Arts & Letters

DHAKA TRIBUNE THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017

Editor’s note For lovers of Bengali literature and culture, February is perhaps the dearest season.

It brings us spring; it reminds us of the language martyrs, and thanks to Bangla Academy, now it gives us a month-long book fair featuring new books from writers, poets, academics and our leading intellectuals.

The February issue contains poems and articles celebrating the arrival of spring and the Ekushey Boi Mela, and commemorating February 21.

A reflective piece, while welcoming the Mela, seeks to understand what still needs to be done to ensure publication of well-edited, error-free, quality books.

A travel story, with unique perspective and lively storytelling, offers a very interesting read.

So will the pieces of short fiction, a tribute to Moni Singh, an interview with Richard Eaton and reviews of an Ibsen production, the kite fest in Old Dhaka and Zainul Utsab at the Fine Arts Institute of Dhaka University. l

Editor Zafar Sobhan Editor Arts & Letters Rifat Munim Design Mahbub Alam Alamgir Hossain Cover Syed Rashad Imam Tanmoy Illustration Syed Rashad Imam Tanmoy Priyo

My sad suffering alphabet

n Shamsur Rahman

(Translated by Kabir Chowdhury) In my very being you live fluttering your flag like a cluster of shining stars.

A soothing tenderness always holds you in a loving embrace.

From my very childhood you and I have lived inseparably wrapped in each other’s love.

You have been my companion since my birth.

Every moment you have helped build the bridge of my dreams, and that is why the whole universe, turning into a ship, anchors at

my port.

Rifat Munim

Colour Specialist Shekhar Mondal

You visit me even in the bower of my sleep.

From the little hollow of a huge tree you come down jumping in the shape of a squirrel, and, dressed as an elephant, you descend from a bouquet of clouds.

You are always there.

I feel your presence in the very depth of my heart, an eternal green spot of bliss, the rhythmic fifty one letters of my remote school days of early childhood or, sometimes turning into a beautiful parrot with a scarlet beak, you suddenly come and softly touch the rim of my dream-laden consciousness.

Ektuku Chnoa Laage n Rabindranath Tagore (Translated by Fakrul Alam)

The slightest of caress and a few heard words— With them I compose in my mind my spring melody.

Heady with a blend of Palash and Chanpa scents, I weave a net of colours and essences musically.

You are the precious pupils at the centre of my eyes.

In the raging fire of wars, in the holocaust of epidemics, in deluge or drought, in the ringing steps of of a dancing girl, in the tender emrace of a loving daughter, in anger and hatred, in the hulabaloo of anarchy, in the profusion of creaitivity

Whatever flashes by every now and then Sparks in my consciousness dream-like images; Whatever goes far also flutters my thoughts tunefully And counting time to tinkling ankle bells I spend my days!

Announcement

(Please see the full version online)

From this month on, Arts & Letters comes out on the first Thursday, instead of the first Saturday, of the month. This change is introduced as part of the revamp that Dhaka Tribune, the fastest growing English language daily, is going through to serve its readers better. We welcome this change as it will give readers more time to enjoy the monthly arrangement of Arts & Letters through articles, reviews, fiction pieces, poems, translations and interviews.

Arts & Letters Desk

2 ARTS & LETTERS

DHAKA TRIBUNE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017

Interview Rise of Islam in Bengal:

Setting the record straight Richard Eaton is Professor of History at the University of Arizona. His illuminating research has demonstrated that the narrative of Muslims destroying thousands of temples in India is a myth. Nor does he agree with those who believe that the Muslims had arrived here as liberators. His books include India’s Islamic Traditions 711-1750: Themes in Indian History and The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier (12041760) and Sufis of Bijapur (1300-1700): Social Rules of Sufis in Medieval India. The following interview was conducted via email.

n Audity Falguni Most of your books deal with the history of Islam’s growth as a religion in the Indian sub-continent. What drew you towards the history of the Indian subcontinent with an emphasis on the advent of Islam?

I was drawn to the study of South Asia because of a three-week overland trip that two friends and I had made in the summer of 1963. That trip took me from Iran through Baluchistan, Karachi, Bombay, Hyderabad, Calcutta, Benares, Delhi, Lahore, Peshawar, Kabul, and back to Iran. The trip also made me aware of the enormous influence that Persianate and Islamic culture had in South Asia. Yet that influence was very uneven. So I set myself to the task of understanding, and explaining, why Persianate and Muslim cultures had penetrated so deeply in some parts of South Asia, but not others. Had I not already spent a year in Iran and learned Persian before making that journey, these questions would never have occurred to me.

Your phenomenal work The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier: 1204-1760 shows that Islam was neither “a religion of the sword” nor “a religion of social liberation” in India. Tell us something particularly about this illuminating aspect of your research.

Before formulating my own thinking about Islamisation in Bengal, I had already read extensively about the subject and was familiar with the conventional explanations. But none of them made much sense to me, mainly because they failed to account for the very different receptions that Islam had in the eastern and western portions of the delta, respectively. For example, Sufis are frequently identified as agents of “conversion” in eastern Bengal, yet there were just as many Sufis in western Bengal, too. Moreover, if the “religion of the sword” and “religion of social liberation” had been operative at all (which they weren’t), they should logically have been more relevant for the western rather than the eastern delta. All of this convinced me that everything had to be re-thought and that a fresh start was needed.

How was The Rise of Islam received among readers? Have you faced any criticism? Have your findings been opposed or challenged by historians?

As measured by the two prizes it won – from the Association for Asian Studies and the Middle East Studies Association -- Rise of Islam enjoyed a generally favourable reception. But of course, all books face criticism. Some readers objected to my use of “Turk” when referring to Muslims in the book’s earlier chapters – a criticism that is partially valid. “Turk” is an ethnic term (not, of course, a national one in the period covered by the book), since it merely refers to people whose first language was Turkish. But over time, descendants of the delta’s Turkish settlers gradually stopped using Turkish, even in their households, where Bengali gradually overtook their use of Turkish. So it is true that some of the people I called “Turks” had probably ceased using Turkish by the 15th or 16th century.

Others have objected that the mosques appearing in the 15th and 16th centuries, in Map 2(c), were more evenly distributed across the delta than I claimed to be the case. But a glance at that map (p. 26) reveals, I think, a distinct concentration of mosques along the western corridor of the Old Ganges. But these are relatively minor objections.

What are your findings on negotiated confession to Islam vis-a-vis Sultan Jadu Jalal al-Din Muhammad?

Sultan Jadu Jalal al-Din Muhammad’s own acceptance of Islam appears to have been related to the terms by which Raja Ganesh negotiated his son’s rise to the throne as sultan. Once on the throne, he took extraordinary steps respecting his relationship to his adopted religion – restoring the Islamic confession to his coins and even claiming to be Caliph himself. Yet at the same time, he vigorously patronised Bengali culture, in both his coinage and his architecture. This is why I find him to be one of the more fascinating figures in Bengali history.

We came to hear that you had visited the Sundarbans during your research.

Did your field visits there offer you any extra insight into your core findings?

Actually, I never visited the Sundarbans while conducting my research in Bangladesh. At that time I got only as close as Bagerhat. But this last December, I did have the pleasure of spending about a week in the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans with a group of Bangladeshi friends. That trip acquainted me with the very different type of vegetation found in the saltwater stretches of that forest, in contrast to that of the delta’s central, northern and eastern regions. This clearly had implications for the extension of wetrice agriculture, which requires fresh water. So my visit made me aware of the geographical limits to the diffusion of wet-rice agriculture in the delta’s southernmost regions. l

Audity Falguni is a fiction writer.

