I had a friend whose condition was like this: even if a girl looked somewhere on TV with a hint of love in her eyes, he believed she was looking directly at him. And that she had fallen in love with him.
 |
| An emotional village boy lying on a school desk, dreaming about love with teary eyes, symbolizing innocent teenage heartbreak and imagination |
As for real life, let’s not even go there.
Let’s say a girl is walking on the far side of the field, using the road to go to school, half a kilometer away. And he’d come and say, “That girl looked at me.” He’d claim she even stood there for a moment, just for him.
Often, during class breaks or when the teacher was away, or even when students would go outside during leisure time, we’d find him lying on the table or skipping school around 11 or 12 in the morning, climbing up a tree and lying down, singing Monir Khan’s song, “Sukhe amar buk bhese jai bhalobashar kannay” (“My heart floats in happiness with tears of love”), getting so emotional that tears would stream from his eyes.
And he would say with passion, “Why is my whole soul filled with so much emotion?”
I’d reply, “Truly friend, why are you so overwhelmed with feelings, Mona?”
One time, something happened. He saw a girl from the infamous "Ganja family" and fell for her. And oh boy, that was another level of trouble.
The girl’s father regularly weighed out marijuana and yaba (meth), and handed them to her mother for safe storage. And the boys, starving day and night, would risk police chases and deliver those supplies across the area.
But the girl herself was genuinely good. Just like in Tarashankar’s Kabi, where the thief’s son suddenly becomes a poet. Or like Prahlad, born in a demon clan. Or the great poet Valmiki, who once was a robber and later wrote the Ramayana.
In that same way, this girl from the “Ganja family” preserved her grace even in such surroundings.
Naturally, we couldn’t entirely ignore our friend’s deeply emotional feelings.
We asked, “So, how are you planning to tell that girl from the gangland family that you’ve fallen in love with her?”
“The moment you try to say it, they might just pack you up like a parcel and deliver you somewhere.”
He replied, “You guys have to figure something out. The girl seems really nice. If she agrees, it’s all good.”
“But what about her family?”
“I’ll win them over with my love, just wait and see.”
“That’s not the point. You might end up being treated like this: as the son-in-law, your breakfast could be a bowl of marijuana juice with some bread dipped in it, followed by three puffs from your father-in-law and four dry sticks to go.”
“For lunch, a heavy meal: a jug of Indian rum and a syringe full of... and that’s how your days will go.”
“After two days of this, you’ll forget all about the girl and start singing, ‘Ami ghum bhalobashi re, ami ghum bhalobashi’ (I love sleep, I love sleep).”
“No, I will prove you all wrong. Don’t you know how love always wins in the movies and dramas? Just make the arrangements.”
In this situation, none of us had the courage to be the one to bell the cat. We kept giving him all sorts of hopeful reassurances.
Days passed like this.
One day, suddenly, that girl got married to someone else.
We breathed a sigh of relief.
But our intentional failure didn’t sit well with our friend.
He started going around saying, “All friends are terrible, except Bangabandhu.”
And we accepted it and said, “You said it right, friend. That’s exactly it.”
Reviewed by Allscope
on
May 11, 2025
Rating:
No comments: