০৩/০৯/২০১৩-মাসুদ রিমুনাকে চিঠি

Dear Masud and Rimona

It was indeed a great time for me and my family to have you within us even for a short time. We thank Almighty that we had the blessings to have kid like you in our family who gave us peace in mind with your good gestures and attitudes. Definitely it was a nice and remarkable tour that you presented us. In fact, after all this hassle and many disturbances in your present tour in Bangladesh, I will like to address it as a big lessons both for you and us. Let this mail be read by your great mom and Dad whom I always wanted as part of my souls and in deed they are.

Masud, this mail is very important to let you know about yourself from me and as well as from my family though I didn’t talk to other members while writing this mail on behalf of them. But I know if they read my mail, they will never accuse me about what I posses inside me. Before I write you anything, let me write something about my own experiences in my life.

I told you that after I married your aunty, literally I broke up with whole of my family and it was the most crucial event in my life because in one side I was loving them and in another side I was unable to let your aunty go away from my life. It was a state of anxiety both in mental and physical. I didn’t know if I am taking the right decision. I wasn't sure if I was in the right path. Constantly I was monitoring myself both from a perspective of Major Akhtar and from the perspective of non-Major Akhtar.

I clearly understood that many people love me for many reasons, and not only for beauty or anything. Some loved me fearing God, someone loved me as I was a good person, someone loved me because I help them, and some one loved me because I was a loveable person. All these loves were no meaning to me except the love I always wanted from your Dad and from my family. Still I had the prayer for them to God that I get back the love from them. It took almost 25 years time to understand that they truly loved me even they never expressed it open. I have no confusion now about their loves and sympathy. But within these time frame, I learnt something. , my life had changed; I learnt growing experience for me. It posed as opportunity for learning and growing coz I learned to do things by myself. I learned to have fun by myself. I discovered things I like doing and ways I could be of help to others. And I had been able to distinguish my priorities. The most wonderful thing that happened was that I learned how to be a whole person. I was able to find meaning in life. I learned my lessons well and I believed that when we've learned our lessons well, we moved on to higher or more advanced stages of development. Those events lead me to where I am now. But I was never a complete man without a family where there is a brother for whom I am here, there are sisters for whom I grew well, there is a village from where I stood up. After all this, I felt truly alone. Even many are beside me but still I was alone. A surge of fear gripped me. I was scared to be alone because I was used always to of having them around me all the way, in dreams, in thoughts, in imagination and what not. I didn't know how I would be able to cope life without them. I didn't know what life would be without them especially my mother and your dad and his family where you were also a part, Yusuf is also a part.  I felt like something had been torn from me, like I was no longer whole because I always found my other half when I was with my family. I was hurting so bad. But I had faced the reality knowing that I will, possibly, never again share a joke with them, ask a question only that they can answer, talk to then, be with them or even make loving smile with them. I had faced those things in order to survive and cope life even if it was utterly heart-wrenching.

Through that event, I realized that life is unstable. That life is unsure because I never thought I would be able to survive and cope. I never thought I would be able to overcome that crisis. I never thought that it would lead me to where I am now. It made me aware that I am not in control of all the situations in life. It made me realized that I am capable of being hurt. I was able to understand that life does not totally consist of happiness and unhappiness. Life is unfair as they say because I realized that the more I try to be happy, the more it eludes me. I realized that life is really uncertain; we’ll never know what will happen next. It leads me to a realization to the confrontation of fundamental problem of human existence in a way that I had been able to survive the crisis in the event of my life. I had been able to surpass the critical points because I was determined, strong-willed and had strong faith in God to re-direct my life. I had been able to confront the need of power to defend my life's purposes because I was able to change my life. It brought new meaning to my life. I realized that there was more meaning to it than just a mere experience of hurt and pain.

You know Masud?  The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. It's easy to say sorry for what we have done. It's also easy to forgive and forget, but one thing will never be easy, is to trust again after the disappointment. I learnt that happiness comes to those who give love freely and who don't demand that others love them first. It’s like the sun that is just generous which shine without asking first whether people deserve their warmth or not. I got it from your dad and Mom. They are like Sun and give people lights the way they gave you everything you and me needed even we didn’t know their hearts and their pains but they did their parts.