3 DHAKA TRIBUNE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017

ARTS & LETTERS

Memoir

Moni Singh:

Life of a revolutionary A personal memoir of one of Bengal's biggest communist leaders

n Nabina Das

W

Nabina Das is a poet and writer from India. She has two poetry books titled Into the Migrant City and Blue Vessel, a short fiction collection The House of Twining Roses: Stories of the Mapped and the Unmapped, and a novel titled Footprints in the Bajra.

riting about Moni Singh inevitably gets mixed with the personal and the institutional. Institutional because Singh happens to be a stalwart in the revolutionary history of the South Asian subcontinent. He was the President of Communist Party of Bangladesh and also was the member of Advisory Council to Bangladesh Government in exile in 1971. Personal because he happens to be my “pishemoshai”, the husband of my paternal aunt, my father’s oldest sibling.

The interesting angle to the personal is also that I have very brief but specific memory of Moni Singh in my life. He was more of the distinguished guest than the uncle one could relate to. His homecoming meant my grandmother worried about what the famed son-in-law would eat. My aunt bothered none about all this, being a compatriot in the same politics. I remember one occasion when Singh was sitting down to do his morning shave. He placed a little hand mirror on a stool in front of him, sat down on a “mudha”, wrapped his torso in a handwoven towel, and carefully arranged his shaving blades. A plastic mug of warm water also stood next to the mirror. Singh dipped his razor in the mug once the blade was screwed in. I’d watch him dip it multiple times and then do a clean swipe at his cheek. The precision was meditative. All the while he adjusted his eyeglasses — I suspect of high power — and smiled a little at me. His wiping away of the shaving foam was also meticulous, layer by layer.

Singh passed away on December 31, 1990.

Since 2000, every year, a week-long Moni Mela in memory of Comrade Moni Singh at Sushangh Durgapur in Netrakona, Bangladesh, is organised.

Dibalok Singha, son of Moni Singh, and my cousin, says, “Because of his political beliefs, ideals, dedication and activities related to the emancipation of toiling masses in the Indian subcontinent and particularly in Bangladesh, he went through (state) repressions.”

Singh was jailed for long years during the British, Pakistan and even Bangladesh time. Especially, he was forced to live in ‘underground’ during the Pakistan period.

Singha informed that Moni Mela this time round started from Dec 31, 2016 to Jan 6, 2017. A memorial meeting on the life, political vision and accomplishments of legendary Comrade Moni Singh was also held at Dhaka University campus on Jan 7.

In 1937, released from jail in Nadia, Singh came to see his mother at SushangDurgapur. Within two-three days of his visit, a few Muslim peasants came to see him. Singh writes in his autobiography, Life is a Struggle (Jiban Sangram), that this was a turning point in his life. The visiting peasants pleaded with Singh to put an end to the extremely reprehensible and cruel “tonko” method of extorting revenue by the powerful landlords of Shushang-Durpapur.

According to Dibalok Singha, “Moni Singh felt a strange dilemma while trying to decide whether his revolutionary career must be dedicated to trade union activities in Calcutta or to leading a movement against the tonko repression on poor peasants in this village.”

Moni Singh’s autobiography states that he felt the need for putting his energy towards peasants’ welfare.

“The tonko movement here would be a complex and a tough one. Mainly because this would be against a large number of my own relatives. Not only that, my own family owns land under “tonko” revenue. So this would be a battle against all.

Perhaps these reasons are still holding me back.”

Overcoming his own intellectual conflict, Singh decided to finally work for the peasant.

“Armed with whatever knowledge of Marxism-Leninism I had then, and with my own experience of labour movements, I finally overcame my conflicts and arrived at the decision that I shall fully be a part of the movement against the tonko revenue extortion.”

The Moni Mela in Shushang-Durgapur is a tribute to this relentless agitation following which the poor peasants of the area had found a reprieve. I remember Singh’s wife Anima, my paternal aunt, also a comrade in the same struggle and many more, more closely. Comrade Moni Singh, a much celebrated revolutionary later in Bangladesh even, evoked in us young ones -- who saw him only a few times -- a sense of awe. Chocolates and books also arrived with him. But the “Order of the Friendship of the People” winner was a man more of extraordinary revolutionary lore. l

I finally overcame my conflicts and arrived at the decision that I shall fully be a part of the movement against the tonko revenue extortion

(This article was first published in Raiot. Reprinted with permission)

4 ARTS & LETTERS

DHAKA TRIBUNE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017

Tribute

Translating Elias February 16 marks the 74th birth anniversary of Akhtaruzzaman Elias, writer of Khoabnama and Chilekothar Sepai

n Rifat Munim

A

fter my mentor gave me the go-ahead for taking up a translation project, I determined on an English collection of Elias’s short stories.

So I picked up his story collection, Khonari. I had read it about a decade ago and couldn’t remember much. Reading it now, I was impressed as much by the language he used as by the characters he built, with their respective voices undiminished. While his treatment of different characters inspired me, his language presented me with a challenge that I have yet to figure out how to overcome.

A writer’s choices are limited in writing short stories. Unlike novels, where one can introduce many characters and bring in multiple voices in the telling of a story, in the short form of fiction stories are usually told from the point of view of one character while the others, being filtered through his/her eyes, cannot grow independently. Despite the many intricate layers of irony, the title story, “Khonari” (Stupor), falls into this category. But as I moved on to the next, I found “Asukh-bishuk” (Disease) in which the story revolves around Atmonnesa, an old mother who lives with her son, daughter-in-law and a grandson. Though a good part of the narrative is dedicated to catching the psychological world of Atmonnesa, during which time she delves into imagining many diseases for herself; characters of son, daughter and daughter-in-law do not depend on Atmonnesa for their growth. All four/five characters fight and challenge one another but grow independently. This dialogic consciousness of Elias, which is very subtle and yet conspicuous enough, came as a huge inspiration as it went perfectly with my taste and political inclinations.

But as I went deeper into his language, I was a bit alarmed. The sole purpose of my second reading was to be better equipped for beginning the translation. As I was reading more of his stories, I was becoming aware that it was impossible to translate Elias into English. The problem I’m going to point out is not unique to Elias and is common to many, i.e., Hasan Azizul Haq, Shawkat Ali, Mahasweta Devi, but in Elias’s case it seems to turn more complicated.

Elias’s characters are raw and lively, except the ones coming from the middle class. His stories, albeit narrated in standard Bangla, make enormous use of dialects. Not only dialogues are rendered in pure dialects of one form or another, when the voice of the narrator seeks to assume that of a character’s, colloquial words, expressions and idioms are inserted into narration. This happens quite frequently. The narratorial voice keeps shifting between different characters and refuses to go by the dictates of standard language.

In Elias’s stories, it is impossible to deny the vividness of different language forms which are present with their contesting realities. Stories of this kind distinguish themselves from those with one unitary model of the standard form.

There comes the inevitable question: Is it possible to retain in translation the same dimensions emanating from the different language forms of the original?

The translated story should give the reader a clear idea of how the original story utilises the tension stemming from different, sometimes conflicting language forms. But a translator has his/ her limitations. To work out as many different forms of language in the target language as used in the original is humanly impossible. Even if it is done by assumption, their co-existence can never take as real a shape as in the original.

Let us consider, for example, Huckleberry Finner Duhshahoshik Auvijan, a Bengali translation of Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,

by Hosain Ridwan Ali Khan (Prachya Bidya Prakashani, 1998). The translator has tried to do justice to Huck Finn’s dialects. He has even tried to work out the difference of accents existing between characters coming from the black communities. That is why he uses more than one form of dialects. In the original, the act of narration has been done by Huck Finn in an American dialect

associated mostly with the black people. In the translation on the other hand, the narration is done in Standard Bangla though colloquial phrases and words are used at times. Strangely enough, the dialogues are rendered completely in the dialects of Barisal and Faridpur.

