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Poetry Evening
Shakti Chattapadhayay
(Translated by Khademul Islam)
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Editor Zafar Sobhan Editor Arts & Letters Khademul Islam Assistant Editor Pushpita Alam Artist Shazzad H Khan
he river’s song is slow in the evening After many days Higgledy-piggledy rise the Sandbanks Blue ink from the jungle Streams into the river In the evening Slow seems the river’s song. The river was there at noon, there in the morning Its waters streaming swift Now under the evening’s foggy blanket In creeps languor A spectral boat floats Who are they who Walk along the moon’s Embankment? They are those who Guard the boat. n
Sestina
Nausheen Eusuf
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t dusk, conspiring rain drops whisper outside the window. What did they know? In the sterile little cabin, the mother lies back in bed, inert. The child pretends to read, to please her aunts. From a distance, Azrail keeps watch. The child also keeps careful watch. To her secret legion she whispers careful orders. Unaware, the aunts smile at her pleasantly. They know but won’t tell her. She’s just a child, they say. Poor child. Poor mother! The spring rain reminds the mother of jasmine soon to bloom. She watches wistfully. How she loved the rain as a child! She remembers how she’d whisper her secrets to the rain. The rain knew her better than her sisters, the aunts.
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The nights are still cold, and the aunts unfold a blanket for the mother. Azrail’s cold gaze moves closer. He knows she is powerless. She feels him watching and cringes. Leaning over, he whispers in her ear, unheard, except by the child.
The lift starts with a lurch. She doesn’t know, they shake their heads, she’s just a child. The lift smells of disinfectant. They watch the floors change. One of the aunts turns to the other. When is her mother going to tell her? she asks in a whisper.
Thunder roars, frightening the child. Gathering up their shawls, the aunts leave for the day. The child whispers inaudibly towards her mother. Legions appear, ready to keep watch. Can they help? She does not know.
But secretly, the child already knows what the aunts do not. Entranced, she whispers to her mother magic words, and keeps watch. n
Nausheen Eusuf is a Bangladeshi poet. This poem is taken from her chapbook What Remains, reviewed in this issue.
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LETTER FROM LONDON Ahsan Akbar
Meeting with Tariq Ali: “What about the Maoists in 1971?”
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hen I wrote to Tariq Ali, to introduce Bengal Lights and to invite him to the 2013 Dhaka edition of the Hay Festival, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I came to know of Tariq Ali during my A-level days, when teen angst in Nottingham drove me to bookstores. Fresh from Bangladesh, I struggled to navigate my way through the colourful bookshelves of Britain: So many names, too many bestsellers, staff recommendations, must-reads, must-buys…Unsettled, I picked names I knew about (Rushdie, thanks to the fatwa), or could relate to: Kureishi, Chaudhuri, Ghosh. Then there was Tariq Ali, prominent on the nonfiction shelf. Soon, I noticed the name recurring in British journals and newspapers as well as on television channels. Now an éminence grise of the international left, his numerous books and articles – coming at an astonishing rate for a 69-year-old – is evidence that the ‘Street Fighting Man’ of The Rolling Stones song is very much alive, angry and kicking! Over the phone, Tariq has a clear, baritone voice, with a warmth that put me at ease. A few days later, I was ringing the doorbell of his front door. I had been invited over for tea. He answered the door of his neogothic house, tucked away on a private road in the leafy, posh North London suburb of Highgate. He looked relaxed dressed in casual gear: polo shirt and jeans with a pair of elegant sandals, while I’m sweating in my linen jacket and brown loafers. Must be the nerves. He insists I not take my shoes off – a reflex habit from my Kuala Lumpur days. We go through to the lounge exchanging small talk and settle by a large wooden reading table, on top of which are copies of New Left Review (edited by Susan Watkins, his partner of many years), a large lamp and books. He pops to the kitchen to get me a drink. Interesting paintings on the walls, and as expected, an impressive book collection. Tariq looked forward to being in Dhaka in November. “For us growing up in Lahore, Dhaka was our Paris. But I have not been back since independence for