ব্যাপারটি সহজ নয়।
The greatest obstacle is the noise of the external world. It confuses, creates doubt. The rational mind asks, "What even made you take up this venture?" I am left without any answers, but I don’t change my course. I modify things a bit. Change the text of the landing page, change the ads, look at the metrics, increase budget on one ad, pause another one. The "curse of knowledge" is there too. It’s sometimes hard to get a sense of how a particular writing would feel to someone reading it for the very first time. Silence and peace of mind is called for.
One of my friends suggested I write in Bangla. কিন্তু বাংলা লিখতে গেলেই একটা মহাকাব্যিক, নাটকীয় ভাব এসে পড়ে। নিজেকে সিনেমার বা কোনো উপন্যাসের নায়ক নায়ক লাগে যে কিনা নায়িকার খোঁজে রত। কিন্তু আমি তো কোনো নায়ক নই। কোনো কাহিনির প্রধান চরিত্র নই। I am just a human being flowing through time. I have no notions or narrative fantasies. It’s one way of experiencing life- to think of one’s life as a narrative with one’s self as the main character and others as actors on that stage. Another way is to just live minus the narrative chatter.
Last winter I had two realizations.
I wrote on November 8, 2024:
No scenario, no performance. This thought popped up in my head(?), brain(?), mind(?) a few days ago. This has been an overarching, all-encompassing thought process of mine. Anything that I undertook, I used to imagine there is a final or climactic performance for which I am preparing. For reasons yet beyond my articulation, I think this was a stupid, delusional thought process that I am happy to have captured and brought under control by naming it. This was a ghost of a thought/perception that has been directing my thoughts and I am happy to have named it- the first step in exorcising the ghost.
Does adding one more letter increase the probability of you reaching out to me? Not in itself. There are a 1000 other variables.
আমি ভাবছি এই চিঠির উত্তর লেখা সহজ নয়। কিন্তু ব্যাপারটা সহজ নয় শুধুই একজন আগন্তুকের জন্য। যার সঙ্গে আমার প্রাণের মিল, তার জন্য ব্যাপারটা হয়তো ততটা কঠিন নয়।
যে নিজেকে জানে, আমার লেখা পড়ে যার মনে বাজে- আশা করি সেই 'তুমি' জবাব লিখবে।