Arts & Letters

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Arts & Letters

SKETCH: DIPA MAHBUBA

SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016

Give me some rice you bastard EDITOR’S NOTE

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he 1960s gave us a few poets who could never really cope up with the widespread social injustice and the widening gap between the poor and the rich in the post-independence Bangladesh. They burst out in revolt: in life as well as in poetry.

Rafiq Azad was one of them.

In him we find the loudest voice of protest in our Bangla poetry.

His poetic expression is raw, if not simple, and strong. His poems on love and nature are different though; they are marked by a spontaneous flow of feeling.

Although he’s left us forever, his creation will always inspire us and guide us through the social realities of our time.

INSIDE

Rafiq Azad I am starving, ravenously.

This is what I constantly feel in my gut, all over my body -- this all-devouring hunger! like extreme drought scorching a crop field in the month of Chaitra, this hunger burns my body!

If I just get two meals of rice every day I’ll have no more demand.

People have so many demands! Everyone wants some luxury: flats, cars, bank accounts; some pursue fame, whereas I want only one thing and I say it clear and loud: my insides are burning, please give me some rice.

I don’t care if it is warm or cold, if its grains are fine or coarse, or red like those from the rations; I just want my earthen plate to be filled with rice.

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Non-fiction essay and a book launch

If I just get two meals of rice every day I’ll happily give up all the other rights!

I don’t have any wacky greed, I don’t even feel any sexual urge, I don’t want any of those saris that they tuck under their navel; Anyone could take the saris or their owners -- I really don’t care; please note that I don’t need any of those saris or their owners.

And if you fail, if you fail to fulfil this demand I will burn the whole city because those who starve don’t really have any sense of right and wrong; nor do they care about the law.

I will eat whatever I find there and I swear I will not stop until everything on earth vanishes into my

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Tribute to Rafiq Azad

gaping, hungry mouth.

And if by chance, let’s only imagine, there I find you, standing anywhere close by, I can only say you too will be my food!

A little hunger, when turns all-devouring, brings with it bad consequences!

After eating the scene and its beholder too, I’ll eat the trees, rivers, villages, business hubs and footpaths, even the dirty water in the drains, and the passers-by, the women with round buttocks, the food minister and his flag-hoisting car.

Nothing will be spared from my hunger today.

Give me some rice, you bastard, or else, I’ll gulp down the map of the whole country!

Translated by Rifat Munim. More poems of Rafiq Azad on page 17.

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Short story competition and Poetry

Send your submissions to: anl@dhakatribune.com

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Arts & Letters

16

SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016

NON-FICTION

The poetics of a revolution Tea garden workers of Chunarughat in Habiganj have waged a movement against the government scheme to take away their farmland. Here we publish the second instalment of a nonfiction piece that was written after interviewing some of the protesting workers.

Part III: A revolution does not seek to overthrow, it seeks to create anew.

Before a meeting between the union representatives, political figureheads and the younger revolutionaries who were mostly students, a few people stood inside a large tin-shed veranda staring at images of the sudden confrontation at the bridge the day before.

The space held the rusting steel hulk of the bell tolled the day before to unite more than seven thousand tea workers. It hung from the edge of the veranda that had a small colour television in the middle. There was a formidable air to the bell. Any time it tolls, tea workers leave whatever they are doing, pick up the nearest weapon and follow the general direction in which bodies are moving. Questions pertaining to the why or the who are left for later.

The people who stood huddled around the camera were now laughing at images of one Anurup Bakti, who had been captured wielding a machete covered in blood. As frightening as the image was, it was only chicken blood.

The story went that Anurup had responded to a police officer trying to restrain him from crossing the bridge and when the officer saw his machete, he shrank away in terror.

A few minutes later, Dipen Kalindi, a student of political science from Sylhet, stood addressing the scores of young people who had turned up and the seven figureheads from the central union, the

The figureheads shuffled nervously in their chairs, sometimes trying to break the tension by cracking a joke.

The plastic red of their chairs suddenly seemed fallible

Land Protection Committee and the panchayat. He began by saying, “My revolutionary salute to everyone.” As he spoke, recounting the numerous ways in which people in power are working against the interests of the dissenting masses, it became clear that the seven leaders felt uncomfortable. More telling was the absence of those who had promised to be there but had sent their representatives instead.

An aura of frustration pervaded the place as Dipen concluded his speech. But even in that frustration, there was a fiery inevitability.