various reasons.” But he has been following Bangladesh closely – the military coups, the many emergencies, the prodigal rise of the garment industry, the national dependence on NGOs, and more recently, Shahbagh. “It is wonderful to see the youth rising to demand trial of the war criminals, and while they should be tried, due legal processes must be followed.” Putting the copy of Bengal Lights that I had given him on the table, he came back to Shahbagh: “What about the Maoists in 1971? Most of them supported the Pakistan Army back then, so the trials should not be limited to the Jamaatis.” He recalled his Aamtala speech to the students of Dhaka University in 1969, and lamented at not being able to find a single photo of that day, when he had called for East Pakistan’s separation from West Pakistan. He met Bangabandhu for breakfast and recalled that the latter had called him “too extreme” for openly suggesting independence. I told him someone in Dhaka must have a photo or two of the Aamtala event. “When I left Dhaka, hundreds of students came to say farewell with clenched fists and cries of ‘Lal salaam!’” I always wanted to thank him for introducing Saadat Hasan Manto to readers in the UK, and effectively, the West. “Thanda Gosht”, he murmurs almost to himself. He thinks that to date, a strong translation has not been done of Manto, and that he still remains largely underrated. A travesty, according to Tariq. I ask him about his film-making pursuits and he tells me Bandung, his own independent
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television company, is sadly no longer operational. He blasted Channel 4 for morphing into a trashy channel – Channel 4’s mission in Britain was originally conceived to provide, and did so for a decade, programmes for minorities as well as high-level arts content, but now is reduced to commercial TV-type docudramas and cooking shows. It is symptomatic to Tariq of the continuing decay of Britain, with its “…assault on education; the continuing privatisation of the NHS; the never-ending propaganda directed against benefit claimants; the youth unemployment levels (much higher in the North than in the South-eastern bubble); the vassal status in relation to the United States (how could the NSA-GCHQ links come as a surprise?); a supine state television network under the control of frightened men and women, scared of their own shadows; an utterly debased House of Lords packed with cronies of the most dubious variety.” (LRB, August 7, 2013). In the late ’90s, he was commissioned to do a 4-part series on four sub-continental assassinations: Bandaranaike, Mujib, Bhutto and Indira Gandhi. It didn’t happen because of funding issues. I wanted to know about Mujib’s episode – had he approached anyone in Bangladesh?
In the late ’90s, he was commissioned to do a 4-part series on four sub-continental assassinations: Bandaranaike, Mujib, Bhutto and Indira Gandhi. It didn’t happen because of funding issues. I wanted to know about Mujib’s episode – had he approached anyone in Bangladesh? “Well, when I told Rehman [Sobhan], he said the Bangladesh Ministry of Cultural Affairs should fund this, but then Hasina was in power and she probably got scared of me,” he laughed. Tariq Ali’s charm and self-confidence is rooted in his family. A feudal one, with deep roots in Punjab – his maternal grandfather was prime minister of Punjab, while his communist parents, though members of the establishment, dissented mightily with it. Oxford was another step in the radicalisation process, with the late ’60s street battles being his finishing school. Tariq talked about Edward Said, about how he missed him. And here, looking at my left wrist, I felt I should give a miss to my autoevolving questions. I had taken up enough of his time. We looked outside and it was a bright day. The living room is airy, with tons of natural light; through large double doors, it also accessed a sun deck, leading to a decent-sized garden at the back. When Tariq had offered a drink, I had wanted water; I assumed it would come from the tap, which I’m fine with. Only now I realise, with my last sip, that I had been given a pour from a bottle of mineral water. All very nice, but it prompted me to ask something banal at the end: What would he say if someone called him a ‘champagne socialist’? “Better make it an expensive champagne,” Tariq smiled. I laughed, and then stepped out on to a gravelled pathway. I bid farewell, hatless, doffing a ‘Lal salaam’ in my head. n
Ahsan Akbar’s book of poems, The Devil’s Thumbprint, is due in November 2013. Any reader having a copy of the Aamtala event should contact the literary editor of the Dhaka Tribune.
