For Friends Who Never Die

A friend of mine died on December 11, 2006; before I even came to know him as a friend. It was only in late 2007 that I first met him through his poetry. He became my friend after his death, someone I did not know in-person, and had no possible way of getting to know in the future. Yet, to me, my poet-friend was not only still alive through his poetry but also extremely real to me and in need of reciprocity. Our friendship was often me trying to make my other friends (who are/were alive and able to enjoy his language) read his available works. The two of us shared a sense of privacy, but I found his presence in my other realities, at times even defining my response to grief and other difficult emotions.

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I grew up with books all around me, and as a single child with working parents, books became the potential shrine of emotional fulfilment. My first encounter with intercultural reading, Rushdesher Upokatha (Russian Folktales) was acquired as a gift by my prophetic mother for an unborn child who was going to find solidarity with books more than people. Soon I identified that friendship was about seeking connections from the least complex spaces, thus oddly humanising books through the text as well as the authors. Young people in the autism or neurodivergence spectrum can find it difficult to maintain social interactions primarily because of our inability to express intricate ideas or emotions in coherent (sometimes neurotypical)

ways. The evidence required to authenticate and communicate emotions can be difficult especially when we cannot easily group attributes and form holistic labels. I found reading proved that I was and continue to be invested and inclined towards forming connections, as it encouraged more focus on the minor details rather than observing whole pictures, a practice that neurodivergent folks find attractive. In my internal world I became friends with fictional characters and authors, and to this day, those are some of the most unique and impactful expressions of care.

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I never held any published works of my poet-friend in my hands, never “owned” a copy of his collections, only much later came to know that besides being an impoverished “oppressed caste” Bangladeshi refugee, he was also a mathematical genius! He came to me through the hands of an acquaintance who shared some bits of his “breakup poetry” via Yahoo! Messenger. Towards

the end of his life, he wrote an extremely profound series of poems from a psychiatric facility where he was living and getting treated for a plethora of mental illnesses, titled Hashpatale lekha kobitaguchho (The Hospital Poems). In a moment of divine justice, just as my own mental health was pushing me into a system-reboot, I chanced upon his wondrous and wounded world.

Because of my weak memory I cannot recall lines from his poems upon request, and in a bid to keep him close to me I decided to recreate his works through translation. Translation was a way of solidifying my friendship and commitment, like tying a friendship band around the wrist of a beloved. As I sat with a dictionary (Bangla to English) and focused over each printed word, it was clear that reading and understanding may not go together seamlessly and this gestures towards the importance of translation in our everyday lives—the reception of words by translating those from one code to another.

In 2009 when text messaging was 10 paisa for 160-odd characters, I did a top-up of Rs 10 and blasted my contacts with a series of texts that translated one of his verses from The Hospital Poems.

Message 1- u & i hv won & it has been a while./D colr of ur skin is still hw it usd 2 b,/Bt no more r u a Hindu, nw u r Christn./still we hv grwn old 2gthr.

Message 2 - dey hv cut my hair vry short nw,/ur hair 2 cropped jst lyk mine/i saw an image in d newsppr; dat time/wen we both wer yung/did we apprehnd our aging?

Message 3 - i hpe u hv chldrn & famly etcs nw./i left my addrs at ur home/u left urs at mine,/& i will write no lettrs,/nw dat we r 2gthr as pgs of a book.

Through this act my mission was accomplished: in the world of early-mobile technology, I had left some traces of myself and my poet-friend. The absolute joy of sharing something/someone you admire and belong to without apprehension, that was true freedom and I had found it.

Towards the end of his life when mental illness was speaking for my soon-to-be-dead poet-friend, he answered his eternal query on the purpose of poetry with a resounding: kobita bujhini ami, “I have never known poetry”. My friend wrote about his illness and death as a treatise on being and becoming, sanity and acceptance.

now that there is no fear i live alone unseen here

inside the psychiatric institute.

listen folks, in this miserable present i am well

i continue to receive daily food.

(excerpt from The Hospital Poems, my translation)

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Thinking about the queer, misunderstood, isolated lives around me, I am reminded of the unyielding and gnawing energy to connect with others and share a glimpse of the invisible in a way that is transgressive and radical. Through friendships, I learnt that there is so much to communicate and create with others, at my own pace with my own understanding of integrity. And I remain grateful to my poet-friend for giving me the impulse to begin the journey towards the other; to mould abstract ideas palpably and celebrate the most disturbing qualities of life. --

This was published some time back, in the book Yaari: An Anthology on Friendship by Women and Queer Folx (2023) ed. Shilpa Phadke and Nithila Kanagasabi. Just never had the time to upload it here.

The poet-friend was Binoy Majumdar. Prolific guy, crazy as hell, dead and happy finally, maybe.