We cursed him enough for those endless mathematical problems , those absurd "a train leaves station A..." questions that seemed to have no end. And as we moved to higher classes, the questions only became more complex. Somehow, a student who usually hovered around 35-60 marks has now found herself, years later, solving a very different kind of equation of psycholocal mapping.

Yesterday, I caught myself mapping my own thoughts, emotions, wishes, expectations, and efforts into equation -almost like an old K.C. Nag problem.

Who knew that the human mind also follows its own mathematics?

Perhaps every wish has a distance to travel.

Every expectation has a cost.

Every dream demands an investment.

And every effort has its own return.

130 kilometres :245 days: 14 hours.

Sometimes the numbers aren't measuring a journey on a map. They're measuring the distance between what we wished and how we wanted to be valued.

The beautiful part is this when the destination is something your heart truly wants, even the longest equation doesn't feel impossible.

May be life has always been mathematics.

Only now, the variables are hope, courage, patience, and perseverance.

And perhaps the highest ROI we'll ever earn doesn't come from money; it comes from not giving up on ourselves.

It feels poetic , the mathematics we once feared in school eventually became the language through which we understand our own lives. Some equations are solved with a pencil. The most meaningful ones are solved with time, faith, and quiet persistence.

I have always considered myself a quiet, solitary person. Beyond the essential interactions at work, my social circle is incredibly small. I maintain contact with just a handful of school and hostel friends, catching up perhaps once a month. My digital life reflects this isolation; out of the 200 people on my Instagram feed, I only truly know about twenty. The rest are just silent faces in a digital crowd.

Because I guard my privacy so closely, I keep my active status turned off. Yet recently, a message from an unexpected source breached that quiet wall of distance by raising a query.

It was a school acquaintance , someone I barely speak to, maybe once every six months for a brief exchange of pleasantries. He asked why I had hidden my online status. Surprised, I replied "Why do you ask? Did something happen?"

His response caught me completely off guard: “No, nothing happened. Seeing your green light on just made me feel like you were connected to the world all us frkm a distance. Even if we aren't close friends, that light felt reassuring the presence”
Hmm. I wanted to tell this to someone. What he shared.

The Psychology of a Digital Light

It made me realize how much psychological weight a simple green dot carries in our modern lives.
To me, turning it off was just a practical choice to avoid unwanted attention. But to someone else, that tiny glowing light was a silent beacon of comfort of assurance of my presence.
A reminder that a familiar soul was awake and present in the digital void. I simply replied that I prefer to keep it off intentionally, and he accepted it with a quiet, "Okay."

This brief interaction left me thinking deeply about the strange, unpredictable geometry of human relationships.

A Surprising Reality is
Sometimes, the people we hold closest and value the most are the ones who take us for granted. Meanwhile, we might unknowingly add immense value to the lives of people we barely notice, serving as a quiet anchor for them from a far.

Human equations rarely make perfect sense. It is a surprising, beautiful, and sometimes bewildering world where a total stranger or a distant acquaintance can find comfort in your silent presence, even when you think you are completely invisible.hmm.

We , Bengalis have always had a strange, beautiful way of falling in love.
Not through calculated compatibility charts, dating apps, situationships, or perfectly curated conversations  but through quiet emotions that slowly take root without permission.
“Prem e pora” is never a strategic decision.
It is organic. Almost accidental.
A glance during a rainy afternoon, sharing books, endless conversations without purpose, waiting for one letter, one phone call, one small sign of care -  this is how love quietly entered Bengali hearts.
There was never urgency to define the relationship. No checklist of convenience. No fear of “wasting time.” Love was never treated like a market of options.
It was surrender.
Modern dating often teaches people to protect themselves first to calculate compatibility, emotional return, future practicality, lifestyle matching. But Bengali love, in its purest form, was never built on convenience.
It was built on emotional courage.
Two imperfect people slowly allowing themselves to belong to each other.
That is why Bengali “prem” feels deeper than attraction. It carries softness, poetry, patience, longing, sacrifice, and an almost spiritual intimacy. Sometimes irrational, sometimes painful - yet profoundly human.
Most of my friends lived their lives through this “prem e pora” philosophy -with their first love, or maybe their second, but with depth, loyalty, and emotional truth.
In Bengali culture, love was never just about possession.
It was about mutual surrender.