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Authenticity and Mahasweta Devi Waqar Ahmed
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Waqar Ahmed is currently nearing completion on a novel and a collection of short stories. He grew up in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
n my last column, I reviewed S a u d Alsanousi’s The Bamboo Stalk, the Arabic Bookerwinning novel that champions the cause of the transmigrant l a b o r e r . Mr. Alsanousi furnishes his novel with a Filipino protagonist after taking just one trip to the Philippines. For this column, I point my readers to a more well-grounded work—Imaginary Maps by the Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi (translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak)—a collection of three stories about the bonded tribal class of India. Ms. Devi has lived with tribals all over India. There is anger in her stories and, at times, didacticism. Where Mr. Alsanousi makes what are sometimes touristic observations about the new land he writes about, Ms. Devi writes in excruciating detail, which, for this subject matter, is essential. Constituting one-sixth of India’s population, the tribals have been betrayed by the system. Land and money are allotted to them each year by the government of India, but none of it reaches these indigenous people. Instead, upon borrowing money from businessmen, landlords and members of the religious class to pay for weddings and funerals, they become permanently bonded. Despite a lifetime of toil for the upper caste creditor, insurmountable interest on their principal loan continues to accrue to the grave. The three stories that make up Imaginary Maps typify tribal experience. The deforestation (i.e. rape) of Sal trees in a tribal area is the backdrop of the first story, ‘The Hunt.’ Tribals, also called forest dwellers, in this story have their timber looted by the many segments of the upper class. In the second story, ‘Douloti the Bountiful,’ the most heart-wrenching of the three, a prostitute embodies the practice of bond slavery. Her body is used throughout the story. On India’s Independence Day, she
finally collapses, bleeding onto an open-air map of India. The last piece, ‘Pterodactyl’ deals with a celibate journalist who, unable to enter into a relationship with the woman he desires, decides to tour remote tribal villages in Bihar and document incidents of violence, famine and corruption. But back to the issue of authenticity. Mahasweta Devi has fought for the tribals’ cause for almost fifty years, focusing her efforts on abolishing in practice (it is already illegal by writ of law) the bonded labor system, and trying to ensure that affirmative action funds from the government reach the tribals. The focus of her fiction is literary journalism rather than perfection of the short story form. Take for example, the following passage: “After the final agreement, the contractor gave six bottles of number one country liquor to the six elders… He has given Banwari a rupee per tree in secret. This too leaves him a wide margin for profit.” [8] Passages like the above speak to the systematic economic exploitation of the tribals. This inside knowledge from Ms. Devi educates and, yes, slows down the narrative, but she stays true to the art form with scenes like the following which takes place in the hospital: “There was an attached lavatory, there too he couldn’t go at first. They would make him shit and piss in a kind of shiny pot or pan that you would find in the house of Master or Moneylender. Who has heard anything stranger? To piss and shit in pots and pans? Pots and pans that he’ll never be able to eat off in his lifetime, to have to do his business in such costly things, this sorrow will remain in his mind.” [37] Colonialism and capitalism were thrust upon India by the British. Capitalism and its accompanying modernity continue to master the tribals. Ms. Devi contends that even simple implements such as the hospital pan work to enslave them. We find out in the third story that the situation is more structurally dire than we can imagine: “Pashupati Jonko, of the Ho tribe of Singhbhum, a native Ho-speaker, had said with humble amazement at the time of translating Birsa Munda’s life into the Ho language, there are no words for ‘exploitation’ or ‘deprivation’ in the Ho language. There was an explosion in Puran’s head that day.” [118] The tribals of India lack the very vocabulary to express opposition to the system that enslaves them. Ms. Devi’s Imaginary Maps supplies them with it. n
BOOK NOTES
pamphlets sold door to door, with its singularity being poems around a single theme – of 16 pages. The theme is a mother’s death, and the husband and the daughter – more girl than woman – left behind, coming to terms with memories, grief, loss and absence. It is this grief that circumscribes the poems’ diction, keeping it plain, an attractive quality. Sometimes the language strays into being ornamental, but not too often. Her mixing up of tercets with quatrains also is misplaced – no particular effect is gained. A sestina is a difficult beast. A fixed form, with six stanzas whose end words have to be repeated in a certain order, finishing with a three-line envoi. Those end words act both as glue and rubber band: The complex repetition of the same words imposes structure and lends emphasis, and the changes in the word order stretch the meaning and force it back. Nausheen’s ‘Sestina,’ as a back-of-the-book blurb points out, pays “an obvious homage” to Elizabeth Bishop’s one – a point underlined by the use of the same title. It is a fine effort by Nausheen, the end words ‘whisper,’ ‘know,’ ‘aunts,’ ‘watch’ – employing stressed one-syllable words – all working to build the claustrophobic atmosphere of a death watch, with very Bengali aunts hovering, of the whole severe unreal strain of it all. It is the sustained feeling – where technique plays its part – from first to last, that makes the poem work. The title poem is the last one, a question: What remains after the lowering into the grave: Why is it that what remains most vivid are the sunlit squares cast by the lattice of a verandah in a house now lost? n
Khademul Islam What Remains: Poems by Nausheen Eusuf; 2011: Longleaf Press; North Carolina, USA
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I smiled at the word ‘cabin’ in the sestina in this book of poems, and later in the poem ‘Evening,’ to mean a hospital room. Though it is Indian English I think only we in Bangladesh still use the word in that sense. ‘Cabin’ usually denotes a ship’s cabin. In the USA, it means a log cabin, or a cabin in the woods. But to see it in Nausheen’s work, a careful poet and a serious student of her craft, is to think that it slipped in either because she is a Bangladeshi whose instinctive use of English can at times override what she learnt at school, or that she deliberately chose that word. Either way it is charming. Not so, her use of the words ‘Azrail,’ ‘namaaz-e janaaza,’ ‘Fatiha’ and ‘kaal boishakhi,’ to evoke responses not available with their English counterparts. It is a book of poems – well, what they call a chapbook, something short, about 20 to 25 pages, which historically sprung from the age when
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Anti-travel
Sick of all those fantasy travel pieces, those licit confections of liquid sunsets and swaying palm trees? We are. Time to talk ‘bout real life. Time for stories about losing a leg or getting stomach-washed in a foreign city, getting ripped off by cabbie mafias, getting deep-fried by the hotel hair dryer. A punch up with a street vendor? A human finger in your food? Slipping and breaking your nose in an ancient temple with bells chiming in the east wind? The worse the better. Send us your worst travel/tour experiences. Mail it to editor.lit@dhakatribune. com.