The translator writes in his introduction, “Barring a few exceptions, dialect has been used throughout in the original ... In this translation, the language Huck Finn has been attributed with is not far from standard Bangla in terms of the verb form, but a great deal of local phrases and expressions are added to it. Dialects of Barisal and Faridpur have been extensively used. The spoken language of Black characters has been turned into the dialects of those two localities. But different black characters speak out in different accents, and so do the white characters. That is why I’ve also used other forms like the dialect of old Dhaka.” (my translation) Although he has failed to maintain the exact equivalence, the translator’s awareness of Tawin’s mastery in using dialects, both through narration and dialogues, is astute. Yet, what we find is not satisfactory altogether. Most of my friends refused to finish the book. The translator modifies almost the whole of Huck Finn’s narrative and its colloquial tones into the standard form of Bangla. This transformation does not pose any problem. But the turning of an American dialect into standard Bangla makes those occasional Barisali phrases and dialogues somewhat sudden, imposed and inconsistent. The effect of Barisali dialect was so very different from that of the original. I found it impossible to accept a Huck Finn who speaks in a Barisali dialect – it has transformed a peculiar exotic tale into a local one whereas we had expected it to be full of fantasies, of events unpredictable, of lands uninhabited like the settings of Jules Verne’s science fictions, or Bivutivushon Banarjee’s Chander Pahar.

If rendered in standard language, originality is at stake. If rendered in dialects to get closer to the original, it reads either odd or imposed.

Should I then abandon my project since so much is lost in translation? Or, should I accept that the act of translation entails certain limitations that one cannot possibly overcome, and having accepted them, should I take up my pen and paper to work relentlessly to make the translation as close as possible to the original?

I have yet to figure out. l

Rifat Munim is Editor, Arts & Letters, Dhaka Tribune.

5 DHAKA TRIBUNE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017

ARTS & LETTERS

Chobi Mela

Stretching the boundaries The ninth edition of Chobi Mela, the most prestigious photography festival in Asia launches tomorrow and will run till February 16. n Shahidul Alam

Shahidul Alam is founder of Drik Picture Library, Bangladesh’s first picture agency, and Pathshala, first photo school.

It is no coincidence that the longest standing photo festival in Asia is in Bangladesh and that we took on photography with such gusto. We recognised that in photography, we had a transformative tool for social change. While we had a lot of respect for the written word, we were conscious that if textual literacy was to be the only form of literacy that was valued, then in one stroke we would be undermining our oral storytelling tradition, our theatre, our visual arts and the magical stories that our grandparents had told us.

Photography is so incredibly important in our culture, not only because we have lower levels of textual literacy, but because the average Bangladeshi sees it as an emancipatory tool.

The core principles behind setting up Drik and later Pathshala was about being able to define our own identity. Until then, others had controlled the narrative. Someone else’s agenda was driving the story. We were tired of the stereotypical representation of majority world peoples as merely icons of poverty. We were not going to deny the reality, but no longer were we willing to accept the single story. There were other stories to be told, and local storytellers were going to tell the tale. It was not only international media that we wanted to address. Power politics played out on the home front too, where we needed to address both social inequality and the politics of representation.

Having seen how political parties operated, we knew we needed to find other means. We chose media, education and culture as our spaces for intervention.

Through Drik, Pathshala and Chobi Mela, we have a presence in all three.

Drik, set up as a private limited company, was needed to ensure our media independence. Pathshala, a not for profit trust, would train the soldiers needed for the struggle. Chobi Mela, a project of both these entities, provided the cultural front which would present the ideas and engage with the public.

It was a powerful cocktail.

The evolution of Chobi Mela therefore, provides an insight into the way art practice in Bangladesh has matured. The traditional art scene, mired primarily in painting and to a lesser extent, sculpture and print making, has expanded to include photography, video art, installations and more conceptual work.

Photography itself has broadened its vocabulary and a much more fluid approach, which is both inclusive and plural, creates a more diverse space for creative expression.

Chobi Mela IX The international festival of photography is put together biannually by Drik Picture Library Ltd. and Pathshala South Asian Media Institute. Since its inception in 2000, Chobi Mela has been the most significant photography event in Asia and the first in the form of a regular biennale. The theme for Chobi Mela IX is ‘Transition’. Curated by ASM Rezaur Rahman, Mahbubur Rahman, Munem Wasif, Tanzim Wahab along with festival director Shahidul Alam, the ninth edition of the festival will be more compact, with all venues situated in South Dhaka. Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy will be the main venue along with venues in Old Dhaka. Pathshala South Asian Media Institute is the educational venue where workshops, portfolio reviews and some of the artist talks will be held. The festival will feature over 30 exhibitions with work from 27 artists spanning 16 countries.

The Drik Calendar 2017 includes works by Bruno Boudjelal (Algeria), Christina de Middel (Spain), Debashish Chakrabarty (Bangladesh), Gohar Dashti (Iran), Stanley Green (USA), Susanta Mandal (India) and Nasir Ali Mamun (Bangladesh).

Algeria, Scrapbooks

Call Me Heena

Bruno Boudjelal

Shahria Sharmin Interrogations

Iran, Untitled

Donald Weber

Gohar Dashti

The festival has changed over the years. The early work was of a more conventional nature with documentary practice dominating. We have however always wanted to be more inclusive, not only in demography, but also in modes of practice. Today the work at Chobi Mela embraces a very wide range of styles and emphases. Documentary practice itself has a more complex vocabulary than ever before. Fine art and conceptual practice are today part of the documentary space, whereas fine artists often use tools more familiar with documentary practice. Found objects and synthetic approaches blur the edges of different genres of photography. Chobi Mela is the umbrella which shelters them all, allowing them to co-exist.

Whether our art can transcend the class barriers we are plagued by, whether our artists see the person in the street as their audience, whether the work we produce caters merely to the market or contests how the powerful would have us see, will in the final analysis determine whether art is a weapon of resistance or yet another toy for the privileged elite. l

6 ARTS & LETTERS

DHAKA TRIBUNE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017

Ekushey Boi Mela

Spreading wings Number of new books is increasing considerably but have their qualities and copyright issues been checked and monitored?

n Rifat Munim

B

angla Academy has added a charm to this year’s book fair. Alongside the month-long Ekushey Boi Mela, this time it has put together a threeday international literary conference, the beginning of which coincided with the Mela yesterday at the same grounds.

It should come as a refreshing bit of news for Bangladeshi writers as here’s another opportunity to interact with their kindred spirits from home and abroad. Today poets from Germany, Austria, Puerto Rico, Russia and China will share their produce with those from Bangladesh. Also, Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay and Swapnomoy Chakraborty will team up with Hasan Azizul Haq and Zakir Talukdar in discussions on Bengali fiction. The conference ends tomorrow with a panel discussion comprising poets from Bangladesh and India.

Writers, readers and publishers eagerly wait for the arrival of the Mela as it benefits them all. We journalists welcome it as it visibly injects new life into the scene of writing and publishing, not to mention the boost it gives to reading Bengali literature and history. Due to its increasing popularity, it has gradually spilled outside the grounds, now expanding into the bigger space of the Suhrawardy Udyan. Number of new books is increasing considerably every year. All good news and we hope the Mela continues to spread its wings.

But the Mela’s success will be tainted if the promise of quality books remains unfulfilled. If anything, quality should be the only guiding principle behind selecting or rejecting a book. Better cut the production by half and ensure quality. By quality, of course I mean the primacy of editorial review. But I also mean the “quality of a quality book”. Bibhutibhuson Bandyopadhyay’s Pother Panchali is a quality book, but when a publisher reproduces it s/he either gets it composed afresh or collects a soft copy. In either case, the book has to be formatted and then thoroughly proofread, otherwise countless errors would remain and make one of the greatest Bengali novels look like a trash. That is called the “quality of a quality book” -- the proofreading and corrections in the pre-production process.