Not
“What can I get from you?”
But
“How deeply can I feel you?”
Maybe that is why old Bengali love stories still stay alive in our hearts. Because they remind us of a time when love was not optimized -it was experienced.
Today, relationships often begin with months of “ice-breaking,” then long periods of dating, endless evaluation, convenience-checking, and emotional negotiations before deciding whether someone is “worth it.”
But love cannot survive forever inside calculations.
If someone does not make you feel alive…
If sitting silently beside them, with just two fingers touching, cannot bring peace.
If you do not feel “Whatever comes, we will face it together"
then perhaps the relationship has everything except love.
Because when one person keeps calculating convenience while the other keeps crossing emotional distance, eventually the second person becomes tired of trying.
And if it is truly “prem e pora” ar "prem kora"
then maybe you do not need perfect certainty.
Maybe you just hold hands…
and start walking together.

They are waiting and being kept waiting... endlessly.

This is not just a word in Indian ethnic value based societal set up.

It is a power shift. It symbolizes that worth will be granted to her only by a man and, by extension, by society as a whole.

Shakuntala was told to wait.

Sita was told to wait.

Draupadi was told to wait.

In the era of polygamous marriage, Kulin Brahmins used to have 40 to 100 wives. The fate of those wives was simply to wait; perhaps one day a year he would come, and they were expected to surrender to him on that day.

Even today, north india has a large pool of 'abandoned' or 'waiting' wives, longing for their husbands to take them 'saat samundar paar' (across the seven seas).

Why can’t Indian women decide or initiate anything in their personal relationships? Why are they treated as secondary objects regarding marriage and its decisions?

Let’s look at every aspect:

The Biological Waiting ( Act of God or Science)

She waits for her ovulation cycle once a month. (Act of Science)

Science dictates this, she cannot force or change it.

The Social Selection - She waits to be chosen based on her qualities and the desires of a man and his family. She is tested thoroughly; she is not loved freely, nor is she loved simply for her soul.

The Initiative and Stigma

Socially, she is expected to wait for the man to initiate love or intimacy. If she initiates, she is branded as having 'bad character.' If she chooses what she wants, she is judged.

The Will of Men- She must wait until the man is ready to 'take her home.' This is called marriage.

It cannot happen without his will, nor can it happen without her father’s consent.

The Futility of Proposal- She cannot easily propose to a man because, ultimately, if the man is not ready or keen to take her into his home, her love and her wait become meaningless.

The power to direct a relationship in our value system lies with the man. It is never equal.

In the end, a woman has to wait. She goes to his house and her emotional needs are often overlooked. 'Wait,' 'Patience,' and 'Adjust' are the three things women are taught from childhood; they are the words most heard. She waits to be loved, waits to conceive, waits to give birth, and waits to feed. It is an endless cycle.

Men are free from this specific wait. They face different pressures—to arrange and provide—but they do not wait. They are conditioned to take action based on their own will. In intimacy, the man holds the agency. He does not have to leave his home; everything is within his own setup. Consequently, the role of 'provider' is dumped on him. Men who cannot keep pace with this pressure feel societal weight in different forms.

They don’t wait. So the equation is- either the man is a provider and holds the power to make her wait, or we shift the power to her—to choose, to lead, and to take him with her or or on mutual ground.

Even in urban India, the legal setup is not equal regarding prenuptial agreements and property rights. So, we wait to be equal.

Wait, my dear Shakti... just wait and observe.

Power of the Wait or Make Awaited.

The 'Provider' vs. 'Receiver' Paradox is the trade-off for male agency is the 'provider' burden.

In India, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey the female labor force participation rate has historically been low though rising recently to around 37% in last few years.

When women are not economically independent, 'waiting' becomes a survival strategy rather than a choice. Even if they earn , they have to wait to be chosen by him or accepted by him.