The old ways of negotiation were dying. A new revolutionary fervour was sweeping them away, very meticulously, along with the roots of oppression and acquiescence. The young tea workers who sat on the

ground were conceiving of a new identity. Gone were the old days of surrendering to the white men, to the government and to fate. The new identity was going to be one of confrontation. They expected nothing short of victory; if necessary, they would embrace death.

The figureheads shuffled nervously in their chairs, sometimes trying to break the tension by cracking a joke. The plastic red of their chairs suddenly seemed fallible.

Part IV: A revolution is not a parttime preoccupation.

In the morning, the tea workers

postponed their work at the garden for two hours to bring out a procession. The slogans they chanted gradually morphed into an increasingly radical message. At first, “No Economic Zone” and then, “Rajniti na rajpoth? Rajpoth! Rajpoth!” (Politics or protest? Protest! Protest!)

During the night, a few men guard the 512 acres of farmland that brought about a revolutionary movement. They sit mostly in silence and warm themselves by burning hay. Their weapons, symbolic of a non-European mode of resistance, would be rendered futile in the face of modern-day military weapons

but their spirits were invincible.

A few blocks away, a solitary house has its lights on, surrounded by a canopy of sleepy mud walls.

Inside, an old man sat in his room carving out bows and fashioning arrows. He estimated that if he worked for another hour, he would be able to complete another arrow.

The next day, he would take a few hours off work to train a few of the women to shoot arrows.

(The first instalment of this piece was published in the last issue.)

Ahmad Ibrahim is a freelance journalist, writer and activist.

BOOK LAUNCH

Bengal Lights Books launches first nonfiction n Arts & Letters Desk

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engal Lights Books launches today its first nonfiction title, April, written by Andrew Eagle and Tulip Chowdhury, at the University of Liberal Arts. The programme, which begins at 4:00pm, will be held at ULAB's main campus in the capital's Dhanmondi.

AK Abdul Momen, former Bangladeshi permanent representative to the UN; Khademul Islam, director, Bengal Lights; Aasha Mehrin Amin, deputy editor, editorial and op-ed, The Daily

Star, among others, will speak at the event. The programme will be followed by a musical programme.

Andrew is an Australian-born writer living in Bangladesh. Tulip is a Bangladeshi writer living in the States. When the two adventurous souls met online they decided as an experiment to dedicate a month to working together, documenting their lives. April is the result: a unique work of non-fiction that offers two perceptive viewpoints on cultural difference, travel and daily life. Then unexpectedly April outgrew the boundaries of nation-state and

calendar month to reveal broader human truths.

A review at The Daily Star says about the book, “For both Andrew and Tulip, who had left their homes behind but carry the evocative past of their homes, the present is a bitter-sweet affair. Andrew outbursts in poetic realization, “I'm not as Bengali as they are and yet I feel it. I'm hardly Australian except that I am.” Apparently, he enjoys this 'privileged duality' or 'multiplicity' and also feels very normal calling his parents 'my Australian mum and dad'. But what about the poet inside

Andrew? He perhaps leaves a room for you to guess!

“And Tulip? She never forgets her comfortable home in the 1990s that was one of the 'five happiest model families'. The softness of that memory eventually transformed into the toughness of 'nearly three years of homelessness', forcing her to accept the world as a better home. But then, why would the option of 'married or single' in the American official applications make her yearn for a third option 'heartbroken'?

The poet inside Tulip will compel you to rethink through her narrations.” l

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Arts & Letters

SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016

TRIBUTE

A poet with no regrets A young poet writes about Rafiq Azad’s life and poetry. This short piece was written on March 12, the day Azad passed away

n Pias Majid

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fter Rafiq Azad passed away this morning, his son Abbay Azad said, “Baba led a life for which he had no regrets.”

We were standing in front of the ICU at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University.

Something sounded familiar. I was reminded of reading Rafiq Azad’s autobiography Regrets Have I None (Kono Khed Nei) a couple of days ago. How deftly this apparently bohemian person has written about different phases of his life, not breaking the chronological order, about the social, political and literary scene of the 1960s. It surprises me that in our literary culture where everyone is hungry for recognition, someone as big as him says, “Regrets have I none.”

But it makes sense though. Writing in the suffocating political space under Pakistani military rule when little magazines were their main platform, they struggled a lot to bring about many significant changes in the literature of the time. They drew inspiration from the vast openness and avant garde trends of world literature. So it was only natural they had big dreams about literature. And that explains why they did not bother about the little regrets in life.

