13 feb arts & letters

inside

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Wasafiri: A platform for Bangladeshi literature

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Arts & Letters

Saturday, February 13, 2016

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Two young boys, my boyhood, and Dacca

Send your submissions to: anl@dhakatribune.com

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Arts & Letters

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Saturday, February 13, 2016

C u lt u r e

A platform for Bangladeshi literature Wasafiri’s latest issue, focusing on Bangladeshi work, truly puts the country’s work on the map

COURTESY

n SN Rasul

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asafiri, Britain’s first magazine for international contemporary writing, is quarterly magazine known for publishing and promoting work both by new and established writers, poets, and artists from across the globe.

Founded by Susheila Nasta in 1984 at the University of Kent, Wasafiri was launched in an attempt to herald in changes within curricula in universities and schools and include writers like Derek Walcott, Jean Rhys, and VS Naipaul. Its aim, at the time, “was to provide serious literary and critical coverage of writers who often struggled, because of their cultural or ethnic backgrounds, to get adeqaute notice in the mainstream press; in other words, the work of such writers was frequently deemed to only be of ‘minority interest’ and not part of the mainstream.’”

With its latest issue, that is exactly what Wasafiri has attempted to achieve. Titled a “A Special Issue on Bangladesh,” this issue has covered the Bangladesh literary scene through fiction, non-fiction, poetry, reviews, and interviews, in what can only

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This issue has covered the Bangladesh literary scene through fiction, non-fiction, poetry, reviews, and interviews, in what can only be described as a veritable tour de force of writing focusing either on Bangladeshis, or writing by Bangladeshis

be described as a veritable tour de force of writing focusing either on Bangladeshis, or writing by Bangladeshis.

Introduced with an editorial by Ahsan Akbar and K Anis Ahmed, the special issue features Bengali literary connoisseurs such as Tahmima Anam, Kaiser Haq, Abeer Hoque, Zeeshan Khan, and Sadaf Saaz, among others.

Many of the writers and those-writtenabout featured prominently in the Dhaka Lit Fest, which took place in November.

On Thursday, February 4, 2016, Wasafiri

organised a special event to launch the Bangladeshi issue (Issue 84), in Waterstones book store at London. Featuring interesting conversations with Ahsan Akbar and K Anis Ahmed, who were special guest editors for the issue, and Wasafiri editor Susheila Nasta.

One of the highlights of the event included Shagufta Sharmeen Tania’s recitation of poetry about a story published in Wasafiri: “It’s about a Bengali woman who’s recovering after a parent’s suicide, a woman who faced trauma while working in a UK prison.”

Delivered with poignant passion and grace, Shagufta Sharmeen Tania’s recitation cut through the atmosphere like a knife, evoking a wide range of emotions out of thin air. First, delivered in its entirety in Bangla and then excerpts in English, the bilingual narrative took hold and enraptured the audience.

The story, in English, is called “Gift of Silver,” (taken from a line in Pablo Neruda’s “Ode to the Sea”) and certain images from the poem stand out as if being painted right in front of our very eyes.

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Arts & Letters

Saturday, February 13, 2016

C u lt u r e

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I float away in the waters of fate Who can say why I think of absurd things at the oddest of times?

Other people comment: “Mash’allah! Happy family!” on a Facebook photo of a mother exhausted from giving birth and the father sparkling like a smiling flint as he holds the newborn Why can’t I think “Mash’allah! Happy family!”

Why do I think some get to bail out the pond?

Some get to eat all the fish?”

Another crucial segment of the event was no doubt Sadaf Saad’z reading, speaking of muslin, “arguably the greatest cotton the world has ever seen.” With an airy nonchalance, she delivered the poem on muslin with breathtaking depth and beauty, snatching words out of the reader or the listener’s mind with such ease, as if the brushstrokes were stuck in mid-air within the room, hovering somewhere just above the floor.

“Woven air The lost perfection of woven air Exquisite and rare.