So the societal baggae of the word 'Wait' makes me feel very disrespected as a woman as an existence. Its never equal.

Why cant it be 'Lets build'. Let's take forward and grow and lets be in action to cover the time and space dimension .

Why it's just a hand of instruction ' Wait' just for her.

The Crossed Paths

Partha had been alone for a long time. He craved to be loved, to be looked forward to, and to be accepted exactly as he was. One evening, on his way home, he found a lost kitten who was also searching for love. He thought, “Why not take her home?”

The house soon filled with affection, care, and attachment. The kitten, Tukri, was overjoyed; she surrendered herself completely and always clung to Partha. She loved everything, even “complaining” to Partha when he was late, when he slept too long, or when he wasn’t petting her and letting her know, “Tukri, you matter to me always.”

She wanted to know more: What do you do, Partha, when you stay quiet? Where do you go when you leave me alone? Do you miss me? Do you value me the way I value you? Thousands of questions filled the cat’s mind. No human can truly feel those small, “silly” affections. Tukri’s world revolved entirely around her survival and Partha.

After five months, Tukri had grown. For her, “home” was the sound of Partha’s voice and the beat of Partha’s heart; she saw herself as a queen.

The Divide

Lately, Partha had grown busy with his new piano and karaoke machine. He noticed that Tukri loved to hear the music, but Partha had his own life—family, friends, and work. He felt he couldn’t always be there for her, and he began to see Tukri’s need for attention as “immature.”

That Day

One day, Partha came home very late. Tukri was hungry—very hungry—and had been missing him badly. But she is a cat; how could she tell him? In her desperation, she scratched Partha’s hand. In her own way, she was asking: “Why am I not part of your life? Why am I kept on the sidelines even after giving you my all?”

Partha shouted, “Why are you behaving so weirdly? This is why I never keep pets! I fed you and gave you a place in my home, and this is how you return the favour?”

Tukri was silent; her heart cried: I also loved you. I waited for you. I stood by you without asking for anything but your care. Partha did not hear her loud cry. To him, she was just a kitten in his “side life.” Whatever he was offering, should have been enough for her. while Tukri believed she was the queen of his home. Heartbroken, Tukri tried to explain, but because her voice was different, Partha threw her out of the window.

“This is your rightful place,” he said. “You are weird. Get back.” His ego would not allow him to accept that he was abandoning her simply because she didn’t fit his convenience, while she was totally present for him.

The Aftermath

Even as a human, Partha’s instinct was to be defensive and discard her. Without asking her, he decided: “Tukri, I want to step back. I am not yet attached to you. My life does not mandatorily include you.” Tukri was small and simple—just a cat—but she felt the weight of rejection. She realized then that humans can reject anything at any time.

She had remained loyal, never distracted by the neighborhood’s offerings of fish, happy with whatever food Partha chose to give her. But alas, honi ko kaun taal sakta hain (who can avoid destiny)? If love and loyalty took precedence in human life, we would never cut down a tree. We would never abandon the Tukris of the world. We, the Parthas, choose to leave the Tukris at our own convenience and then blame others why do they left us.

Tukri waited, and then she gave up on life. She starved for five days. When Partha eventually saw her body, he sighed, “If only Tukri hadn’t behaved so weirdly, I wouldn’t have thrown her out. He moves on, keeping her body behind”

A Divine Lesson

We want love without attachment. God smiles and says that as long as the Tukris are alive, unconditional love will live on. If you have a Tukri at home or in your mind, keep it safe. The world will always choose the “easy” path—the one without confrontation or commitment. Humans will often exclude their Tukris while still expecting love without the need for validation. Meanwhile, Tukri will keep waiting at that window, searching for a love that has no fear of abandonment—a love that will never let her go. Animals are innocent; they bond and attach without reservation. Unlike us humans—who are “intelligent” and “smart”—we have a ‘Tola-patra’ to measure how much to bond after three days, two months, or six years. We allow ourselves to step back at any moment without ever asking the other soul- ‘Tukri, do you want to go away?’