The definition of love is so varieties and so much big in horizon that many things can be derived from single word “LOVE”. Great love can make a weak man strong. True love can make a brave man fall to his knees. But if I like to define its opposite side, it has tremendous set back also. Failure in Great Love can make strong man weak and brave man as apathy in life. No one is important to him then. In such dismissal courses I learnt Masud that LIFE in this world is the hardest course we could ever take and we need someone or bunches of people who loves us unconditionally without any returns. Its hard to judge them always but they are there. Its our responsibility to find them in right time. And most sad part is that to judge and find them is not easy when we are emotional or outraged. But it is always there. Frankly speaking Masud, it could only be taken once. No review, no masteral, no doctorate. We don't have any other DEAN or GOD to find them but heart and soul. And once we have graduated from this school, we are done and gone. Only eternity can tell our rating: PASSED or FAILED. So I will advice you to judge them correctly and also advice you to live each day as if it's your baccalaureate service, because in this course we'll never know the exact date of our closing ceremony. There were hundreds of YESTERDAYS that passed and more TOMORROWS still to come but there's only one TODAY to enjoy. I always live for TODAY Masud and I will advice you to live for only TODAY with whom you are always missing out. You must figure it out whom we miss constantly and truly. I always miss your dad though he is the only person with whom I can be an arrogant and also submissive. I am thankful to Almighty to have your Dad and Mom in my life.

You know Masud? Any relationship apart from what God had planned for us is like the beautiful horizon. It may appear that the sea and the sky meet at some point but we know they are not. You think you are meant for each other only to find out that you are not and you will never be. It is nothing but a mere appearance of an illusion--beautiful yet deceiving... That’s how now I take this relationship Masud. Its like if you paint a good painting, others will enjoy looking at it, but you in painting it, will have learned how to paint. I am just painting everything in my imagination and I have all the choices how I wanna see them and paint. Everything is a trial where a trial can be a success or a failure both. But remember Masud, trials are not reasons to give up or live with, but a challenge to improvement or rejects. Life at times are like a mountain. You know Masud? Mountains aren't easy to climb, but the view from the top is usually the best. I am not mountain or you but within our altitudes of attitudes, we both are like a mountain. A mountain never climbs another mountain, they stay side by side and never meet unless someone bridges them in between. May be your Dad is that bridge where we are both connected. I always consider and ponder to see as a fresh beginning for everthing. Why go on thinking about what had happened, or about what we did yesterday? Life is a river, flowing constantly onward. No drop of it will ever pass the same bridge twice. Now is your chance to do things in new ways, better than ever before. I am doing my best. We always look at our scars as ugly marks. But sometimes, let's try to consider it as a nice thing, as a symbol that something painful in the past had been healed. Do you understand what I meant all through Masud? To be more clear about what I want to mean is that always remember that two things we define our successful life, the way we manage when we have nothing and the way we behave when we have everything. I appreciate your dad when he managed everything well when he had nothing but its your or my turn to manage things well when we have everything ready-made.

Let me cut a joke at the end to flare a smile in your lips, eyes and motions.

There were two friends from Philippines and China. But the Philippines man never speaks Chinese and the Chinese man never speaks English or tagalong. But they were very good friends indeed. With their body language, they could express many feelings. At one time, the Chinese friend got sick and the Phil man went to see him. When the Phil man saw the Chinese friend, he found his condition was really bad with oxygen tube in his nose, many needles in his body and with life support. The Phil friend sat beside the Chinese friend when the Chinese friend was in hospital with such a disastrous condition of health. Suddenly the Chinese friend told him, “ “Li kay wang ki guan” and died. The Phil friend didn’t understand what the Chinese friend meant. So the Phil friend tried to find out actually what his best friend Chinese man wanted to mean. After many years, the Phil friend found another Chinese man and wanted to know what his BEST friend told him before he died. The new Chinese man translated that his friend told him, “Please you are seating on my oxygen tube and I cant breath, Remove yourself from the tube.”

So let we understand our minds and body languages of the family where we all are the BEST friends of everyone. I miss you Masud and I felt truly sad when you left Bangladesh. I am not your biological father but I know you are just like my son masud. My family thinks you are my next kin and you have lots of responsibilities to perform in absence of me and your dad. You are our boy no matter who loves you more but we love you more than anything and without any conditions Masud.

Keep always link and make two steps forward towards the bed where you had lots of memories you left that you will never remember because you were so small to remember those times.

Akhtar

প্রিয় মাসুদ এবং রিমুনা

এটা আমার জন্য খুব ই ভালো সময় ছিল যখন থেকে তোমরা অল্প সময়ের জন্য হলেও বাংলাদেশে বেড়াতে এসেছিলে এবং আমাদের সাথে সময় কাটিয়েছো। মহান আল্লাহকে অশেষ ধন্যবাদ যে তিনি তোমাদের মতো বাচ্চাদেরকে আমাদের পরিবারে ব্লেসিং হিসাবে দিয়েছেন। তোমার এই অল্প সময়ের সান্নিধ্য টা আমাদের জন্য অনেক আনন্দের ছিলো। তবে, এই অল্প সময়ের ভ্রমনের উপর ভিত্তি করেই আজকে ...

(চলবে)