My Colombo Con Man Stephen Vacht
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couple of years back I went on a work trip to Colombo. The fourth morning, I was free and decided to explore a bit. Outside the hotel was a cab rank, autorickshaws. I decided to walk instead. After I crossed the adjacent road, a small dark fellow in shiny shirt and trousers sidled up next to me. “Hello,” he said, a wide grin on his face. “Yes?” I replied. “I am the bartender at the hotel, sir,” he said. I did not remember this fellow being the bartender, but decided to play along. I was looking for a local market and wasn’t seeing any nearby. The fellow was busily trotting at my side. “What you looking for?” he asked. “A local market.” “Oh, I know one.” “Okay.” He turned and waved his hand. An autorickshaw appeared instantly on the side of the road. The driver was an Indian, a scrawny fellow. I got into the tight space and then, to my surprise, the Sri Lankan hopped in too. “Today is day off, sir,” he said, “I am going in the same direction. I will take you to the market.” “Okay.” In hindsight, the alarm bells should have rung right then. But my senses were lulled. My Sri Lankan work associates were warm and friendly persons. My deal looked like it was going through. I was in a happy mood. Also, I felt no physical threat – it was daylight, I am burly even by Australian standards, and these two guys looked like underfed shrimps to me. We kept going. I noticed the driver hadn’t turned on the meter, but I said nothing. My ‘bartender’ friend asked me a lot of questions – where was I from, what did I do, how long was I here – to which I merely hummed and hawed. Then my friend asked if I wanted to go to a jewellery shop, since Colombo was full of fine jewellery. I said no. But after five minutes the driver turned into a gated jewellery shop. I raised my voice and said, “I thought I said no jewellery shop.” I knew then this was a scam, but wanted to see what would happen. More tooling around. It was a pleasant ride, put-putting through treelined streets. Hard to visualise bombs going off here, killing and maiming. Then again a turn into a jewellery shop. This time I laid my hand on the driver’s shoulder, and gave a hard squeeze. His back winced, and he promptly pulled back on the road. The Sri Lankan looked alarmed, and kept giving my hands long, frightened looks. They knew I was playing with them now. We came to a traffic circle. I said that I wanted to walk. The autorickshaw came to a stop, and both of us got out. I saw the driver rubbing his shoulder. But they were after the money. “That way,” the Sri Lankan told me, pointing down a narrow road, “fine market.” “How much?” I asked, looking around, and seeing used bookshops
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along the pavement. “How much?” he asked the driver, who pretended to look at some meter on the ‘dashboard’ and said, “Six thousand rupees.” About forty-five dollars, I calculated quickly. “Tell him to fuck off,” I said pleasantly. “Sir?” “Tell him to fuck off.” He turned to the driver and they spoke rapidly to each other. Then he turned to me and said, “All right, for you I make it special. Five thousand.” By now, I saw that we had an audience of booksellers looking at us, enjoying the spectacle on a lazy morning. I reached out and caught him by the collar. “You scamming bastard,” I told him. The booksellers started to guffaw. “Sir, sir, sir…” he stuttered. It was then I noticed that his feet had almost cleared the ground. He was so light that I hadn’t even realised I had picked him up. I gently put him down, took out a 500-rupee note from my wallet and gave it to the driver, who took off at high speed without a backward glance. The Sri Lankan, meanwhile, straightened his collar, and tried to retrieve his dignity. “You watch out in the market,” he said to me. “Lot of thieves. Keep your phone and wallet safe. Many thieves…” Suddenly to me he looked hungry, as if he hadn’t had a good meal in days. He then scrambled into a side street and vanished. After browsing through the bookshops – I usually am on the lookout for first editions of Conan Doyle – and some idle ambling, I headed back to the Hilton in another autorickshaw. A light rain was falling when I alighted at the hotel gates. On a whim I walked past the line of autorickshaws outside, checking at the figures huddled inside from the rain. Sure enough, in the fifth one was my man. He saw me and with a very scared look jumped out from the other side and started to walk away very fast. I laughed and called out, “It’s okay. Come back, have a drink with me.”
