A love letter to Dhanmondi
Road 4/A
Darling,
I just stood there. Observing. A single light flickering, leaves illuminating underneath on a spring night with a familiar shade of red, dancing in the corner of my eye. This particular face of yours, leading past the ULAB building always resonated with me. Maybe because I've spent a part of my youth honing my art in the presence of one of your many masters. The leaves started dancing as the street light flickered aggressively – that got me thinking, reminiscing about all that I've had to share with you. Trips in the morning in my pressed whites bring back memories of my childhood. The times I've stayed out late knowing that I'm safe, losing myself in one of your many arms, with the promise that I'll find my way back. Like star crossed lovers, I met you again that fateful night, anew. Engrossed by the memories of my love for you, within you.
I write to you.
Road 10/A
The invisible hand that washed away the leaves that night was perhaps no one else but yours. I only caught a glimpse of it though; I was seeing the world through my mistress' eyes at the time. I'm sorry that I never told you this, but thank you for extending your hand out to me. I cannot decipher it but maybe it's your welcoming touch which keeps me coming back to this place. One arm down to my favorite place made in Bangladesh, with another leading me towards the coliseum of greatness, the same ground I've shook and stirred on was trembling at the might of your grace that fateful night. I had been left speechless by your timing. And all of your surprises have left me wide eyed. Looking back, I understand why I keep coming back to this same song of yours, it's longer than it seems at the start but at the end of it all I realise that it's the intrigue that your bends possess which keep on enticing me. You are full of surprises, my darling.
Road 8/A
I have made a fool out of myself on these very steps by your crescent lake time and time again. I yearned for what I could not have, yet I waited patiently staring at the sun, or perhaps it was the moon. It was early in the morning, I don't remember exactly. I only wanted for you to hear me sing for once. But my voice had been muffled while trying to reach you over a thousand other sinners' lungs. I had heard tales of storytellers and go-getters wooing you on this very stage. I was just a boy with flowers. I walked down those steps leading to your bosom, my vision clear but my heart on a sleeve. This is not my place, I recall telling myself, but I remember clearly now. You let me in just as welcomingly as you had welcomed every other pauper looking for your touch. I am in awe of your generosity and kindness. This is me calling out to you. I once recognised you as my home away from home. A gentle wind took me away from my discomfort that day. It was all you.
Road 32
There is a road, it goes by a sanctuary marked by the greatest tragedy. I remember this is when I began to realise that in some way I might have been afraid of not deserving you. Deserving is strange, is it not? I do not believe I could deserve something forever. It gives me comfort to know that I can walk all your streets, every night, wherever I come from. I might have been afraid of you, and all your little pieces, scattered and connected by bridges too small, come by too often for names – they rise like pieces of bone from your blood to lead me where I want to go. So often, I do not know where I want to go. I stand on the verge of you, I am propelled into your embrace – and then I am where I want to be. You may be mocking me for this, I feel, with your dead-end neighbourhood streets, or when your face splits in all four directions and I must decide which way I want to go.
Saat Masjid Road
My heels are nipped by hounds that follow me into you. Around the lake and I could swear there were other people awake, but when I look, they shut their windows – who else are you sharing yourself with? Do you belong like this to everyone, the way you belong to me? The dogs walk so close to each other that their bodies are one – why are you guarded by Cerberus?
Road 28
Your trees, like hair, like arms – fall spindled and curled, over my head where there are roads named after poets and roads named after art, and all of them lead to rows upon rows of glass houses. I play games with your dust until it is early in the morning, and the houses loom like giant anthills, crumbling with life. I can hear the rest of the forest around me, there are busy men and women, busy children, glassy eyed, heading into and out of you and you breathe in with every entrance and exit until it is noon, and then you burst. Noon traffic is one long scream.
Abahani Field
You negotiate best after noon, with your children sick with exhaustion and haze. You make your case for your grass and your metal when there are those who wonder if they should tear you down. It is slammed on the table, and it laughs at their faces. It echoes through the forest – you in your glass coffin, the land of the fae, the girl with a split face, untouchable and sheltered from the outside. And my family from the canopy, and people I know will spit on their hands to clean your fogged surface, to keep themselves sane. They strive to deserve you. They spit until their palms are wiped of all lines, to be redrawn as they enter your mouth, reborn. They do not want a past. There is nothing before you.
Road 7
I was one of them, an outsider. A new born, when I slipped past your teeth as you yawned. I shined inside your cavernous, gaping maw. Mouth of a wolf, belly of the beast. Sloshing conquests in the acid of your stomach, poppies blooming around your bloody muzzle. And this rave, this rave of screaming histories, flesh on your glittering teeth – like windows on an apartment complex.
Road 27
I was looking for you before I knew what I was looking for – you are the mouth of this place. I was looking for you, through the sights and sounds of what you had portrayed, going by directions from strangers, all of whom seemed to know you from miles away. As I stood at your centre, I was miles away. But I knew that with each passing cornerstone, I would get closer to meeting you halfway. I knew you were not the sum of a wedding venue and a mall but merely a showcase. I couldn't get a word out; I was left blinded by your radiance. I'm sorry I couldn't speak to you that day, but I didn't want to tell you what I thought until I had fully known you, limb from limb. With that said, it has been a pleasure to have made your acquaintance; we go back a long way. I hope you remember me still. The morning sun rises everywhere else, but you are made for the light that beats down at noon.
On the outskirts, I meet willing prey – their hands almost clean of history. It slips my mind – your appetite, your gullet, the sunset burning on your children's backs. My love for you is like a sedative, slurring to the doctors what needs to be said – I fall back to sleep inside you.
Asif Ayon's favorite color is a particular shade of ash but he tells everyone that his favorite color is blue. The alliteration in his name bothers him a lot too. To inquire more about what else keeps him up at night, hit him up at [email protected]
Tabeya Azdasih is the unholy amalgamation of Lady Macbeth and Obi Wan Kenobi. Try to guess her unfortunate middle name at [email protected]
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