I saw it once, A small precious piece Of which legends are made Delicate and posthumous Hung for posterity, A figment of nostalgic past Behind distorted clouded glass In our national museum Now, it can only be seen at the V&A As the Kohinoor Through that sacred weave What wonders were achieved Six yards with a single gold ring With ease.”

Other various authors and writers also came together to present their works in front of the audience, each bringing something novel and lyrically innovative to the table. Each reading left the audience feeling as if, when they were gone, they had taken something with them. l SN Rasul is a journalist and academic, follow him @ snrasul.

Delivered with poignant passion and grace, Shagufta Sharmeen Tania’s recitation cut through the atmosphere like a knife, evoking a wide range of emotions out of thin air. First, delivered in its entirety in Bangla and then excerpts in English, the bilingual narrative took hold and enraptured the audience

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Arts & Letters

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Saturday, February 13, 2016

Non-fiction

Two young boys, my boyhood, and Dacca For some, memories of Dacca are as clear as yesterday’s

n SM Shahrukh

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ent out around midday to buy a few things, mainly a jar of coffee that emptied out during the night and some meds that were of greater urgency. I had experienced the chill in the morning air while standing at my verandah around 6am, the sky a dark grey and thick fog that obfuscated the early morning devout going home after the Fazr prayers. The one single halogen street light I could see had a halo of fog around it. It felt eerie. I decided that it would be unwise to go for a walk this chilly morning.

My apprehensions about the weather were vindicated when I went out around noon. In spite of the bright sunlight, there was a chilly breeze. Wearing only my customary panjabi-pajama, I felt the chill hit my bones. A graveyard chill on a beautiful sunny day -- nature in an oxymoronic state.

The moment I came out of the drugstore with my coffee and meds, I felt a pang of hunger. I went to a deli nearby and ordered a sandwich. While I sat with my sandwich I saw two little boys with their mother. They were having some food too with the mother sitting happy with her cup of coffee.

The two young boys were coming back from school, one would be around eight and the other a year younger. They were happy, looking smart in their uniform, and chatting away with the mother nodding without speaking much. The younger one at one point was extolling the greater nutritional value of brown bread over the white variety.

She just said, “I don’t like the taste of them.” The boys went on talking and disseminated all their knowledge on the matter. The young computer kids of today!

They have schools with a better syllabus than the olden days, at least the ones for privileged children do, a world of knowledge is at their fingertips thanks to the World Wide Web, but are they really enjoying their boyhoods? Maybe they are, maybe more than I had done when I was a young boy but I will never concede. My schooldays were special to me and I had a whale of a time.

Before 1971, I went to an English medium school but enrolled into a missionary school

in 1972, a new school, a new medium of instruction. Bangla was not alien to me though. It was a new country, a new dawn, my mother pregnant with my brother, a pregnancy of joy of having her own country.

At least, that’s what I have always thought.

My brother was born in September of 72.

I used to live in Wari of the old part of Dhaka till 1975, then moved to Dhanmondi in the newer part but I went to Laxmi Bazaar till 1980 when I finished my school.

It was total independence from 1974 onwards when I was in class four, unthinkable for kids and parents of today. I was not even 10. My mother, under whose “autocracy” I lived then, taught me a very “proper” way of speaking in Bangla in my formative years. She was a Calcuttan who migrated with her family in 1947.

muri at my school gate was too alluring, a dance of spicy Bangla on my palate. The shorbot, a cool drink of any colour as per the whim of the vendor, was the most refreshing drink with chipped ice floating in them. I needed a glass or three after a game of “rescue” or a brutal “conflict” at football.

They were five paisa a glass in 1974.

I needed to save my allowance for the goodies. So I started walking to and fro to attend school, my mother oblivious, but my father somewhat wiser as he caught me walking a few times on Nawabpur Road or the rickety lanes of Narinda. He kept his “knowledge” to himself, never a peep to the loving “dictator.”

Walking to school opened a world of new colours, a beautiful cacophony to me, a symphony of the streets one may call it.