He turned and looked at me. I must have looked slightly insane to him, in wet t-shirt and shorts, laughing, yet slowly he came back. By this time all the autorickshaw drivers had piled out of their cabs and gathered around us. “This guy,” I told them, “tried to cheat me this morning.” “Ohs” and “Ooohs” filled the air. One of them pointed across the street and said, “There’s a police station there. You take him there.” “No,” I told them, “it’s okay. I think he needs a drink.” With that, I turned and walked into the hotel. He followed me. We sat on one of the white sofas in the lounge bar, and I ordered two of their fine whisky sours. The waiter sniffed, and looked askance at the shiny shirt and pants, but didn’t actually say anything. “So what’s your name?” “Ariyadasa.” “I am Stephen.” With that, we shook hands. We sat there and drank, and later – still game – he tried one more con on me about a sick mother, but this time I just smiled at him, so he gave up and told me stories about Sri Lanka. I listened to them all, especially about the war… but about that perhaps more at a later time. Right now, I need a whisky sour! Cheers, mate!
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Stephen Vacht is based in Hong Kong and travels mainly in Southeast Asia on work.
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Letter from America Mahmud Rahman
LIBRARY LOVE
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Mahmud Rahman is the author of Killing the Water and the translated novel Black Ice. Both were published by Penguin India.
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work at a college. One morning talking books with a friend, I realize that although I read a lot of crime fiction – set everywhere from Laos to Iceland – I have yet to read Dashiell Hammett, the master of American noir. At lunch, I stop by the library and pick up Hammett’s Complete Novels. Within a week I devour three, including The Maltese Falcon. When the next reading whim arrives, satisfying it might be just as simple. I appreciate my access to libraries. It’s easy to take for granted. Life reminds otherwise. When I first came here, back in 1972, to begin college in Tulsa, Oklahoma, what thrilled me most was discovering the university library. I couldn’t afford to purchase books, but who needed to buy when there was a building filled with treasure a few blocks away? I went there for news – updates from Bangladesh were hard to come by and I eagerly waited for months-old periodicals from Asia. Homeward I returned with books. Until then, what had been my experience with libraries? At St. Joseph’s school, we were lucky to have one, even if the books were discards donated by the public library in Akron, Ohio. The selection was limited, but for a teenager it was a delight to read The Hardy Boys or Tom Swift series. Science and mystery and adventure. There were also books about making things, enchanting the tinkerer in me. Once I developed traveling legs – via bicycle wheels – I could reach the British Council and the U.S. Information Service. They carried a wider selection, including contemporary titles. Many books I read for pleasure. Others, and not just library acquisitions, fed into shaping my approach to the world. In our teens, as we rush towards adulthood, we often read not just for enjoyment but also to develop philosophies on life. For me, that meant sampling Bertrand Russell’s skepticism, Tagore’s educational thinking, and doses of leftwing ideas from British socialism and the American New Left. After the war, feeling far from home in Oklahoma, and not quite sure how to relate to the quietude around me, the library became my refuge. Its open stacks allowed me to traipse from history to philosophy to biography. In the year after the war, I don’t remember reading much fiction. In those ‘tough’ times, somewhere in my mind I probably thought fiction was not relevant. The library led me towards a different America. Emma Goldman, the early 20th century anarchist, introduced me to the labor movement. From Peter Matthiessen I learned of the California farm workers’ movement.
Though still a skeptic, I read theology; I was trying to make sense of a world turned over by the cruelty of war. I looked up the teachings of the Buddha; I found my way to Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton, Catholics of a kind I never encountered at St. Joseph’s. More than others, the French existentialists drew me in. I don’t know how well I understood their complicated writings – I learned to accept that the world could be brutally random in distributing tragedy but a person still had to find his or her way to a life of commitment. There would be other libraries and books in later years, but in the early 90s, my reading shifted back to fiction. Through the world of makebelieve, I gained insight into how humans think, feel, and live around the globe. In hindsight I see that it prepared me to begin writing fiction myself. On a train returning to Detroit from Chicago, I sat next to a black literature student who threw out names of writers I had never heard of: Buchi Emecheta, Maryse Condé, Jamaica Kincaid. Women from Africa and the Caribbean. I made a date with the Detroit Public Library which had an extensive global collection. One of the joys of open stacks is what you discover next to what you might be looking for. Searching for Amitav Ghosh, I discovered Zulfikar Ghose, who was born in Sialkot but whose novels are set in Latin America. Fast forward to 2006, when I moved to Dhaka for several years. Some books I brought with me, others I acquired at Nilkhet, Aziz Market, or Boi Mela. I explored local libraries. Some neighborhoods had shops lending popular fiction. A mobile library from Bishwo Shahitto Kendro sometimes stopped near my building. The Central Public Library’s collections were sadly dated. The British Council had vastly reduced the bookshelves I remembered from my teens. The American Center was behind too many walls. One Sunday morning, I opened Prothom Alo’s “Dhakae Thaki” back page. I was intrigued to learn that the Dhaka City Corporation had a network of 23 neighborhood libraries. As I read the article by Millat Hossain and Obaidur Rahman Masum, I wanted to cry. When they went looking for these libraries, they discovered that eighteen didn’t exist or were closed or ‘provisioned’ for other purposes. In two cases, the buildings carried foundation stones about libraries inaugurated by the Mayor but no libraries had in fact been built. Five were occupied by the RAB or the army. Only five were operational – barely. Two had a smattering of books and newspapers, the others had one or the other. In one instance, books were caged in locked cabinets.