I heard about his poetry on a television programme in which Abdullah Abu Sayeed referred to one of his poems. It was a programme on sampan (a kind of boat) where Sayeed quoted the last line of Azad’s ‘Madhabi Esei bole jai’. Since then I have been an avid reader of his poems. From “Osombhober Paye” to “Moulobir Mon Bhalo Nei” his poetry is rooted in the worldly affairs of life, its transient beauty and love.

I have only a few personal memories with Rafiq Azad. But

}

At one point, he identified himself with the Garos.

He started saying , “I am Rafiq Marak”, the last name signifying his Garo identity.

In an interview with Zafar Ahmed Rashed, he said, “Birishiri has changed me.”

He further said that he was carrying the blood of different indigenous groups in his Bengali blood

glimpses of those few moments still flash through mind. Once I accompanied him, in his official vehicle, from his Dhanmondi house to his office at National Library in Gulistan. On the way we had a talk most of which was about his friends. He spoke about poet Tarapada Roy. I had remembered then that Tarapada’s autobiography and other prose writings had

Two Love poems by Rafiq Azad

Definition of Love

frequent reference to Rafiq Azad.

On the way Azad lamented the absence of poet Shaheed Kadri who now lives in the US. He used to call Kadri the ‘master’ (guru).

When that guru calls suddenly one late night to ask, “Do you know how Rafiq is doing?” the picture of a cafe named ‘Shat-er Dashak’ (The 1960s) appears before my eyes where poets gathered in

Love is the craziness of two people, who draw each other to the core.

Love is putting your life at risk, walking barefoot upon the sands of separation.

Love is leaning on each other.

Love is heavy rain, pouring down ceaselessly, and getting wet in it, hand in hand.

Love is talking incessantly when the coffee on the table has gone cold.

Love is sitting face to face forever

literary addas to talk literature.

That’s where they ushered in new era of poetry and literature.

I knew more about him from writers of the following generations. Playwright Selim Al Din always acknowledged his debt to Azad. He said Azad was one of those few senior writers who inspired him in the early stages of his writing.

when there’s nothing left to be told.

If I Find Love

If I find love I will right the wrongs; If I find love I will pack all that is necessary for the long road ahead; If I find love I’ll get velvet days after a terribly long winter; If I find love I’ll swim across the sea, or I’ll climb up the mountain; If I find love my sky will turn blue like the

Azad, the poet of ‘Chunia Amar Arcadia’, portrayed both the beauty and the ugliness of life in his poems. Excepting an autobiography that he wrote in the last years of his life, he was not interested in prose.

Prose is arid and lifeless to him.

But art and life are identical to him.

So, he made his poetry pregnant with the diversity of life. He even captured the time he spent while working with Netrokona’s Birishiri Cultural Academy in his unique poetry collection Birishiri Parba.

Soon he fell in love with the village named Chunia and the Garo hill, the river somashori. At one point, he identified himself with the Garos.

He started saying , “I am Rafiq Marak,” the last name signifying his Garo identity. In an interview with Zafar Ahmed Rashed, he said, “Birishiri has changed me.” He further said that he was carrying the blood of different indigenous groups in his Bengali blood.

Today, when I was standing beside Azad before he breathed his last, I visualised the poet, who once hoped that all human beings, like the people living in Chunia, would give up malice and violence and live happily with one another. Standing in front of a big, closed door, when there was no way out, he could write ‘The love letter from a mental hospital’. The same person had taken up arms in 1971 to fight against the Pakistan occupation forces.

Rafiq Azad, the poet who wanted to adorn life with joy and sorrow, left us saying “good bye”.

Through his departure, he told us what he wrote in one of his poems, “When the bird flies away, its feathers are left behind). l Translated by Saera Habib. Pias Majid is a poet, story writer, essayist and literary activist. His short story collection Janioko Jibananando ebong Onyanyo Golpo came out in this February.

like the autumn sky; If I find love my I will find the rhythm and rhyme in life If I find love I’ll right the wrongs I’ll weave my words onto the long path of art, and these quilts I’ll bear.

Translated by Muktadir Abdullah Al. He is a young poet and translator. His first volume of poems, Anyo Ganger Gaan, Samudrasaman, was published in this February.

