Twenty miles between me and home.

Twenty miles, the sailor thought.

Before there'd been nights he had fought.

And even when it was comfort he sought

A bright diabolic sun is all he got.

And many a night gathered and ended

Many a swords he picked and defended

When every brick of his prison fell

To let cold wind to his prison cell

Rains he got there waiting for him

Warm, not cold, to his skin they seem

He knew not how he walked the leagues

Until he saw vines of grapes and figs

With a scent of woman he had long known

In every morning that his life had shown

From the castle window where he cried and played

So close now, he could hear as garden leaves swayed

Yet closer he walked he found fear and pain

Not joy but risks of losing it again

Home with just dead leaves coming to his way

Yet home has never seemed so far away.

The evening sky is more blue than black. Patches of blue and black, dissolved in a suspension that tries to touch a passer-by every time he looks up. The mist and his hat--- their edge is where he finds his sky. What lies above is the eternal illusion, of the hope to it, and of the despair. 

December has her own appeal with neon lamps and cold winds and hot cakes. But its the cold wind I like and the adequate tension that scatters inside me, through its slightest of touch.

Cold winds and those descending holly leaves....

Cold winds and the saddest of sunlit skies....

Cold winds and the crisp of old books....

Fall comes and I turn back one last time. From February reds to the moist days of June, from a love soaked July to a gentle birthday hymn, only the looking back is all that is there to it. To look back, only, to look back. Cold winds cut inside and meet my nakedness.

What do you find when you look beyond a valley? Homes that are not yours. Children that are not yours. Happiness that is hardly yours. And unhappiness? In that you have had your primal share, to some extent, to some fraction, even though it has retained its ingenuity. The passer-by was there. The mist kissed his hat, it left its immense presence on him. But what formed its weight? I stood above a valley and knew what did form its weight, the mist and all that were above it--- the possibility and its inherent limitlessness. They touched him right there, inches above from his reach was the sky. I knew. Only that he did not. He looked up to find only distance.

One of these days we made love and realized how two people fit into each other. 

First came together all that were alike--- a lip for a lip, a hand for a hand. Patiently they met each other, greeted each other and melted into each other.

Then came their unique waywardness---- one's brevity guarded by another's longer legs, one's open emptiness filled by the density of another. Thus came together all the impatient ones.

And at times in sudden hinders of reality when the lips parted, we wondered how a moment can be so complete yet so brittle.

In downward eyes I thanked pain. I thanked for it let me know it, endure it, conquer it. In the end it came down to the inches between our lips. And all I could think of in that opportune moment was what had once been above the passerby's hat.

The cold winds had remembered how I became a woman, in toss of coins not in elaborate exchanges. That was its misfortune as well as its beauty. The tomorrows have been mostly penniless. Yet on the days when the cold winds came to seek you out within me, I have felt very rich.

There can be no true happiness without pain. That is the irony of it

Khelaghar

~প্রিয় নলীলাখ্য বাবু ,

আঘাত আর ক্ষতর মধ্যে বোধয় একটা তফাৎ আছে। আমি নাহয় ডাক্তারি জানিনা, তাই গুলিয়ে ফেলেছিলাম।আপনি শুধরে দেবেন তো।আঘাতের চিকীৎশা  করতে আপনি বড় ব্যাকুল ছিলেন। আমিও হয়তঃ আরোগ্যের লোভে  ব্যাকুলতা  প্রশ্রয় দিয়েছি।কিন্তু সেরে যখন গেলাম তখন বুঝলাম যেটা মিলিয়ে গিয়েছে আদতে সেটা ক্ষত।আমার আঘাত ততদিনে তার নিজেস্য আঁধারে এতটাই গুছিয়ে সংসার করছে যে যে তাকে তাড়াতে গেলে আমার আঁধার, আমার হৃদয়  সহসা বড় নির্জন হয়ে পরবে। আহত কে যে পুষে রাখতে চায়, ব্যথার শাস্তি তার চিরদিনের।আপনাকে সেই ব্যথার সাথে জড়াব না। কেবল এইটুকু অনুমতি চাইছি যে সময়ে-অসময়ে প্রয়োজনে-অপ্রয়োজনে চিকীৎশার ছুতোয় যদি আপনার সখ্যতার দাবী করি আপনি অপ্রসন্য হবেন না।আমি সারা জীবন কোনো কাজের জন্য কারর কাছে ক্ষমা চাইনি। চাইতে হয়নি আমায়।এই প্রথম চাইছি আপনার কাছে।এই প্রথম চাইছি আপনার কাছে। আঘাত নিয়ে বেচে থাকার অনুভূতি আমার চেনা, এবার ক্ষমা নিয়ে কি করে বেচে থাকা যায় সেটা শেখার পালা। অপেক্ষাই জীবন। তারপর সত্যিই হয়ত কুসুমবনে তরী এসে লাগবে একদিন।

সেইদিনের শুভেচ্ছায় 

আপনার অনুকম্পাপ্রার্থিনি 

হেমনলিনী~

Dearest Nalilakshya Babu

Perhaps there is a difference between ache and wound. I am hardly a doctor for which I had confused the two. But you are. So you should have corrected me, shouldnt you? You were very eager to heal my ache. And I too, in my greed for recovery, was more than happy to let you indulge in your eagerness. Though at the wake of my cure I realized the one that has been wiped away is only the wound with its scar. My hurt has by then so neatly built its home in its darkness that removing it would only make my heart and its own darkness lonely to a great extent. She who wishes to preserve her ache has been destined to be punished with pain. I will not engage you with it. However, if I ask for your friendship in times of need or perhaps whenever I wish to recover, please find it in your heart to extend that with some gladness. Never in my life have I required someone's forgiveness. Never have I met with that need. But today, for the first time, I ask yours. I know the feeling of living with my ache. Now I need to learn the feeling of living with forgiveness. To live is to wait. And perhaps someday the boat will really arrive at the bank of my garden.

With my heartiest welcome for that day.

The seeker of your forgiveness,

Hemnalini