Happy Birthday, Nokkhotro

Happiest birthday to the brightest star in the universe!

I am lost for words. I am in awe. My thoughts are jumbled into that heap of tangled internet cables on Dhaka streets, and I’m not really able to find and arrange the right words.

Today is probably the most special day of the year for me. I love being obsessed with the little moments of shared joy and the smiles of the person my heart desires.

I am barely processing these overwhelming feelings, 99 flavors of joy that I know of you. I feel like an astronaut who has discovered an important star. Should I just send your name and location to NASA?!

I wish and pray with all my heart, to an extent I haven’t even done for myself yet, that you live a happy, healthy, simple life, the one you dream of. Far from the madding crowd and the whistles of cars, where the birds sing and cows moo.

You know why I don’t try to appear perfect in front of you? I saw this side of you just after I started knowing you in fragments, the girl you described in your last entry in Nokkhotrokothon. That girl doesn’t care about perfection, just the genuine, real thing, even if it’s imperfect.

And when I say you will always be perfect to me, I mean this. I am all in for every aspect of you, from your bad and your worst to your ugly, to your most beautiful, skillful, and perfect angles of your soul.

But to retire into the life you dream of, you have to be a boss lady for a while, sometimes even a bad bitch. While you are an emotional person, I know it gets tiring sometimes.

But like I said today, dreams come with a price. The art of not being ready, but doing it anyway. To push through.

That’s why I am so inspired by you, Nokkhotro. You know, I used to often tell my friends that if I were born into a “Jomidar” family like Rabindranath, I would leave everything and just write all day and night, not for fame or fortune, but simply to satisfy my soul. Regardless of quality or audience, I would just write my soul out.

Nokkhotro, I cannot tell you enough how much I appreciate you, adore you, love you, and respect you.

I want you to stay just the way you are, you don’t need to change yourself. Maybe the world is cruel and thinks naivety is a weakness, but there are good people here as well who will cheer you up and save you, while others may try to chew you up.

Darkness and light go hand in hand, but humanity is not a perfect blend of black and white. There is so much grey and so many other colors in between.

So stay true to yourself. Whatever soul you are blessed with is rare. Choosing to be good, even when others are not, is a hard way to live, but as a human, that choice matters.

Happy birthday, Nokkhotro. Stay blessed, stay happy, stay genuine.

From your orbit.