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SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016

Arts & Letters SHORT STORY COMPETITION

Contribute stories on nature Dhaka Tribune has partnered with Fellows of Nature in a unique initiative to promote nature writing, a genre as endangered as nature, through a short story competition that seeks contributions from writers of South Asian countries. Visit www. fellowsofnature.in for more details

n Arts & Letters desk

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his is a unique opportunity for young Bangladeshi writers (writing in English) to make their mark on the regional stage.

FON South Asia Short Story Award, launched last month by Kumaon Literary Festival, invites short stories on the theme of Nature from all the eight South Asian countries, including Bangladesh. The winner of the contest will be conferred the FON South Asia Short Story Prize comprising an award money of INR 100,000 and a plaque. Apart from that, a book of about 30 best short stories selected by our eminent international jury will also be published.

The closing date for submission is May 30th, 2016. The award will be presented at the next edition of Kumaon Lit Fest to be held in October this year and the book will be released at the literary festival of Taj Colloquium (an associate of KLF), Agra in January 2017.

For more details about the contest, kindly visit our website: www.fellowsofnature.in Stories on the theme of nature or translations of Bangla short stories can be submitted for the competition. So, good translators, too, have a chance to win. All participants must be 21 years or above on March 1, 2016.

Kumaon Lit Fest (http://kumaonliteraryfestival.org/) initiated the Fellows of Nature (FON) project at its first edition last year with the aim of promoting nature writing. The main focus of the initiative is to put the spotlight back on human-nature relationship through nature writing.

The short story award was initiated as part of the FON project to “build a community of nature writers and revive interest in nature writing and reading, and through this form of literature, build awareness and develop respect for nature, and eventually help in conservation. l

POETRY STATE OF THE NATION BY SEEMA AMIN I. Saw a dispersed man in the sidewalk.

All the marks of torture (in your soul) have blended with the night.

Empty street yellow palette, dirty page in the sun.

Blessed thus, by thy helicopters of disappearance Friday, the streets are empty, no cherub cheeked children, engines muted of the birds.

Death metal angel in spiked modernity, Legionnaire in a new guise, your stone age was our golden, now your iron age, beats us like a dream walking backward, into your linear oblivion.

An empty street with its tips folded, silent newspaper her morning heavy as an ocean in a bag.

There is a nightingale in white magenta, he’s a band-aid messiah, the feast of pink flesh is not human-Cut to the morrow, the one in the sexy black

flight over the ugliness Is also you.

II. Saw a dispersed woman O to hear the grandfather clock again in the Asylum.

To bear fruit in the rain, puzzled pieces raining a Russian alarm.

The bells that stilled Nischintapur no Nadezdha salutes no Nadezdha.

It was love, or its prototype The jailhouse plundered, The way out locked in.

The loved has no reprieve from a cornered eye.

O my buildings! Remove!

Revolution has been struck by lightning.

600 bolted in the night NO EXIT from fire.

Seven white saris, Before that anemic banner, dressed as the self-becoming dead.

Bird of a Sound! Inquisitor Om. Silence in the stopped path, silence suspended above wings left in the burnt voice.

To occupy a moment without water.

We meet at the bridge to the BGMEA

Friend, we meet there, aimless sanity taking aim, no clothes catch on fire, Just the cockroach squads Kafka singing the blues Again, On a no-riot day! Marigold daughter face down forever! Dreaming holy perforated torso of her brother.

I stood for a long time inside the tea stall gate, ‘neath its Bodhi sky .

I watched a single leaf fall.

My friend the plainclothes policeman remembered, remembered, my name.

I will give birth to beauty Here in your cornered eye.

I will die rigor mortis beyond.

Industrial police in a Dhalliwood tavern drinking to your death, I will. FDC, Bangla Motors, Bollywood Bal liberalism in Mermaid motel I WILL Badda strike, a year later, before the tanks, I will.

Pink holi sputtered dispersing these unarmed soldiers Since it’s summer, why not hot water I WILL

Latest crowd control technology Imported direct no processing Pre-tested only in Occupied Territory I WILL Sister, you face down, blood violet, With three demands before death “Help us get our bonus, pay for this crater of wounds from erupted glass. And for the abortion.” I WILL Words writ on the face of a charred ocean, “My nose-ring did not portend the rape to come” Flesh engraved gold.

Priceless dasi who outlived The spidermen suicides of her sisters.

Beauty is a mind processing zone.

And I am without.

Howling death without a nameplate.

Visiting your successful graves, Three years later.

--Raw phantom flesh, forever!

Comrade mine! Remember!

Aimless: Sanity: Surrender.