Some of my recent encounters with these errors would give you a better idea of the damage they might do to readers. One of my colleagues, sometime in 2013, made a denigrating comment on Aktaruzzaman Elias. Referring to Elias’s Khoabnama, he said Elias did not even know how to write correct Bengali. I was shocked. The same person had showered Ahmad Sofa with praise just a few weeks back which was when I had suggested he should read Elias too. I know one might like Sofa and still dislike Elias or it could be the other way round. Or one might as well like them both, like I do. But his references were not to the different stylistic choices they made or to their ideological inclinations. He was talking about correct Bengali, the ability to write it. Since Elias did not know how to do it, he explained, the discussion should end then and there. He rendered me speechless.

I took his copy and brought it home. I skimmed it through till page 40 and from page 45 onward, I started scanning looking out for errors that would make Elias a bad writer. If not on every page, there were errors of some kind or another, every two or three pages. On top of misspelled words, which were frequent, there were lapses in the constructions of verb or noun especially when they were modified. Such lapses in Elias’s case make things very difficult as his sentences are often very long. Just one little lapse in the sound or use of a noun, in addition to rendering the sentence incorrect, may make the sense falter, leaving cohesion under strain.

It was a 2013 (fourteenth) edition, collected from the Mela that year, published by Mawla Brothers. On page 50, at the beginning of the last paragraph, the word “mouno” (silent) was wrongly put. It was intended as

a noun but appeared as an adjective: “It irritates Sharafat Mondol that Abdul Quader’s silent is not compliance” whereas it should read: “ … that Abdul Quader’s silence is not compliance.” It was just the tip of the iceberg.

I bought Shawkat Ali’s Dakkhinayaner Din:Troyee Uponnyas (Bidyaprakash) from the Mela last year, though the printer’s line mentioned it was a 2010 (fourth) edition. The spate of mistakes started a bit early in this book. I remember having marked some proofreading errors while reading. The first one came on page 15 (which is actually the sixth page of the novel) and the second one on page 19 (second line, third para). In the second instance, the word should read “chhute” to mean “run towards” in place of “chhuti” which means “recess”. Now one might start questioning Ali’s Bengali writing skills as well.

It is outrageous to question Elias or Ali’s ability. They’ve written some of the best Bengali novels ever written in this language. But poor works of proofreading are leaving their marks, causing readers to form misguided verdicts. It is one thing to say you didn’t like the choices Elias has made but quite another to say he did not know how to write correct Bengali. Such big writers deserve better and so do our readers.

I scoured my shelf for UPL publications of Elias and Ali: They were impeccable. I found several other books by Mawla: The first and second parts of Elias’s oeuvre, Nasrin Jahan’s Urukku, Shahidul Zahir’s Dalu Nodir Hawa and Onyanyo Golpo and Imtiar Shamim’s Danakata Himer Bhitor -- all of them are quality editions and their proofreading was neat. I wondered what could have gone awry during the stand-alone edition of Khoabnama?

There were other fine examples too: The books by Bangla academy, Sahitya Prakash, Prothoma, Jagriti, Ittadi, Bengal Publications, Samhati, Pathak Samabesh and Kagoj, among a few others, are usually good in terms of editing and proofreading.

But fine books is not the usual picture, however. Most publishers think nothing of pre-production and in the months preceding the Mela, they churn out as many books as possible in order to increase sales, compromising even the minimum standards. That’s how you get books like Prasanta Mridha’s Karjon Somporke Prashongik (Oitijjha) and Mahasweta Devi’s Hajar Churashir Ma (Hawladar Prakashani). Oitijjha is somewhat recognised but the latter is little known and a copyright violator too. Both of these books are so full of errors on every page that you’d be forced to put them aside and start another book.

The truth of the matter is there’s no authority in Bangladesh to address these issues. In the capacity of organising the Mela, the Academy reserves the right to check all the books to be displayed in the fair and either select or reject them on the basis of high standards. In order to make a qualitative leap, instead of a quantitative one, the Academy must exercise its monitoring right and ensure no badly edited or proofread book slips through the net. l

Rifat Munim is Editor, Arts & Letters, Dhaka Tribune.

7 DHAKA TRIBUNE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017

ARTS & LETTERS

Travel

From Bangladesh to Palestine:

A snapshot of the Holy Land A travelogue of visits to Jordan, Israel and Palestine n Fariha PH

M

y husband and I had a longing to visit Jordan, Israel and Palestine for several years but the media reports on the sound and fury of the Arab - Israeli confrontations and the Syrian war kept deterring us.

After the gruesome attack on Holey Artisan Bakery, which occurred on July 1, 2016, in Dhaka, and was very close to home both literally and figuratively, we decided we would go. It made us realise that there is no ”right time” to do anything and no ”right place” to be at. Life could be nasty, brutish, and short anywhere. My knowledge of politics in the Middle East was limited, and I had this Kiplingish vision that Jews are Jews, and Muslims are Muslims and never the twain shall meet, and therefore was quite apprehensive about visiting Israel and Palestine. The memories of having a passport that once stated “Valid for all countries except Israel” or something to that effect kept revolving in my mind, and I felt twinges of guilt.

We set out from Heathrow, London on December 21, 2016, and flew directly

Temple of Artemis

Photos: Fariha PH

to Amman. On our first night in Jordan as we checked into a rather deserted hotel in downtown Amman, I felt depressed. The news that ten people, including a few tourists, were killed three days ago as gunmen stormed into Karak Castle did not help either -- a grim reminder of the Holey Artisan attack.

Next morning we made our first excursion to Ajloun Castle, commissioned by Salauddin Ayyubi, the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria and founder of the The Dome of the Rock Ayyubid dynasty. He was a Kurdish Sunni Muslim, and played an active role against the Crusaders in Palestine. Having travelled extensively through Europe, it was interesting to visit a ”Muslim” castle-cum-fortress for a change. As we were on our way to the Greco-Roman ruins in Jerash, the gloominess soon dissipated. There were practically no other tourists to share these glorious sights with, such bright sunshine and a refreshing cool breeze. I could not believe we were an hour’s drive from the Syrian border: It was quiet and peaceful.

Though we felt excitement, there was none in the air. Only dejection.

Tourism has been greatly affected since 2012 by the Syrian war and livelihoods were lost. People were stealing old coins and artefacts from museums in desperation for money, handing over heritage for cash. The Syrian war has not just created human casualties. One enters Jerash through Hadrian’s Gate, and walks around the ruins through to the Road to Damascus. As we stood on the Road contemplating, a young boy said, “Look at the road to Syria. It is so peaceful here. Why don’t people come? Why are the tourists staying away?” I had no answer.

One of the many available tour guides told me that Jordan was 5% Christian.

He said he was a Christian and his Muslim friends always celebrated Christmas with him, just like his family celebrated Eid with their Muslim friends. Various communities in areas bordering Syria had lived in harmony with one another for years, so no one he knew could understand the Syrian war. I had hoped to gain some insight into the conflicts in Syria, but I certainly did not, even though I was less than 60 kilometres away from it. Incidentally I checked the CIA World Factbook and it stated Jordan is less than 3% Christian, the majority of whom are Greek Orthodox. Maybe the community he lived in was

8 ARTS & LETTERS

DHAKA TRIBUNE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017

Travel 5% Christian, maybe the statistics can be contested. Discussion and print do not necessarily reflect each other -- I learned on this trip.

Later in the afternoon we visited the Citadel in Amman, a fascinating site with layers of the Bronze Age, and Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ummayad civilisations. I came away with a bit of trivia that Philadelphia was the name of an old Greek city in that location. Does that mean the Philly sandwich had evolved from the shwarma?

On the second day we visited Mount Nebo and a Greek Orthodox Church in Madaba.

Mount Nebo was the site from where Hazrat Musa had seen the Promised Land. What spectacular views of the Jordan Valley from that location! It was an overwhelming experience, and yes I cried. That, and the sneaky pleasure of not having throngs of tourists, pushing and shoving their way around. Standing where Hazrat Musa had once stood, I was beginning to understand, ever so slightly, the politics of this region.

The third day Petra the Rose City was on the itinerary. As expected, it was beautiful, especially the colours of the rocks and there were more tourists here than I had seen elsewhere.

Opposite the Treasury in Petra there was a little café where I spotted a few boxes with ”Holey” written on them. Our guide noticing my interest held the box up against the Treasury and asked me to take a picture. I did, but with a grimace. There was a man standing there, an unoccupied tour guide I think, and he asked me why I was interested in Holey biscuits. I explained the significance and briefly described the event in Dhaka. He expressed no surprise or shock. He asked me if people like him who were living near Syria had no interest in becoming entangled in the conflicts there, what did boys in faraway Bangladesh hope to achieve by involving themselves in such acts, killing foreigners? Once again, I had no answer.

On the fourth day we travelled from Petra to Little Petra to the Dead Sea via Wadi Rum. We spotted the tomb of Hazrat Haroon, the brother of Hazrat Musa, on top of a mountain, and saw the most beautiful rock formations.

Wadi Rum is stunning! I walked around singing loudly and heard the sound echo three times over. I could understand why the Bedouins were inclined to sing poetry: Such breathtaking sights would inspire anyone! Seeing that I was ecstatic, our guide, a Bedouin himself, offered me boarding in his mother’s cave. Plan B. Plus first time Bedouin proposition.

Our fifth day was spent in a resort by the Dead Sea and on our last day in Jordan we visited Bethany beyond the Jordan or Al Maghtas. I did not understand the significance of the site until I got there. Our taxi driver, a Jordanian Muslim, told me I would be amazed by the little lake. The little lake turned out to be one of the holiest sites in Christianity. The water from the Jordan river flowed through a brook and into a little pond where Jesus Christ, according to Christianity, had been baptised, and therefore this place is considered the origin of Christianity. Muslims believe it is also the site

where Hazrat Illias had ascended to Heaven. Overlooked by a Greek Orthodox Church, a brook was the border between Jordan and Israel, separated by just a few feet of water, the Israeli side being a baptism site for the Jews. Some however believe that Hazrat Isa’s baptism site was on the Israeli side. To me it did not matter. It was more than fascinating observing Christians and Muslims collecting the Holy Water in containers and immersing themselves in the brook on the Christian side, and Jews doing the same on the Jewish side.

The three Abrahamic faiths engaging in identical rituals in one place; Judaism, Christianity, and Islam intertwined. And we still cannot get along!

From Bethany as we drove to Allenby or King Hussein Bridge our Jordanian Muslim driver asked us how long we were going to Israel for. I answered rather hesitatingly, bracing myself for the hyperventilation and the accusatory tone of daring to visit the enemy state. Instead, I was told in a matter of fact manner that we ought to have gone to Israel first and come to Jordan later through Aqaba. Apparently Aqaba is a more picturesque crossing used by Israelis as well. It transpired that our driver was a Palestinian, a second- generation Jordanian national. He himself had wanted to visit Israel but was denied a visa, however his wife was a Palestinian national and she could come and go whenever she wished.

Customs and immigration at King Hussein on the Jordanian side were nothing complicated. A short five-minute drive and we reached the Israeli side. To my surprise the border patrol guards at the Israeli checkpoint were young, extremely attractive women! Customs and immigration at Allenby were not complicated either. Our driver on the Israeli side was delayed and we were offered coffee as we waited. I noticed the drivers holding up signs with Muslim names and I learned that Israelis do not use the Allenby bridge.

The drive from Allenby to Jerusalem is an hour long and as we entered the city, the Mt Scopus campus of the famous Hebrew University was on the right.

The hotel check-in was smooth, and I noticed both Muslims and Jews were working there.

It is very reductive to state simply that Old Jerusalem is a Holy City for Muslims, Christians, and Jews. It is more than that. It is concurrently the point of their confluence and their divergence

Little Petra

9 DHAKA TRIBUNE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017

ARTS & LETTERS

Travel

Al-Maghtas: The baptism site of Hazrat Isa

The Writer has an MA in Human Rights and International Relations and is currently enrolled in a second MA in Psychosocial Studies at the University of London.

O Jerusalem! It is very difficult to describe this city, and Old Jerusalem more so. Over five thousand years of civilisations layer upon layer in one square kilometre. From the top of Mount of Olives the building that stands out is undoubtedly the Dome of the Rock. The Sacred Rock where Abraham had sacrificed his son, and from where Prophet Hazrat Muhammad had ascended to Heaven, encased under the beautiful Dome. It is no wonder that mountains and rocks and water are of such great significance in the religious texts, as they make up the terrain. The Dome and the Masjid Al-Aqsa, which lies atop the Cradle of Jesus, are lovely spots away from the hustle and bustle of the Haram esh Sharif (Muslims control the entry into the Dome and Al Aqsa and people from all other faiths are allowed to roam the area freely, while Israeli guards oversee the security. The Western Wall is accessible to everyone as is the Church of Holy Sepulchre, which houses the tomb of Hazrat Isa (or Jesus Christ), and since 1187 a Muslim family has held the keys to the Church! It is very reductive to state simply that Old Jerusalem is a Holy City for Muslims, Christians, and Jews. It is more than that. It is concurrently the point of their confluence and their divergence.

Finally, Palestine: The cities of Bethlehem, Ramalla, and Jericho in the

The Road to Damascus in Jerash

A view of the Holy Land from Mount Nebo

West Bank. All in Area A, controlled by Palestinian authorities, and off-limits to Israelis. The Church of Nativity in Bethlehem is the site where Hazrat Isa was born, therefore it is a busy tourist area with shops and restaurants. Our guide there was ironically a Muslim named Mohammad, holding a Russian passport and fluent in Arabic, Hebrew and Russian. Ramalla was a different story. At the infamous Qalandiya Crossing it was the first time in my life I saw the vision of dystopia. Battered cars one on top of another, graffiti, and the sight of Palestinians streaming out one by one through the exit barriers. The only sounds were of the movement of cars and people. There was a lot of traffic in Ramalla but I saw a few people. As we walked around a shopkeeper asked us where we were from. I responded by saying, “I’m a Bangladeshi, living in the UK.” He said he had met two British Bangladeshi men once and he was surprised how disrespectful they were about the Jewish faith. He said their talk had made him feel uncomfortable. I spoke to another Palestinian who was soon to marry an ex-nun from Romania.

The tomb of Yasser Arafat and the Museum are beside the administrative offices of the Palestinian authorities in Ramalla. It was the morning when the news headlines were dominated by Kerry’s two-state solution, but there was no flurry of activity, no men in suits carrying files in and out of the buildings, no congregation of cars, just sunshine and quiet. Jericho was different from Bethlehem and Ramalla. There were more tourists than in Ramalla, but more empty houses as well. People bought property there as investment due to its proximity to King Hussein/Allenby.

Traversing parts of the West Bank over three days I met many people who told me that “Ahmadiyyas have chosen to live in Israel for its religious tolerance,” that the Druze are not really considered Muslims, that “Shias too live in Israel and Palestine,” that there “is a group called the Arabs of 48 who can serve in the Israeli army,” that many Jerusalemites “hold Jordanian passports,” that the Knesset “is on land belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church,” that churches “own prime land in Jerusalem,” that the Palestinian standard of education “is lower than that of the Israeli one but there is an option of a conversion course,” that a degree from Hebrew University “opens up opportunities for the Palestinians to work in Israel,” that “Palestinians not only speak Arabic, but also Hebrew and other languages,” that the settlements, checkpoints, and the presence of Israeli army on Palestinian land “provoke unimaginable indignation and rage.”

I cannot verify the accuracy of all that I was told, and I cannot draw any conclusions other than that the Arab-Israeli conflicts are much more nuanced than I could imagine, and the Syrian war too. We did not witness any violent or noisy confrontations of any kind, rather all the Jordanians, Israelis and Palestinians we met were polite, progressive, and peace-loving.

We would love to revisit these countries as the saying goes, “We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us”. l

Ummayad Mosque in the Citadel, Amman

10 ARTS & LETTERS

DHAKA TRIBUNE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017

Sakrain

Photos: Pranjal Selim

Of kites, colours and lights Celebrated on the last day of the Bengali month Poush, it is one of those festivals where hundreds of people gather to celebrate the change in seasonal cycle through a spectacular show of colours and free spirit

n Farhana Susmita

I

t’s not unusual to lose your way in Old Dhaka. If you are not paying attention, you might feel dizzy in the maze of its numerous streets and alleys. You might also feel a bit claustrophobic, standing in a narrow street, having a strange sense of detachment from the rest of the world.

To many of us who proudly proclaim to have come from the “new town,” old Dhaka is often reduced to a bizarre collage of chaos, filth and stench with seemingly unending traffic; with buildings that stand in fear of crumbling to the ground with a slight tremor; and of course, with the once mighty Buriganga, the ghost of a river that can only make its presence felt with the stench of its black water.

This picture, however partial, was slowly becoming the only picture of this part of the town in my mind, until I started to take a bus almost every day to Jagannath University. Soon after the initial trials and tribulations of reaching my destination lessened, I could feel the old city slowly unfolding itself bit by bit. As I started to explore those labyrinthine streets that, at times I felt, were under some spell, the old town displayed its true magic—its insistence on festivity to such an extent is impossible in the “modernised” part of the city.

Sakrain—the annual winter festival celebrated on the last day of the Bengali month Poush, is one of those festivals where hundreds of people gather to celebrate the change in seasonal cycle through a spectacular show of colours and free spirit. It’s a tour de force-- you laugh, you scream, and you want to come back again and again.

For someone whose workplace is near Shakhari Bazar, festivals are never too far away. As far as my knowledge went, I only knew Sakrain to be a daylong

kite festival followed by fireworks and releasing sky lanterns in the evening.

But I never knew the extent to which it could go.

Sakrain is held across many parts of the town including Laxmibazar, Shutrapur, Shakhari Bazar, Tantibazar, Jagannath University, Lalbagh, Dhupkhola and Shadarghat. Each location has its own way of celebrations and it is nearly impossible to visit all the places in one day.

When we were walking down the streets, the air of festivity was already in the air—children holding kites they had been flying all day, adults walking hurriedly with the fireworks, people of all ages ready to climb up the stairs to reach the rooftop of whatever house they can.

We went to the house of Mullick Brothers, owners of a well known publishing house. They had the tallest building in that area, and one of their younger brothers was a student at the department where I work as a lecturer now. They gave us a warm reception. Takmila and Pranjal, the photographers in our group brought all their accessories. After reaching the rooftop, I looked up and did exactly what I had done last year, I screamed at the top of my voice looking at the fireworks, sky lanterns, and laser lighting all together with the night sky in the background.

I walked to the railing and looked down: All the houses were decorated with lights and all the rooftops crowded with people. They indeed looked engrossed with enjoying life collectively. The sky that was covered with kites during the whole day transformed completely in the evening. Watching the fireworks rocket up straight into the sky, breaking into thousands of pieces of coloured light soon to disappear made me believe this was actually what I had been waiting all my life to see. As I kept on looking for a long time, I started to feel a bit dizzy, faced as I was with some questions. After some time, I found myself questioning my own reality and the thought of coming back to the “New Dhaka” -- the place where we lived -- sounded outlandish and unreal.

The people of Old Dhaka--who love to eat Mughlai dishes, live in dilapidated houses on narrow streets crammed with rickshaws, cars and buses are also the people who know how to enjoy life and celebrate it in their own way.

When they participate in a festival, which they frequently do, the sense of authenticity and vigour that they bring in is very rare indeed.

I know I will get busy living again, coping with increasing pressure at work, but I know for a fact that no matter how bumpy or smooth my journey in the new year becomes, I’ll always look forward to Sakrain next year, to the lively people who celebrate it, to the kites that occupy the sky and to the fireworks that light up the sky. l

The writer teaches English Literature at Jagannath University, Dhaka.

11 DHAKA TRIBUNE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017

ARTS & LETTERS

Theatre review

Memory-Space interplay: Ibsen’s Ghosts at Hyderabad University n Ahmed Ahsanuzzaman For theatre is, in whatever revisionist, futurist, or self-dissolving form—or in the most proleptic desire to forget the theatre—a function of remembrance. Where memory is, theatre is. –Herbert Blau, The Audience, 1990

Dr Ahmed Ahsanuzzaman is professor of English and the Director (in-charge), Fine Arts Institute of Khulna University.

A theatre enthusiast, Ahsanuzzaman obtained both his MPhil and PhD from Oslo University, Norway.

Memory plays a very significant role in theatre. Memory as remembrance and as the past keeps coming back over and again to what Marvin Carlson would call The Haunted Stage (2003). Carlson takes the lead from Herbert Blau’s provocative observation about theatre’s ghostliness (1987) that as spectators “we are seeing what we saw before” to remark that “all plays in general might be called Ghosts”, with “the images of the dead continuing to work their power on the living, of the past reappearing unexpectedly and uncannily in the midst of the present”. Memory shapes-reshapes and/or draws-redraws the empty space of theatre.

The theatrical space—be it a conventional walled proscenium or a vast stretch of open land—interacts with memory to produce meanings, if any.

That’s the impression one will probably form after seeing the performance of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts by the fifth semester students of Theatre Arts Department, Sarojini Naidu School of Hyderabad University.

The production, guided by Anuradha Kapur, one of India’s celebrated directors, with Sarika Pareek and Firos Khan, uses “memory as material.” As the three guides note in the playbill, “The students made work on several theamatics: memory as landscape, memory as object, memory as recapture.” Premièred on December 8 to kick off the three-day international roundtable on “Ibsen and Theatrical Modernity: New Dramaturgies and Performance Manifestations” and attended by thirteen academics and theatre practitioners (including the author of this review) from Bangladesh, India, France, Norway and South Korea, the performance was configured like a series of experiences on the site of the Department. The Memory-space interplay was mediated through characters; hence the production simultaneously intertwined three forces, both physical and metaphysical—the open strip of land, the department’s corridors, backyards as well as the rooftops, and the humans and of course memory. The students’ production of Ghosts featuring a journey from the burning house to the burning ghat literally made the spectators “co-players” as it asked them to walk with the performers to different sites of performance.

They became so integral to the performance that to someone seeing the event from a distance it might as well have appeared that they were a part of the same production team.

The “dig” into the Ibsen text begins with a sequence aptly titled The Burning House in which a house burns down to ashes. The next sequence, Exhuming, digs up the secrets of the Alvings, the Engstrands and Pastor Manders. Bones reveals the family connections of the characters. The episode

called Nightmare Mrs Helene Alving speaks of the condition of her marriage, the Graveyard depicts Mrs Alving tending the graves of her memories. In Edge Engstrand persuades Regina to join his hotel business.

Memory or the work of remembrance is of paramount importance in Playground. In this episode Captain Alving, Mrs Helene Alving, Oswald Alving and Pastor Manders replay their lives. Confessions on the Steps move in the same direction as Mrs Alving once again confronts her past in it; the sequence is a soul-search and Mrs Alving tells Regina about her precarious position in the Alving household.

The next sequence, Flood, shows Mrs Alving’s drowning by her sorrows while Ambulance depicts an Oswald who is overpowered by his illness. An agonised Oswald is desperately in the lookout for light—“the sun, the sun.”

The Department’s rooftops are used as the burning ghat, the final episode of the performance. The sequence is a fitting finale as it shows how the intertwined lives are turned to cinder. Thus the journey comes full circle, from the burning house to the burning ghat, from one fire to another. Whether the fire is an emblem of destruction or it heralds a new beginning, “baptism by fire,” remains open-ended.

Conceived of as an epic, this refreshing take on Ibsen’s Ghosts is a remarkable adaptation. It shows how an Ibsen text can be used as an inspiration for making performance in pursuit of contemporary realities by the new generation theatre activists. Kudos to the students, the guides and the faculty of Theatre Arts Department of Hyderabad University for an absorbing performance! l

Photos: John Basheer

12 ARTS & LETTERS

DHAKA TRIBUNE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017

Book review

Examining the unexamined n Zubier Abdullah Broadly speaking, works of fiction can be classified into two classes – books that do not demand much of the reader and books that do. Most are familiar with the former – the likes of Dan Brown, John Grisham and Sidney Sheldon who do not want to discomfort the reader. On the opposite pole, you have your Joyce, Nabokov and Foster Wallace, to name just a few.

In between, you have Ikhtishad Ahmed and his debut short story collection, Yours, Etcetera. He has previously published two collections of poetry and a play, The Deliverance of Sanctuary.

While reading these stories, you will feel they are written by a man who does not pull his punches. The subjects he deals with are the ones most writers shy away from. In these stories Ahmed uses brevity of words to convey deep meaning and significance. A small detail, a throwaway line on one page may have greater significance much later on in the story -- a minute gesture may offer some real insight into the psychology of a character or the sequence of events.

The stories, while grounded in reality, also verge on the realm of the absurd. Each story possesses a strong theme and underlying social commentary. In “Guilty by Association”, Ahmed examines the unexamined.

In “Penetralia”, he throws light on the growing racism and tribalism that seems to be sweeping across the world. Their settings, from rural Bangladesh to Central London, from a boarding school in the Indian highlands and beyond, are created on a larger than life canvas. The tag of absurdist fiction might confuse you at the beginning, but as you start reading you find the characters and plot engaging enough to carry on.

If you are looking for cheap thrills, you shouldn’t pick up this book. But this is certainly your book if you are up for a little more than just pleasure, if you want to see more of what can be done with words in the written form. Ahmed is a shining example for aspiring authors from Bangladesh and Yours, Etcetera should be added to anyone’s wish list. l

Zainul Utshab 2016 n

Takir Hossain

The 102nd birth anniversary of Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin (19141976), the man who gave art an institutional shape in this country, was celebrated through a three-day programme at the Fine Arts Faculty of Dhaka University. During the three-day celebration which began on December 29, the FFA wore a festive air.

Cultural Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Noor inaugurated the three-day festival as chief guest and Jahanara Abedin, widow of Shilpacharya, attended the event as special guest. Professor Nisar Hossain, Dean of FFA (Faculty of Fine Arts) University of Dhaka, delivered the welcome speech while Dhaka University Vice Chancellor AAMS Arefin Siddique presided over the inauguration ceremony.

The guests unveiled a book Shotoborsher Alokey Zainul O Prashongik Shilpabhabna. Jahanara Abedin unveiled a bust of Shilpacharya, sculpted by prominent Indian sculptor Tarak Garai.

Apart from the Zainul Mela, which is very popular among DU students, the inaugural day also saw conferring of Zainul Sammanona to Hashem Khan (Bangladesh) and Jogen Chowdhury (India). There was also an exhibition wherein artworks were displayed by teachers and students from all the

Zubier Abdullah is a freelance contributor and short story writer. He is an engineer by training, has graduated from north south university and is currently pursuing his masters in Canada.

Shilpacharya

departments of FFA. Apart from themes of nature and Bengal’s seasonal cycle, Bengali folk traditions, and common people and their joys, frustrations, desires and dreams came as recurrent motifs in the artworks. Some paintings were done with pure architectural lines and shapes while some blended realistic modes of expression with abstract ones. There were quite a few abstract and surreal works as well. l

Takir Hossain is a senior cultural correspondent.

Photo: Mohammad Asad

13 DHAKA TRIBUNE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017

ARTS & LETTERS

Short fiction

The romantic specials Two short pieces give love an astute treatment

n Mashruk Zaman Khan Filling in the gap

The author is currently working for an MNC in the Oil & Gas industry.

He spends his leisure time studying psychology, economics, history and religion. He is also a song writer and a poet.

It’s been 3 years. Although I’ve never admitted it, I’ve grown tired of what started primarily as a telephone relationship.

She has complained saying I don’t call her enough, comment on her posts or do sweet things as I used to. However, I figure those are unnecessary noises.

I call her on alternate days (or at least intended to) and make plans on the weekends. It’s not my fault that she has to work on Fridays too. Nevertheless, I am sure when we start living together, everything wrong will fall into place.

While I start to believe my relationship has reached a level of certainty and so I engage my time in gaining knowledge, solving equations and doing something productive, she starts to interpret my behaviour as “Our relationship is going nowhere”.

Completely unaware of the amount of attention a female mind needs (or perhaps failing to realise that attention is a “need” and not a “want”), I continue my life as it is, ignoring the “unnecessary noise,” which I have been led to believe by society is nothing but an “unimportant female tantrum.”

She meets an old friend at a social event. He is happy to have this opportunity to rejuvenate an old connection and thus hopes to establish a “friendship” and she is happy to find a variety in a life she is already bored with. They come out of the event with the commitment of being in touch from then on.

She finds him attentive and caring. Therefore, it’s a profitable trade. On one hand, he is getting a flirt mate with other potentials and on the other she is getting attention, care and some excitement. They laugh, share remarks, opinions and most dangerous of all, start being there for each other. She realises how like-minded they are and that she can be “herself” with him. He captures a special place in her heart with a smile and some words of humour and charm.

They continue to talk, keeping me somewhat in the dark but not completely so. She mentioned him once or twice having complete faith in my weak memory (of course I didn’t think he was of any importance). Slowly she starts to believe that she has a trustworthy friend.

Her belief becomes so concrete that she says yes to an invitation at his farewell party that he has arranged as he will be on a flight to the western civilisation in search of enlightenment within a few weeks.

His friends tactfully get them alone in his room. To her surprise, he makes his move and tries to kiss her. She pushes him away which apparently makes him realise what he has done was regretful. She walks away from the house and their friendship, but this puts a mark on her and when he leaves she starts missing him. She misses this other guy who was in the right place at the wrong time, being the “fill” in the “gap” I have created.

The next few weeks, she spends hours in her room or in the security of her best friend’s arms, crying her heart out. She feels ashamed and low. Not because the man she trusted tried to take advantage

of her, but because she started to fall for a man while she is committed to another. In the end, she is only human and her shoes fit us all.

The Substitute

For a whole semester we attended classes together but I found no excuse to talk to her. On the script checking day, she broke the ice enquiring my grade.

“B+” I informed.

“With all that talk in class I expected you to be smarter,” she teased.

And that opened the doors to a whole new realm of possibilities. I was attracted to her. There was this flirty vibe about the way she spoke, smiled and teased me around that excited me. She used to call me “atel” which I believe is supposed to be more embarrassing than a nerd.

Within the first week we were close enough to know each other’s grievances, regrets, frustrations, hopes, dreams, failed love stories and scars from the past. But even after knowing everything from birth to how we got there, there could still be a lot more to discover. After all, this could just be a start to anything.

As time passed, I started to care about her. She would be the first person in mind whenever I needed some company, either to share something or just for the sake of it. I felt comfortable around her. Felt like we had a lot in common, that we viewed the world in similar ways and that we both considered the same issues as important.

