We feel drawn to people far away. We feel a kind of closeness to those we have never seen, those we will never see. We feel love. We are overwhelmed with emotion. We cry in pain for them. I was in college then. I started writing letters to newspapers. I made pen friends. I had many pen pals. I have boy friends as well as girl friends. Among them was a friend named Mita. Mita from Shibati, Bogra. Mita used to write letters with beautiful words. Only one page of letters. At that time, letter pads with beautiful flowers were available.
Mita used to use only one page of that pad. The letters would come with perfume, sometimes with dried rose petals. The letter would end without blinking! Couldn’t Mita have written a little bigger! No one writes such calculated letters! We had a beautiful relationship through exchanging letters. Once she even sent a picture. Just a picture of her face. That was in 1981/82. Perhaps the picture was in color. I often looked at the picture secretly. One day, suddenly, like a cloudless meteor shower, Mita wrote, “I am leaving for America. Don’t write to me anymore!” I don’t think I would have felt as much pain over someone’s death as I did when Mita left.
I never wanted to meet people who were my correspondents. I wouldn’t get involved. I’m a bit shy anyway. I’m not as easy to get along with as I used to be in letters or as easy to get along with people I don’t see on social media these days. Besides, what can I say when I meet them? I don’t even talk much. Maybe people will be disappointed when they see me face to face. Not as much as they thought. I can’t accept that pain. While walking around Toronto, I see many Facebook friends but I don’t talk to them. Some recognize them and say, “You’re Jasim Bhai!” I read your writing.
Moments like this are like dying for me. It’s like a dilemma. So it’s better to stay away from people who are far away. The emotions and attraction that are created from a distance don’t exist when you get close. Many limitations of people. When you get close, they are revealed. Mistakes are caught. The picture we paint of each other from a distance may not seem like that when you get close. So don’t get too close. Don’t love too much. Love means suffering. Coming close means moving away. Getting means losing. The word love is confusing. Who knows where love is! People love so much but also hate the person they love. For whom they used to be anxious, they push him away, use him and throw him away like a waste.
People these days don’t have the same emotions as before. The stability of emotions has decreased. Just as my mind was anxious for Mita, I still remember Mita, today it doesn’t happen like that. Now people have many options. If someone moves away or pushes someone away, they can run to someone else. And that too moves away at some point. This is how people are running after a peppercorn. A pepper called love. They are running after the water of a cassava called friendship. Suddenly, someone comes and emerges from among them. It changes everything. The calculations become chaotic.
Just as there are many traps and fears on the way, so too is there true love or friendship. People do not actually cooperate or stand by someone’s side as much as they should in their danger and hardship. Does sympathy really benefit people? When we show sympathy to a loved one in the death of someone, does that ease their grief? When someone is in danger or in debt, will they be free from danger or debt with just sympathy or consolation? No. Then they need real cooperation. But not everyone has the ability to do that cooperation. Nor does everyone have the mentality. Will that relationship last then? This world of interests is very mysterious.
Toronto, Canada
