was not there tomorrow, it would come back the day after, compared to this material poverty, living a loveless life felt like a much more destitute state of existence to her. And she had no desire to be noble in this kind of poverty, she felt.
Even all these thoughts couldn't keep the harsh noise of the bus at a tolerable level for long. Instead, plugging in her earbuds and listening to a fitting track on Spotify felt like an absolute necessity at that moment. She had a playlist on Spotify named ‘Amon’. Up until then, the number of songs in that playlist was 386! It functioned like a massive archive. The moment she shuffled the Amon playlist, Linkin Park’s “In the End” kicked off.
While listening to the song, Sneha started thinking- just last year in this exact month, she lost her Abba. This year, she herself was getting lost. Next year, would Abi… the moment she thought of imagining the rest, her breathing difficulty began. It started at that very moment too. But ignoring the sensation, she kept listening-
I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end, it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end, it doesn't even matter...