As we became more comfortable in expressing our vulnerabilities, I started to like her. I thought about her when she wasn’t around, tried to please her with ways she liked and dedicated my entire Facebook time to her. I even felt like doing crazy things for her like going all the way to her neighborhood and standing in front of her building from where I could see her wave and smile from the balcony. She became the priority customer of my attention.

But by this time I had already discovered our “turn off” differences. It was clear we weren’t compatible. So I didn’t entertain the idea of a relationship.

She was special nevertheless. Not as a best friend, not as someone I had a crush on, but still special.

This went on for months, and after a while the excitement started to fade away. The frequency at which we used to communicate became less and slowly we went our separate ways. There was no reason to formally call it off; there was nothing there to begin afresh either (at least there was nothing that could be recognised even as a remote sign under the exsting norms of relationship).

However, whenever I see her or talk to her, I recognise a feeling. I had a thing with her which wasn’t exactly a relationship, but perhaps a substitute for it. l

14 ARTS & LETTERS

DHAKA TRIBUNE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017

Poetry

River Runs Red n Abdullah Al Muktadir The loneliest river in the world Once tried to kill himself But his attempt only created a delighted city For decades Wave-less Along which he flows Throwing curses into the air

Season’s end Abetone

And now when a century has already passed People numberless are dying & being born Boats, trains & wheels are moving forward Shops, brothels, hospitals & graveyards Are growing in numbers day by day This river who once desired a suicide Now detests death more than anything Our city This autumn Will witness something it has never thought of Once we have immersed all our clay-deities This river Who now hates to die Will gather all the scarlet saris Off the soaked bodies To create another river In which he will try to live forever

n Neeman Sobhan Ascending, the only sound is the creak of the cable car swaying between flexed conifers.

You look back, as if from some promontory, at the edge of the world to see the sunny village hurled from your vision like a loose rock ricocheting, receding, lapped up by jagged leafy waves.

Believe It or Not! Rivers in the future will all be red Countless red saris will cover their bodies Or Blood will be their only water

Past the roof of branches, still like the wings of giant lifeless birds, a green silence spreads its amnesia.

February 25 n Marzia Rahman Shawlin

Suddenly your summer world below is gone, blanked out.

Into this vanishing where everything can end or start, you postpone returning for a bit, as you rise and rise into the holy hush of pines, leaving your old cable car creaking far behind.

In this void of the untouchable blue, My sadness and pain grew, So high....

I did not look behind to say goodbye.

When shadow covered the flashing white, Angels went out of sight, So far....

They did not return to where they were.

From the collection “Calligraphy Of Wet Leaves” published by Bengal Lights Books in 2015.

And spring brought the colour yellow, Left nothing but a hollow, In heart....

We could not keep our dreams apart.

15 DHAKA TRIBUNE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017

ARTS & LETTERS

Literary essay

Do you use the plant emoticons on your phone? n Sumona Roy In the parallel universe of emoticons, where there is apparently an icon for every noun and verb – I haven’t found adjectives and adverbs there yet – I have had to search hard to find those that depict plant life in any real way. Yes, I am aware that plants do not send text messages to each other. But animals don’t either. And yet, even in these tiny images, a dog is a dog and not a donkey which, again, is not a horse. That differentiation – a marker of both the ethic and the aesthetic – is essential to both the creator of the emoticon and its recipient.

representative of the love and loyalty and affection that humans traditionally associate with the dog. I’d turn the ‘Hi’ into a ‘Woof’ following the icon of the puppy dog. Unlike the human face turned into happy-sad-angry-scared denominators as in the ‘smileys’, there is only the cute face of the puppy icon.

To communicate anything with it, I have either followed it with another icon – human feet, my abbreviated way of showing affection, the puppy dog doing its normal stuff, touching, smelling, licking human feet. Or I’d had to download an image – not an icon, mind you – of a puppy dog, with its tail between its legs, the word ‘Sorry’ written in a thought bubble. Unlike human faces, then, the emoticons of animals are like statues, incapable of communicating emotion.

That is also why the category ‘plant emoticon’, both on my phone and in this essay, is a bit of an oxymoron. Plants have no emotions, that being a human preserve, as Western philosophers have repeatedly reminded us.

And yet, such is the pretzel-like nature of social life that we use flowers to communicate emotions that we think words might not be able to hold. Roses and rajnigandha, chrysanthemum and hydrangeas, all of these have their social symbolism. To send flowers is one thing, to send a flower or plant icon in a text message is quite another. I don’t quite mean the bouquet of flowers that often accompanies other icons such as stars and hearts in a congratulatory message or one of celebration.

In the botanical garden – though on some mornings I tend to think of it as a herbarium – inside my phone is a collection of generic plants and trees. The staircase-like cut-out icon of the Christmas tree; the rose and the tulip; other flowers so generic that even the most committed dendrophile would find it impossible to identify these five-petalled flowers; the sunflower identifiable more for its visual kinship with the sun than its thalamus, and the maize, both bling in their overt yellowness; a children’s drawing-book sapling and a coconut tree, both unchanged in the character of their lines for generations, perhaps centuries; a maple leaf and a stem with young green leaves. Variants of these in phones everywhere, and two I want to name separately: the mushroom and the cactus. Can you think of anyone you’d like to send a cactus icon to? As for the mushroom, given that we live in the age of the CCTV, it might soon be illegal to send a ‘shroom’ emoticon.

What are these nearly useless emoticons doing inside our phones then? My

Photo: Bigstock

Sumana Roy’s first book, How I Became a Tree, a work of non-fiction, has been published in India in February. She lives in Siliguri in India.

16

The human face is, of course, the central identifying marker of our times – it gives Facebook its name and it gives emojis their body, not to mention its defining role in the bureaucracy of passports and citizenship documents. For a long time I called all these bodiless emoticons ‘smileys’ – that seemed to be their defining characteristic, their performance, the meandering U-curve of the lips, the most important function of this proxy-human. That wasn’t a surprise – humans are expected to smile in their photographs. Happiness, or at least a show of it, makes man authentically human. No animal laughs like men; there are no records of laughing donkeys.

All this is common knowledge. The human voice came to be substituted, in an ad-hoc way, by words on a screen, and that, often, with emoticons. This movement from the auditory to the visual, voice to the optic, ought to have, by natural logic, included the non-human. And so it did, by first bringing in objects of everyday use – from telephones to commodes and bathtubs.

(Though I must confess that I’ve never been the recipient of the commode icon as an abbreviated explanation for what the sender had been up to.) This is easy to understand, as are the other nouns and verbs, the sun standing for a hot day and lipstick for, well, lipstick.

But the animals? This menagerie inside our phones, with all kinds of animals, pets, and the wild and domesticated? How many of us have used any or most of these animal icons in our text messages? Do zoologists use them when writing texts to each other? What are they doing here, inside our phones? Is it political correctness, a kind of tokenism, that made cell phone manufacturers, in their commitment to represent an inclusive world, put animals in it?

I’ve never used any of these animal icons, none except the puppy dog. And that with only one person. In this, the puppy dog is a metaphor, a wordless

Plants have no emotions, that being a human preserve, as Western philosophers have repeatedly reminded us. And yet, such is the pretzel-like nature of social life that we use flowers to communicate emotions that we think words might not be able to hold

closest friend, who is an emoticon virgin for all purposes, and who once sent a heart emoticon not because he wanted to but because his phone translated ‘love’ to that sign, has never sent me an icon related to or representing plant life in spite of his obvious knowledge of my deep affinity for plant life. We have, on various occasions, made jokes about how the human body is available in parts through these emoticons, the heart and the thumb (that all important icon of our times), the face and the feet, but never the neck or liver, for instance. There is no emoticon for tree roots either – it is doomed to remain invisible everywhere. If there was one, I’d have sent it to him right now and waited for a response. l

ARTS & LETTERS

DHAKA TRIBUNE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017