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Bangla Literature: A Critical Overview<br />

<strong>Apratim</strong> Rajib<br />

1<br />

It is generally accepted that Bengali civilization stretches back for more than<br />

thousand years. The two most remarkable achievements of the last millennium are<br />

on the one hand, the growth of Bangla language and literature and on the other<br />

hand, a glorious achievement of sovereign Bangladesh. The literary, cultural and<br />

political development of this land possibly advanced side by side to complement<br />

each other. The culmination of this process is the Language Movement and the birth<br />

of a nation state based on language of the people of the land although Bangla is<br />

spoken by about 300 million people all over the world. It goes without saying that<br />

Bangla literature is one of the richest ones of the world. So it is worthwhile to review<br />

the gradual development and present status of Bangla literature for the benefit of our<br />

present and future generation.<br />

A nation’s history is correlated with the history of its literature. Bengal has<br />

hardly a chronology of her ordinary people but of her aristocrats and (commonly<br />

alien) rulers. Only the history of her literature has a glimpse of her dark past.<br />

However, the periodization of its history is not so easy.<br />

The thousand years long history of Sanskrit (not only Bengali Sanskrit)<br />

literature is a part of our heritage. So Valmiki, Vyasa, Vaas, Kalidasa too are our own<br />

poets. But their time is to be included in the far distant past and our own distinctive<br />

literature started much later. Yet the early Bengali literature was in Sanskrit. The<br />

infant Bangla language, an Indo-Aryan language like Sanskrit itself, was born from<br />

Magadhi Prakrit via Magadhi Abahatta around 1000 A.D. Despite the birth of a new<br />

language, the writers favored Sanskrit and Abahatta till the 12 th century. But actually<br />

those two languages were very close to Bangla.<br />

In the early Middle Ages, our literary realm was mainly dominated by Sanskrit,<br />

Prakrit and Abahatta languages. Many poets and religious thinkers, who were<br />

renowned throughout India, appeared as contributors to those languages. In fact,<br />

since the reign of the Gupta dynasty, Sanskrit literature was being widely practiced in<br />

Bengal. The great Sanskrit poet Kalidasa’s being a Bengali is an assumption under<br />

trial of the researchers. However, Sanskrit poets like Abhinanda, Sandhakar Nundi,<br />

Sree Harsha, Gobardhan Acharya, Dhoyee and Umapatidhar caused Bengal’s glory.<br />

Unfortunately, in periodization of the history of our literature, none of our<br />

scholars has properly estimated the gradual development of art. In fact, a history of<br />

literature should be written emphasizing the art-history. We should keep it in mind<br />

that an age of literature, whether would be named after a ruling class or a person or<br />

ideals of the era, must be relevant to the artistic trend of the time. Moreover,<br />

periodizations made so far by the historians and critics have given birth to some<br />

conventions, and they do not reflect the inherent consciousness of different eras.


2<br />

With the gradual change of civilization and culture, human outlook goes<br />

through continuous alteration. As a result, a writer who is once recognized as great,<br />

may not be so forever. A critic’s judgment of literature is often consciously and<br />

sometimes unconsciously based on the general views of his own time. So my words<br />

also are not a superman’s gospel. The readers are entreated to keep it in mind.<br />

After a careful scrutiny, I have prepared the following list –<br />

The Buddhist Age (8 th -12 th Centuries)<br />

The Turkic Age (13 th Century)<br />

The Sultanate (14 th -15 th Centuries)<br />

The Vaishnava Age or The Age of Chaitanya (16 th Century)<br />

The Mogul Age (17 th Century)<br />

The Nawabi Age (18 th Century)<br />

The Scholastic Age (1801-’58)<br />

The Heroic Age (1858-’90)<br />

The Romantic Age or The Age of Tagore (1890-1936)<br />

The High Modern Age (1936-’60)<br />

The Liberation (1960-’90)<br />

The Postmodern Age (Since 1990)<br />

2<br />

Historical Development<br />

The Buddhist Age (8 th -12 th Centuries)<br />

Buddhism is one of the greatest philosophies of the antiquity. Buddhism,<br />

unlike other religions, emphasizes the development of self rather than worship of an<br />

imaginary god. It teaches a person to free oneself of evil and harmful instincts and to<br />

attain the blissful state of Nirvana. It is a truly humanistic religion which shows the<br />

mankind the way of having a high order of humanity.<br />

The first glimmer of our unique national literature was actually seen around<br />

the 8 th century AD when Bengal came under the control of the Buddhist Pal dynasty.<br />

Then people’s self-consciousness of their regional identity was arising and its sign<br />

was in the growth of their own culture.<br />

Buddhism in Bengal had remarkable distinctiveness from other Buddhist<br />

countries. People here worshipped several Buddhist gods and goddesses who were<br />

believed to have attained Nirvana. This faith was slowly merging with other Indian<br />

religions including Hinduism. In Bengal, Tantric and Sahajiya Buddhism developed<br />

among common people, which later resulted in flowering of Vaishnava and Baul<br />

mysticisms.