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Walking to school opened a world of new colours, a beautiful cacophony to me, a symphony of the streets one may call it

She corrected my Bangla at every chance and even made me face punitive measures for using the language of colloquy used in the streets. But my ears were always open to all the colourful dialects I heard at Wari and then even more colorful ones when I started going to Laxmi Bazaar. I faced a lot of mockery from my new mates at the new school for my “proper” accent of speaking Bangla but it took me only a few days before I started speaking in the more acceptable dialect used in school, a mixture of Dhakaiya and other dialects.

A fish to water I was. I was speaking pure Bangla at home and the moment I stepped on the streets, I became a part of it, a bilingual, almost, but with one language.

From 1974 onwards till I migrated to Dhanmondi a year and a half later, my mother gave me rickshaw fare and a little extra for this and that. The chotpoti or jhaal

There were restaurants selling delicious parattha with bhaji, beef bhuna, chicken jhaal curry, muglai dishes, and of course, my favourite Moron Chand Ghosh & Sons, the original, at Rothkhola, selling sweetmeats as divine blessings. My way back involved the Narinda area. It was full of people and shops, bakorkhani ovens on display, a view of hell in my early days.

I entered the Wari area at Tipu Sultan Road after passing the graveyard for Christians and the ancient Armenian Church. But in a few months, I discovered a shorter path to school. I used the “bhuter goli” lane from the Tipu Sultan Road, so narrow that rickshaw-pullers declined to enter it, all the better.

This circuitous route took me past the Dholaikhal area until I reached Koltabazaar just before landing on Laxmi Bazaar.

Koltabazaar was very famous for its

mastaans and the typical Dhakaiya with white lungi and all. Well, white lungi is not what makes a Dhakaiya but it’s their lionheartedness, the best type of Banglees there ever were who spoke in a very colourful and typical accent, full of loving swear words, and talked often in a lingo among themselves which they always thought to be Urdu. Their language needed a special identity.

Late 1975, I was living in a house in Dhanmondi, on a road adjacent to the lake, the other side was the famous Road no 32 with the now famous Bangabondu museum.

My parents wanted me to switch to the Government Laboratory School in the New Year (1976) since it was nearer to our house and made all the arrangements but I stood my ground: Laxmi Bazaar or bust. They conceded.

I didn’t want to lose my friends, the two fields where I played football and cricket, the handball and basketball courts and my ever favorite, a number of concrete table tennis tables. I was pretty good with my paddle at ping-pong, a Chinese paddle with foam on its surface under the rubber, with a name like Yin or Yang. I didn’t want to miss sitting at Sadarghat with a packet of peanuts, watching the boats and launches on the Buriganga, not a sewer then, but a beautiful river with a world of mystery, looking like the lifeline of the city.

I loved those days as I came home to Dhanmondi on a rickshaw past English Road, Becharam Deuri, Moulvi Bazaar, sometimes Rahmatganj (also called Dailpotti) and then Bokshibazaar and Lalbagh and the Azimpur area and along Mirpur Road to our one-storey house at Dhanmondi. Dhanmondi in those days was a beautiful residential area with small houses with a lawn at the front.

Around 1977, when I was in class seven, I started going to the stadium to watch Abahoni play football. They became the champions that year. This was a love affair that continued till 1984. Around the same time in 1977, I started going to the cinema on my own.

Every Friday afternoon I was either at the gates of Modhumita or Obhishar and at times at Balaka, Gulistan, Ananda, Shyamoli, or some obsolete derelict cinema hall in the old parts like Azad, Moon, Star, or Shabistan.

It was a fun time, my school days. I wonder often if the kids I saw today with crisp clothes and the internet at hand can have such a colourful time of it. Maybe they do from their perspectives and definitions of fun. But I would never trade my school days with the “modern times.” I loved my Dacca, albeit with tremendous problems of poverty, famine, communicable diseases, seasonal maladies becoming wildfires in a moment, a topsy-turvy state of economy, but there remains something deeply nostalgic about that Dacca, which is now well under wraps with the new spelling as well as the goingson of the sprawling metropolis of Dhaka. l SM Shahrukh is a freelance contributor.