[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.]
The last day in Rajshahi wasn’t nearly as beautiful as the first day. That was probably when their goodbyes started turning ugly. Abir couldn't make it on the morning of the 15th. He had been unsure if he could come at all. An unexpected conference call at work kept him trapped since morning. Sneha didn't let it ruin her mood. She figured if they met, great; if not, she'd feel a little down- that was it.
From morning onward, Abir kept sending one text after another, going back and forth about whether he could come or not. Then, around two in the afternoon, he suddenly showed up downstairs at the hotel and called Sneha to come down. A little before that, Sneha had started having trouble breathing. Instead of going anywhere, they stayed in the hotel room and talked from afternoon to evening. Sneha’s flight was at eight that night, and she had to check out and leave the hotel by six.
Before that, Abir insisted they go to a bar nearby. She had saved a small amount of Ballantine’s for him, but even after finishing that, Abir absolutely had to go to the bar and have a drink. He wouldn’t let it go, repeating, Please, let's go... He had another conference call in about an hour. Sneha didn’t want to go because he would be drinking and then driving the car, but after he promised he’d have just one peg and leave, she finally agreed, or maybe it’s more accurate to say Abir practically dragged her there.
They sat there for a while, talking about this and that. Neither of them had much time. Abir had to be at the office by seven to attend a conference, and Sneha had to leave for the airport by seven too. Since Abir had an official commitment, Sneha told him to leave first. They sat quietly for a while, both a little down. Then, just before leaving, Abir called her. Sne…ha… Sneha was distracted, already on the verge of feeling sad. They had finally met after almost two months. The day before had been unbelievably beautiful. They had spent the whole afternoon together that day too. Who knew when they would see each other again? Lost in those thoughts, she looked up when she heard Abir call her. And then, completely out of nowhere, he said, Don’t come here like this again.
She doesn’t even know what happened then. The moment her brain processed those words, she slapped him hard across the face. The sudden slap knocked his glasses off, and they fell to the floor and broke. Abir sat there for a few moments, stunned, silent, his head lowered. Sneha felt like she had just come back from hell through some kind of trance. The moment she came to her senses, she quickly dropped to her knees and started looking for his glasses. Abir tried to stop her- It’s okay. Come on. Get up, please. She picked up the broken glasses and apologized several times. Then, in a very calm voice, she said, Please, leave. Just leave. Right now. Abir got up to leave without lifting his head. Then Sneha suddenly remembered- how is he going to drive without his glasses? She called after him, A…bir…how are you going to drive? Shit! I’m sorry! And your glasses, I… He turned back and said like someone trying to reassure a guilty person, It’s okay. Don’t worry. I have a spare pair of glasses in the car. You go carefully. Text me when you reach Dhaka.
Sneha didn’t make it back to Dhaka that night. After leaving the bar, she went straight to the hotel, carrying a mess of humiliation, anger, stubbornness, and hurt. She didn’t cancel her flight or even inform the airline. Instead, she bought a ticket for the next morning from an agency downstairs at the hotel.
Abir was probably in his conference by then. She didn’t text him either. Didn’t tell him she wasn’t going back to Dhaka. The whole bar incident kept replaying in her head like a nightmare. Back in her room, she drank peg after peg of whisky and cried for a long time- out of anger, humiliation, and even regret for raising her hand at Abir. At some point, she cried to herself and sleep. When she woke up in the dead of night, she found a mountain of Telegram messages from Abir waiting for her.
Ignoring all of them, she sent a single text: I'm still here, didn't go back to Dhaka. Was feeling sick. It wasn’t a complete lie anyway. She really had felt sick after getting back from the bar, mostly from overdrinking. Abir shot back: You shouldn't have done that. Sneha didn't even bother replying. Abir assumed she skipped the flight out of pure spite to punish him, since he was the one who had practically forced her to buy that ticket. Meanwhile, Sneha was stuck on one single thought- did Abir really find it absolutely necessary to drop a line like Don't come here like this again right before saying goodbye?
Sneha headed out to Dhaka on the 8:00 AM flight the next morning. She had to be in the office by 10:00 AM, so she had absolutely no other choice but to leave that early. Right before the flight took off, she sent Abir a long text: When I was preparing to come here, I didn't even know if I would see you. Still, I came. You took risks just to meet me; gave me moments I will cherish forever and for that I'm deeply grateful. I know meeting me is never easy for you. And you have taken this risk again and again, and I can never repay you for what you have given me, not even in a hundred lifetimes. But if you tell me, after I leave, Don't come here like this again, that would be nice, wouldn't it? If you had told me not to come, I would have even listened. I wouldn't have forced you. But after such beautiful moments, hearing that from you before I leave, how am I supposed to feel? How would you feel if you were in my place, Abir? For the first time in my life, I wanted to meet you on my own. I was happy, so happy. But the happiness never stays long. The moment I felt it, the whole world conspired to take it away. Didn't I say this always? See... this is the proof. I won't come in front of you again. Not out of anger, just because I know, I shouldn't. Why didn't you just let me travel back to Dhaka with the warmth of those beautiful moments, Abir?