One Sunday morning, I opened Prothom Alo’s “Dhakae Thaki” back page. I was intrigued to learn that the Dhaka City Corporation had a network of 23 neighborhood libraries. As I read the article by Millat Hossain and Obaidur Rahman Masum, I wanted to cry. I do not expect libraries in a developing country like Bangladesh to be stocked like even the budget-strapped public libraries in the U.S. But what does it say about a capital city that allocates budgets for libraries but in fact only installs signboards? What does this say about Bangladesh as a modern state? We sing the glories of Rabindranath and Nazrul, we hold a book fair frequented by multitudes, we have writers who, despite little reward, persist in writing prose and poetry. Yet we cannot make books accessible to those who cannot afford private collections. Libraries are not places where visitors magically become lovers of literature, filled with wisdom. What they can do is ensure that those who enter will find material to read. Some will read for pleasure, others will read to figure out who they are or seek practical knowledge. A few may become writers. Those without money should be able to gain access to books – a society that wants to be democratic must provide this. Otherwise, put the big words away and just tell the truth: Books are meant for the elite few. I am fortunate that throughout my life there have been libraries around me, helping me become who I am. I wish it were true for everyone. n
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LITERARY NOTES Farrukh Dhondy
A FAUST FOR BANGLADESH
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aving worked with British-Bangladeshi theatre director Mukul Ahmed on a successful adaptation of Devdas, a play which I set in rural Bangladesh and in ‘70s London, I was approached by him to dream up a Bangladeshi version of Goethe’s Faust. I hadn’t read this Faust for decades, since I was at university, but tackled it again. It’s a tedious masterpiece and adapting its two parts in their entirety would probably take up the better part of seventeen hours on stage, and that’s certainly not what Mukul wanted. The commission entailed the use of traditional South Asian dramatic forms, a sort of Jatra with songs and a narrator, both of which need to find their function in the production as dictated by the substance and flow of the play. The problem of adaptation – calling it ‘art’ would presume conceit – is to find the most significant analogy between one era and another, one character and his or her adapted counterpart, and to see the parallels between the original dramatic situations and the ones to be created. In the adaptation of Devdas, the protagonist became a student who abandoned his childhood girlfriend because of the pressures of class and through being deceived about her fidelity to him – that bit borrowed from the disappointments of Shakespearean heroes such as Othello and not strictly from Sharatchandra’s novel or its various filmic renditions. Then again, the dancing girl or whore of the original becomes the pop singer of ‘70s swinging London, when sexual mores are changing and offer, through the plot, the dilemmas of love, promiscuity, addiction, betrayal, memory and nostalgia. My plot entailed Devdas discovering at a climactic moment that he had been lied to and that his childhood sweetheart was not pregnant by another man and did not intend to entrap him into eloping with her as a screen for her shame. The deception culminated in Dev breaking his lovers’ tryst to elope and in what in rehearsals we called the Casablanca moment when Paro, the young lover, waits for Dev on a railway platform and he never comes. In adaptations one relies on the fact that human drama uses the same emotional dilemmas from age to age and from culture to culture. Even so, societies which don’t practice monogamy and where, let us say, all women are the common spouses of the tribe, would probably find it difficult to make drama out of Romeo and Juliet. In societies where usury was unknown and no one borrowed money or signed collateral agreements, the interaction between Shylock and Antonio and his pound of flesh would make no sense at all. It’s my contention that there are distinct parallels between Elizabethan society as Shakespeare found it and the present state of the Indian subcontinent. It was the dawn of capitalism in both. Shakespeare’s Europe saw the manufacture of ships but capital as such existed as merchant’s capital as represented by Antonio and banker’s capital as represented by Shylock. They came into dramatic conflict as do our village moneylenders and landed-but-cash-strapped farmers who need money for a daughter’s wedding. As the founders of communistic philosophy observed, nascent capitalism alters or traduces traditional values. King Lear’s two daughters break faith with the father who endows them with his worldly goods. The third daughter is defiant and conceitedly thinks that her perception of truth and nature are more important than the allegiance and lip-service, albeit hypocritical which she owes her father. Can’t we think of a hundred family disputes between generations in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or any developing society which echo these dramas and dilemmas?
