Nazrul’s Wedding Night Letter to His Wife After 16 Years. Nazrul left his wife behind on his wedding night, what he wrote in a letter after 16 years. On June 18, 1921, national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam married Syeda Khatun alias Nargis of Daulatpur, Comilla. Nargis’s family had given Nazrul a condition that he would stay with his son-in-law after marriage. Hearing this condition, Nazrul left his wife behind on his wedding night. Nargis wrote several times in between, but the poet did not communicate with her. However, after 16 long years of marriage, Nazrul sent a letter to Nargis. This was his first and last letter to Nargis.
Letter written by Kazi Nazrul to Nargis is reproduced in full
- 106 Upper Chitpur Road
- “Gramophone Rehearsal Room”
- Kolkata, 01/07/1937
- Kalyaniyyasu,
I received your letter that day on the damp, wet morning of the new monsoon. The rain was pouring down in a turbulent stream in the sky of Megh Medur that day. You may also remember that fifteen years ago, a flood came down in a similar stream My inner self knows what a deep wound, what an immense pain, is in my heart for you! But I myself have been burned by the fire of that pain, and I never wanted to burn you with it. If you had not quenched this fire, I would not have been able to play the ‘Agniveena’. I would not have been able to rise with the wonder of a comet.
The form of your goodness that I first saw in my youth, the form to which I first gave the hand of love in my life, that form remains in my chest like the Parijat-mandar of heaven, forever unfading. That fire in the heart could not touch that flower garden outside.
Don’t forget that I am a poet, even when I strike, I strike with flowers. The pursuit of the ugly and the ugly is not mine. My strike is not as cruel as the strike of a coward by a barbarian. My inner self knows (I don’t know whether you know or have heard) that today I have no accusation, no complaint, no claim against you.
I don’t know what your current form is. I know your youthful image, which I wanted to establish on the altar of my heart like a goddess with infinite love and infinite respect. You didn’t accept that altar that day. Like the stone goddess, you chose the altar of pain… My worship and aarti continue there throughout my life. Today, you are a lie to me, a failure; that’s why I don’t want to have you. I don’t know, maybe I will be deprived of that form, I will feel more pain, that’s why I keep denying you.
See you? No, it’s because of this dust. The flower of love becomes pale, burnt, and miserable under this dust. If you really love me, want me, you will find me there. Laila did not get Majnu, Shiri did not get Farhad, yet no one has found anyone’s beloved like them. Suicide is a great sin, although this is a very old saying, love is true. The soul is indestructible, no one can kill the soul. If you have been touched by the golden stick of love, then who else is as lucky as you? With the touch of its magic, everything in you will become radiant with light.
Going from one house to another with sorrow does not end that sorrow. If a person wishes, he can make mistakes bloom in the form of flowers through sadhana and penance. If you have made any mistake in life, you have to correct it in this life; only then will you find happiness and liberation; only then will all sorrow end. Try to improve yourself, the Self will help you. I am living in this world, yet I have gone beyond the barriers of this world to a higher being. When I go there, all the imperfections of the world, all the sins are forgiven, and you can see the most beautiful image with beautiful eyes.…
Suddenly I remembered fifteen years ago. You had a fever, after much sadhana, I was able to touch your white forehead with two thirsty hands; I wish I could feel the touch of your hot forehead even today. What did you see? There were tears in my eyes, a yearning to serve in my hands, a heartfelt plea for your recovery at the feet of the Lord. It seems like yesterday. The memories that time could not erase. What a fierce dissatisfaction, what an uncontrollable tide of love came that day. I could not sleep all day and night.
Today, I am walking in the ebb and flow of life at the end of the sunset, you have no power to turn me from that path. Do not try to do so again. Let this be my first and last letter to you. Wherever I am, believe that my inexhaustible blessings will surround you. May you be happy and find peace, this is my prayer. As bad as you believe me to be, I am not as bad, this is my last apology.
Always well-wisher Nazrul Islam