Tanguar Haor : My Love, Her Way
I was getting lost inside her eyes again when she suddenly lit up and said, “This is the perfect time! We have to go this year!”
Confused, I halfheartedly asked, “Go where?”
“Come one, Saif! You know I always wanted to go to Tanguar Haor in the monsoon!”
“Oh, okay. What’s so special about the place?”
“Oh man, you’re a real Jon Snow, aren’t you? Everyone says it’s a magical experience this time of year.”
“I don’t know, it doesn’t sound that special …”
“Please, please, please, let’s just go!”
“Alright, alright, I’ll think about it.”
“Awesome! I’ve got a club meeting and I’m already late, I have to run! But please make this trip happen, man!”
And just like that, she got up and literally ran away. We had been hanging out by the cafeteria. We are the quintessential “best friend” pair that has become a bit too commonplace on university campuses these days. And as the cliché goes, I am hopelessly in love with her. She is too busy to figure that out, and that is probably just as well. I can never gather up the courage to actually tell her about my feelings. She is, hands down, the most energetic person I know. She sings, she dances, she volunteers, she runs a handful of clubs and societies on the campus. I guess most people are intrigued by her. I was blessed with the random stroke of luck of sitting beside her on the first day of class, and we have been friends ever since. It did not take long for me to fall for her, and now nearly three years have passed that I have been in love with her.
So now she wanted to go on a trip with me. It even sounded like it could be a pretty romantic place. Was this a good idea? All I knew was, I could not really say no to her. I started putting together a plan.
I called her eleven times before she finally picked up.
“Sara! Where are you? We were supposed to meet here at the bus stop half an hour ago!”
“Dude, relax! I’m on my way. Had to deal with a little crisis for the debating club.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I had been dreading that she was going to cancel at the last moment. This trip to Sunamganj, visiting the legendary Haor, suddenly felt way too real. It was going to be just me and her out there. I was getting apprehensive. Then suddenly, she showed up, we got on the bus, and we were on our way.
The whole way she just talked and talked. I listened carefully just like I always used to do. I reacted at all the right moments, asked all the rights questions, made all the right reassurances. She was always like this, dealing with a million things all at once, managing dozens of people and things, and I guess I was the one she could talk to about all of it. I loved watching her talk. She was always so animated, and she ran through the full spectrum of emotions so easily. One moment she was angry about something, the very next she would burst out laughing, again the next moment she would get sad about something else. Other people might have found it exhausting, but I had always liked her dynamism, her volatility.
We got to the haor, changing modes of transport a couple of times. I had thought it might have been taxing, but I had never felt more energetic before. There was a cool breeze, the countryside was nice to look at, and I was with the girl I loved. If only I could tell her. It was, absolutely coincidentally, my birthday the next day. I had almost forgotten about it when she reminded me.
“It’s probably part of your plan to make me drag your birthday present all the way here, you evil bastard.”
“Oh yeah, it is my birthday tomorrow! I promise, it totally slipped my mind! How the hell did you manage to remember?”
“I know you better than you give me credit for, you idiot.”
*
Apparently, the real draw of the haor was renting a boat and spending the night on it. People had waxed lyrical about seeing the moon reflected on the sparkling waters on the handful of travel blogs I had read. I had not really bought in to the hype about the place. But when we finally got there, rented our boat, and waded out into the haor, I realized this place was not overhyped at all. Far away, huge green mountain ranges loomed. The water was crystal clear, birds were flying over our heads, and I had never seen the sky so beautiful.
Sara punched me in the arm and said, “See? I told you! This place is crazy beautiful! I’m just glad you listened to me for once and made this trip happen!”
“You were right! I think I haven’t seen a more beautiful place in my whole life!”
We were almost screaming with delight. The afternoon was fading away quietly. All we could do was just admire the sheer grandiosity of the scenery. Drifting along on that tiny boat, surrounded by the magnificent water, I could not help but feel there was something special going on. As the evening slowly unraveled, our conversation gradually quieted down. Just me, Sara, and the boatman on that tiny boat, I felt like I had stepped into some enchanted little part of the boat. We were nothing more than a minuscule dot on this enormous body of water. It felt as if nature had completely enveloped us, transported us into an alternate reality.
And then the moon came up. She looked different in the moonlight, wrapped in an unknowable mystery. And suddenly I realized that I would tell her. Right there, right then. I loved her with all my being, and it had never been clearer to me. I knew all of it could go wrong, I had thought about all that for far too long. I made up my mind.
“Sara?”
“Hmm?”
“I need to tell you something.”
“What? Don’t tell me you’re spooked.”
“No, this is serious.”
She turned to look directly at me. I stared right into those beautiful eyes. There could never be a more perfect moment …
And then I realized I could not do it. I could not bring myself to say those clichéd words people could say so easily.
“I …”
“What? Saif, is something wrong? Tell me!”
“I guess …”
“What? Come on! What’s wrong?”
“I think … I think I wanted to tell you I love you. That I wanted to be with you. Someday marry you, share our lives …”
She was looking at me in a very strange way.
“But I know you’re not that sort of girl. I know you don’t want to live that conventional life. So I’m not going to tell you those things. I’m not going to try to tie you down to that life. I just want to tell you, Sara, promise me you’ll come here with me sometimes. In the middle of all this water, under this incredible sky, let’s just … let’s just be ourselves … together. I just want a few more perfect moments just like this one. With you.”
And just at that moment, the rain started falling, blurring the sky and the water. The sound of the rain falling on the water washed away all other sounds.
I looked at her, both of us getting drenched in the rain, hearts beating fast because of the words that had been said. She opened her mouth and said something.
Stranded on that enormous Haor, rocking on that tiny boat, I could not hear what she said.
I looked at her. I saw nothing. Was she smiling? I don’t know. It was water everywhere!