After Sneha landed in Dhaka, Abir’s text came through: I’m really sorry, Sneha. Have you landed? The bad luck of that last day in Rajshahi never really left them. If anything, it kept getting worse every time. Eventually, goodbye itself became a trauma for both of them. Neither of them had expected it to turn out this way, but things rarely go according to plan. What used to be their peace gradually warped into chaos. You can't just lock joyful moments in a box forever. If you could, people would just open it up and pull-out happiness whenever they needed it to get through life. Times change, and moments don't stay the same. Something that once felt like happiness can slowly become grief, and sometimes you don’t even know whose fault it was, or what exactly went wrong.
Going out to buy anything around Bashundhara Residential Area is always a pain. Back in her room, bringing a new syringe from the pharmacy and melting the plastic base of the needle with a lighter, she kept thinking: why does the end always have to be so ugly? Why can't people say goodbye without throwing accusations and toxic feelings around? Did she ever wish harm on Abir, even in her worst nightmares? Even if she screamed the truth a thousand times now, would he ever believe her? Suddenly, she breaks down. Her whole body begins to shake, drenched in sweat.
Trying to light the needle she fixed onto the lighter, the entire foil paper abruptly catches fire. After blowing out the flames, she just sits there with her head in her hands, completely still. Sweat pours down her skin. Lately, just being alive feels like torture, but dying doesn't seem easy either. These thoughts leave her completely drained. It's not even a physical exhaustion; the mental burnout is way worse. Closing her eyes, she lets Subir Sen’s voice drift through the Bluetooth speaker:
Khoti nei aaj kichhu aar, bhulechi joto kichhu taar
(There is no loss left today, I have forgotten all that was)
Ei jibone shob e je haray, jani bhule jabe je amay…
(In this life, everything eventually slips away, I know you will forget me too…)
Listening to the music, Sneha suddenly remembers that weird morning in Sylhet. After an all-night ride on a local bus, she landed at Kodomtoli- the last stop in Sylhet city- at the crack of dawn, without having to think twice about where to go next. The second she stepped off the bus, CNG and Bangla Tesla (local autorickshaw) drivers started shouting for passengers. Just by looking at her face, the loud crowd could tell she wasn't a local Sylheti furi and was completely new to the place. The moment her feet touched the ground, the drivers began yelling from every direction: Apa, Dargah jaiben, na Chandni Ghat?
This wasn’t Sneha’s first trip to Sylhet. She had first been to the city twenty-three years ago. Her brain wasn’t particularly interested in preserving useless memories, so she couldn’t really remember what she had done or where she had gone back then. She only remembered one thing- she had gone to the Dargah. She went again twelve years ago. That was the last time. She remembered that trip a little better. So technically, that dawn was her third time stepping into Sylhet city. But it was the first time she had ever come alone.
Among all the shouting, she walked up to an older man sitting in front of his rickshaw and asked: Chacha, will you take me to Dargah Road? He didn’t say anything. He simply smiled, and somehow that smile was enough to say yes. His name was Omar Faruk. For the entire three hours Sneha spent in Sylhet that morning, she went around the city in his rickshaw. Her first stop was the Jalali pigeons. Very early in the morning, she went to Hazrat Shahjalal’s shrine and sat quietly for a while beside the pond famous for its gozar fish. Even at that early hour, devotees and murids from different places were arriving at the shrine with all kinds of mannats. Sneha wondered if she had a mannat to make too. After all, devotees make their mannats through the awliya and peers, but ultimately, it is Allah they make them to.
A believer is supposed to have a direct connection with Allah. So why would anyone need a medium to reach Him? Nah. Sneha decided that if you truly know how to connect, you don’t need anyone in between. If you know how to call Him the way you’re supposed to, you find the answer yourself. No awliya, no peer, no intermediary is necessary for that. Still, she stepped inside the shrine, offered her salam, then came back out and stood for a while watching the white pigeons circling through the open air. Leaving the Dargah, she hopped back onto Omar Faruq Chacha’s rickshaw and headed toward Chandni Ghat. The moment she sat down on the stone steps beside the Surma, something inside her suddenly went still. The mild Falgun sunlight rested softly over everything. A light breeze moved through the air. Somewhere nearby, a cuckoo called. Listening intently to that sound, she completely unplugged from the world’s chaos for a few moments and lost herself somewhere inside, completely alone, in a silence so deep it almost felt like another world.