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ARTS & LETTERS
My first Shakespearean adaptation for the stage was in fact a take on King Lear set in Bollywood in which a doyen of the industry thinks he wants to retire and tacitly demands praise from his daughters to whom he will endow his various studios and assets. The two elder daughters inherit his wealth and the youngest, educated in England’s film school, expresses contempt for the Bollywood dream-factory which has, in her view, destroyed the revolutionary potential of the Indian masses. The King Lear plot follows. For Shakespeare’s storm I substituted India’s rural poverty. It seemed to work as a play but I couldn’t get myself to follow WS’s tragic ending and added a ‘post-modern’ twist – even without knowing what post-modern means. And so to Faust in which a human of a normally good disposition, and one whose father has benefitted the general population, makes a philosophical deal with the devil. He sells his soul for unattainable transcendental ‘knowledge’ or so it said in the translation I read though it made me think the German would have been even more vague or very down-to-earth specific. Much easier to imagine that Faust sells his soul in exchange for a lot of wealth, for power and for the possession of beauty. But then ease doesn’t make good drama. In contemplating the parallels, it occurred to me that in the disposition of Bangladesh as I know it through the newspapers, through friends and from two working visits to the country, two forces are prominently operative. One of them is the new capitalism, whose strength and influence are easily discernible in the vast urbanisation that has overtaken the country. The other is perhaps like the crickets in the field, not the largest but certainly the loudest creatures, forms of fundamentalist Islam. They are the perfect forces to inveigle a young man and give him illusions of wealth, power, conviction and purpose. As an Asian male in an Asian society, he doesn’t need the devil’s help to dominate women. It isn’t difficult to represent the former force and personalise the
Farrukh Dhondy’s acclaimed first novel was Bombay Duck. He lives in London.
In contemplating the parallels, it occurred to me that in the disposition of Bangladesh as I know it through the newspapers, through friends and from two working visits to the country, two forces are prominently operative. various guises and temptations of capitalism, but it was pointed out to me that representing the second through any personality living or dead or any stereotype would not only run the risk of reprisal against exposed actors but would not be dramatically persuasive. Would a modern Bangladeshi Faust fall for the doctrine of, say, a bin Laden? I think I found a solution and parallels for Faust’s temptations and conquests all the way. In both the Goethe and the Christopher Marlowe versions of the play, there is an ambiguity about what happens to Faust. There are alternative versions of each and Faust is either redeemed and goes to heaven through the intervention of The Saviour or he is carried off by devils to hell. In my version the dilemma and the ambivalence are, believe it or not, both maintained and resolved – Faust goes to America. n
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Serialized Story
Samira - part 4 The Interview Awrup Sanyal
The fourth installment of our serialized story. We hope to bring in other writers soon for future segments. – Editor
Awrup Sanyal is an ex-advertising professional and a fiction writer.
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hadab Sattar looked dapper in his matching fawn jacket and chinos, offset with a powder blue shirt, tan shoes and what looked like an IWC Chronographer on his wrist. His office looked flash: On the wall behind him was a degree from Columbia University; he sat at a Covet Desk by Shin Azumi; pop-art fused with traditional Bangladeshi folk-art skins limned the glass front of the door, and brightly-patterned local shotronji mats neoned the floor. I must give him this, he might be a slimeball bar none but he does have taste, Samira mused as she looked at Shadab swiveling in the chair with a hint of a smile skimming off his lips. The man had still not spoken a word other than nodding her into the chair when she had walked in about five minutes back. Those speechless five minutes stretched out miserably; it was upsetting, but she quickly realised that it was merely an interview maneuver. You want a crack in my veneer, Mr. Sattar, but you mistake me for my father. I didn’t get his goodness, I got my mother’s spunk. Like a masterful conductor Shadab Sattar gave a final twirl of the Mont Blanc between his finger and thumb, and looking straight into Samira’s eyes asked, “So what brings you to the backyard of the world to look for a job? America didn’t treat you too well, eh?”
