It’s been many years, nanu. I haven’t felt your back against mine while sleeping for years. You’ll probably laugh knowing how I still sleep with a pillow that touches my back to replace your warmth. That’s what I loved the most about you. You’d find humour in the most mundane places. I’ve woken up in the middle of the night and felt your touch on this pillow god knows how many times or at least I’ve desperately tried to cling on to it. I’ve stored many dreams and many sleepless nights inside it. Maybe one day you’ll be able to find them stored inside it. I remember in vivid detail how your eyes would look like they store all the pain in the world when you’d sing Shona Moyna Pakhi. This song never seemed that sad to me. I can’t help but feel my chest be pierced by sharp needles every time I listen to it now. I see why you’d talk about your mom after singing it now,nanu. I understand. I feel guilty for not having you in my dreams anymore. I hope it isn’t because I’m slowly forgetting your face. It hurts sometimes that you left without any explanation. It hurts knowing you left your half-full Horlicks er kouta and reading glasses behind. It hasn’t stopped hurting.

আমার সোনার ময়না পাখি
কোন দ্যাশেতে গেলা উইড়া রে
দিয়া মোরে ফাঁকি রে
আমার সোনার ময়না পাখি

You definitely know at least one Bhaabi in your life. Bhaabi walks around with pride in her massive eyes trying to spot women in distress. Bhaabi takes a look at you from the gaze she adopted from her fellow misogynists (who don't act like fellows with her haha) and tells you you deserve it. Bhaabi has giant ears. She can hear the traumatized but listens to the traumatizers. She's clearly fortunate to have her nose be thin because how else would she sneak it into narrow alleys to get the latest news on which woman is potentially in danger? If you're observant enough, you'll notice the splashes of blood trying to escape from her saari in the painting. Bhaabi has red hands. Not only because she's been caught a million times confidently enforcing patriarchal norms, but also due to the generational trauma extended by her ancestors to her and now, from her to you and me. Bhaabi is the patriarchy's greatest achievement. Bhaabi is the egregor of all the Fair&Lovely commercials you and I grew up watching and unlearning; that tell us that to thrive in an oppressor's world, we must be hidden under their thumb, stuck in their language ; maybe it's true. Maybe it isn't. I can't say for sure because I am just a clueless 16 year old at the end of the day. Even if she's trying to make the most out of a rigged system, deep down in your heart you can't ever forgive her for the old scars which often turn flammable with flashes of mundane subtle sexism.

Bhaabi is perhaps the matriarch of the patriarchy. While patriarchal men at the top create the societal structures, Bhaabi is expected to maintain them. Because while society claims mothers hold the household together and motherhood is highly rewarding only to lure them into these households, they're never given the key to rule the household. That belongs to the man in the family.

Unlike what her mother expected, the child arrived as one with no colour on her skin. Yet like every child, you could make out from quite a distance how her eyes were filled with wonder, agitation and a longing for affection and recognition. However, her eyes had something special. Her eyes were so reflective that they could give you a glimpse of your own insecurities. So,looking into her eyes with fascination, her mother couldn't come in terms with the fact that the child she so wanted to believe was an extension of herself had no colour and looked nothing like her and thus she felt pathetic.

The mother painted her in her best colours and replaced her eyes with orange orbs that would gleam in the sun. What she came to realize after the colours didn't seem as pleasing anymore was that she'd emptied herself to fill up the child with colours.

She felt torn and betrayed by her own self. Feeling like a burden, the child began to cry out of the feeling of inadequacy to the point to which she couldn't cry anymore; not only because she was drained of all her energy but also because her mother chose to stitch up her own baby's mouth out of the guilt and confusion she felt for not being able to put her child's suffering to a halt. "Aren't all mothers supposed to have an inherent understanding of their child?" the mother contemplated.

With each day that passed with the child not saying a word, the mother got lonlier and lonlier. Society made her expect that her life would be fulfilled by the birth of her own child yet she was only met with disappointments and uncertainty afterwards. She'd ask the child quite often why she never spoke, why her eyes never filled themselves warmth and if her colours were even hers.

Daunted by the thought of giving birth to an emotionless wooden child, she threw her away into the depths of the Brahmaputra River. To make sure that nobody picks her up and nurtures her since she couldn't, the mother tried scraping off the child's colours, only resulting in more red oozing out.

It is said that the ravaged child's heartbeat can still be heard when the air gets too heavy to breath for those near the river.