Blurb:
Some nights, the moonlight is extraordinary. The entire room seems to float in soft, luminous light. I think to myself, it would be nice to wander alone under this moon. Then, I wrap myself tightly in a blanket, as if I have no connection to the tumultuous, overwhelming radiance outside.

Sometimes, it rains. The sound is like the monotonous rhythm of weeping.
I listen closely. The rustling of leaves from the jam tree mixes with the breeze. Together, it creates a haunting emptiness in my heart. In the infinite expanse of the void, I feel an overwhelming melancholy.

From the darkness beyond the window, my companions call out to me. Those I once had as companions, whose absence now drowns me in solitude.

Foreword:
After reading Somen Chanda's brilliant short story Idur (The Rat), I felt a deep urge to write stories about the lower-middle class. This led me to quickly write three separate stories titled Nondito Noroke (In Blissful Hell), Shonkhonil Karagar (The Blue Prison), and Monsu Bijon. However, due to my lack of self-confidence, these stories remained hidden for a long time. Eventually, thanks to the encouragement of Mr. Ahmed Sofa and my friend Rafique Kaiser, Nondito Noroke was published about six months ago. Now, Shonkhonil Karagar is being published.

Apart from being narrated in the first person and focusing on lower-middle-class life, these two stories have little in common. Even the names of characters remain almost the same in both books. This is partly because I couldn't think of new names and partly because I am immensely attached to these names. Like some people develop strange, irrational attachments to certain things, this is one of those.

Despite sincere efforts, some typographical errors remain. My only faint hope is that an inattentive reader may overlook these mistakes.

Humayun Ahmed
Boishakh, 1380 (Bengali Calendar)