Samira answered, “Actually, Mr. Sattar, with my grades it would not have been tough to get something in the US, but very few, with my capabilities, would dare to come back and make a start here. Not very different,” and here she let her eyes pointedly rove for a moment at the university paperwork on the wall before looking back at him, “from your own temperament I should say.” In response Shahdab ferreted out a B&H pack from his jacket pocket, took out a cigarette, tapped it on his thumbnail to settle the loosened tobacco in the shell, and stuck it between his lips. He was about to light up when Samira said, “If you don’t mind, Mr. Sattar ... ” He looked at her intently for a moment, as if deliberating whether to entertain her request. Then he took the cigarette out from his mouth and said, “But, of course.” Shadab Sattar looked at Samira with renewed interest and then stuck out his hand. Game to Ms. Murshid, ran the monologue in her head as she shook it. “You are welcome to Gameplan Advertising Ltd., Ms. Murshid. You start off next month as an Account Associate. My secretary, Ms. Shahin, will take you through the formalities.” “Account Associate?” Samira let it hang for impact.
“Well, that’s the starting block I’m ... ” “Afraid?” Shahdab nodded. “But I have made that start quite a while back, Mr. Sattar. I would request you to go through my previous work experience.” Shahdab Sattar frowned and looked at her expectantly. “I have,” he said finally. “So perhaps a revised offer?” Shadab Sattar leaned back in his chair. Recalculating things. He clearly had been taken unawares. Then he said, “Well, yes, I guess so, Ms. Murshid. I’m looking forward to you working for me.” “Well, I would certainly love to work with you Mr. Sattar if things go as expected. I have heard great things about you and your agency.” Shahdab Sattar didn’t say anything, merely smiled and nodded. Samira stood up. “Now if you will excuse me, I’ll have to cut through the traffic all the way to Lalmatia.” Samira headed for the door. “See you soon, Ms. Murshid. But do remember, we at this agency are strict about work hours and timings,” Shadab Sattar said as she turned for the door out of his glass bowl. “All right. I shall bear that in mind.” As she walked back through the modishly outfitted office, the monologue in her head called out, Game, Set and Match to Ms. Murshid. Standing outside the gleaming all-glass building of Gameplan Advertising on Gulshan Avenue the chaos of the street hit her like a blast, but she willingly surrendered; it was a good day already, the beginning of a new relationship with an old friend, Dhaka city. She plunged into its fury with her eyes wide open, its sights and sounds invading her as if by osmosis – a physical siege. A lungful of the acrid Dhaka air made her feel alive, intoxicated. There was a vivacity in the heat, dust and humidity that bombarded her. She wondered if she could walk the streets in suit-pants and jacket without being gawked at. Choosing her clothes in the morning, she had deliberately gone for the ‘Western look’ – modern, urban and ad agency hip, she had thought. Walking in through the doors and cruising through the agency’s main floor to Shahdab’s office she had noticed, though, that the women sitting in cubicles or walking around wore jeans and t-shirts or shalwar kameezes. Exactly two she had counted were in Western style suitpants. She had made a mental note for the future. Looking around now she found that no one was paying any attention to her; the city was caught in its own strangely rhythmic pandemonium. A traffic jam was forming ahead. It reminded her of the drive home from the airport after her father had picked her up, when they had been stuck in a long tailback. Beggars had waved stumps for limbs at her. “Middle income country,” he had snorted suddenly. “What?” she had asked. “Every pundit here talks about Bangladesh being a middle-income country soon.” Her father’s voice was derisive. Soon she would come to know that her father detested local pundits of every variety. “Look at them,” he had cried out, pointing at the limbless beggars now tapping at their car windows. “Middle income, hah!” “Maybe,” she had laughed, “their definition of ‘middle-income country’ is different than yours.” Now, standing in the mess of rickshaws cars buses trucks, all honking godawfully, she thought, You can leave Dhaka but Dhaka will never leave you. Calling a rickshaw and hopping on to the seat she said, “Go! Go anywhere you want to.” The rickshawallah looked at her and smiled—the wide, white-teethed grin broke through the sweat-shiny, dark face like a million suns. “Gulshan Ek, apa?” he asked. She looked at him, feeling the hot breeze on her face. “Yes.” She called her father on the cell phone. “Baba,” she said, as the rickshaw snaked through cars and buses. “Yes?” she heard her father answer. “Don’t send the car, I will come back on my own ... I can’t talk now. Oh, and tell Ma I want to have some tehari for dinner!” Utopia it ain’t, Sam, but it might not be Hell either. You just might like it here, the voice inside her prophesied. n
ARTS & LETTERS
D H A K A T R I B U N E S U N DAY, S E P T E M B E R 1 , 2 0 1 3