I haven’t been able to write even ten sentences together for nearly a year. The only thing I managed to write during this time was a letter—to my counselor. Right now, I’m trying to type with a fractured distal radius in my right hand, hoping life might become a little clearer. Writing in a personal space has its advantages. It helps to organize thoughts and worries. But there’s a downside too—two lines of praise can inflate the ego. The habit of writing is one thing, but the habit of not writing brings its own challenges. I see the pain of not writing reflected even in my friends’ posts. Neither I nor ninety percent of my friends ever believed writing would make us great. Instead, writing brought a kind of inner peace, a sense of fulfillment we kept chasing. But that greed has ended up like the owner of the golden egg-laying goose—leaving us empty.
My hand can’t even lift a weight of 100 grams. It hurts. Amidst that pain, while typing this blog, I feel a faint hint of the labor pain of birthing something. Or maybe it’s like the soreness in intimacy after a long break—a pain that brings a certain satisfaction.
Sumon had asked me to write something about winter for his blog. I couldn’t. In the past, I would have run away from such failures. But now I’ve learned that admitting them brings relief. Sumon is my friend, a friend with boundless energy. Sometimes I even envy him for it. So, I tried to write something. Here’s that piece. Sumon wanted prose, but all I can call this piece is self-indulgence.
“Winter was a request, two drops of bitter night slid down my throat. Your naked, solitary hand traced itself on the wine-colored evening. Sitting in Bijoygarh, oh sea and horizon, how many waves and how much fervent foam! In the preserved ghazal, I sink my teeth into an apple. Proposed by Newton, letters of the Bengali alphabet arise within the gravity of attraction.
Winter means wine, winter means the night of ghazals—a familiar scent, a familiar tune. In truth, the tantric ‘T’ within the mysterious ‘Sh’ trembles. The night stretches, descending down my throat.
At a glance, call this my mimesis.”