3<br />

By that time, Buddhism was in the way of transition from its stoic feature to an<br />

epicurean one. Thus sexuality, which was discouraged by its early preachers,<br />

became in course of time, an auspicious part of its ritual.<br />

The Buddha was then accepted even by the Hindus as their avatar. Its proof<br />

is the 12 th -century Sanskrit poet Jayadeva’s work Gitogobindam. Acclaimed as the<br />

epic of Vaishnavism, this poem possesses a psalm on the Buddha. Now some critics<br />

even claim this poem to belong to the Vajrayan school of Buddhism.<br />

In 1907, Dr. Haraprasad Shastri (1853-1931) discovered a Banga-Kamrupiya<br />

(i.e. the earliest form of Bangla and Assamese) script in Nepal’s Royal archive and<br />

published entitling Charya-Charya-Binischay. It is in fact, an anthology of Buddhist<br />

Sahajiya mystic (Charya) songs. However, this poetic collection is claimed by at<br />

least six languages – Bangla, Assamese, Oriya, Maithili, Hindi and Manipuri.<br />

Charya-Charya-Binischay includes the songs of Lui Pada, Kanho Pada, Sabar<br />

Pada, Kukkuri Pada, Dhendon Pada, Vusuku Pada, Shoroho Pada and many others.<br />

Through this work, Bangla literature was born and started to walk in its long-destined<br />

way. A masterpiece of the era, it is in fact the progenitor of our dear mother-tongue.<br />

The poets of Charyas depicted the lives of lower class and ‘untouchable’<br />

people (like boatmen, potters, hunters etc.) in the surface. But they in fact reveal<br />

spiritual ideas supported by Sahajiya Tantric Buddhism.<br />

The Tantric Buddhists relied on sexual practice as a part of their religiosity;<br />

their notion of sex too is evident in this book. Later this cult developed into<br />

Vaishnava Sahajiya, Nath and Baul mysticisms; so the subsequent Bengali culture<br />

bore their inheritance.<br />

There are some beautiful imageries in the anthology, for example –<br />

“High mountain, there lives the hunter girl,<br />

Peacock feathers are her attire, a Gunja-garland is around her neck.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

The following lines refer to those days’ poverty-stricken people’s lives –<br />

“My home is on a small hill, I have no neighbor,<br />

No rice is there in my pitcher, starvation lasts forever.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

Dak, Khana’s Bachans (i.e. utterances) and a huge number of fairy tales too<br />

are believed by some scholars to belong to this era. Khana was a legendary<br />

astrologer who gave rhymed counsels to the common public.<br />

Atish Dipankar Srijman (982?-1053), the most renowned scholar of the age,<br />

is believed to have written Charya songs in Banga-Kamrupiya. Unfortunately only the<br />

Tibetan translations of his works survive.<br />

Some scholars imagine that some writings of ‘Nath’ literature (which really can<br />

be traced since the 17 th century) might have been done in the Buddhist era. But not<br />

a single piece of writing of that genre has been discovered yet.<br />

In this context, it is noteworthy that the languages of the whole Eastern India<br />

(including Bengal, Kamrupa, Maghad and Kalinga) were closely similar in those<br />

days. So it was an age of the entire Eastern Indian literature.


4<br />

The Turkic Age (13 th – Mid 14 th Centuries)<br />

The Turkic general Bakhtiyar Khilji conquered Gaur in 1203. A fear of their<br />

invasion had haunted the rulers’ and the common people’s mind since before. After<br />

conquering the province, the Turks ruled it for nearly one and a half century.<br />

Bengal’s antique cultural progress was obstructed by this unexpected and shocking<br />

invasion by barbaric foreigners. Bloodshed, torture, harassment, forced conversion,<br />

looting and destruction of scripts, sculptures, temples and properties followed.<br />

Bengal’s cultural world was totally submerged by frustrating darkness; the soul of the<br />

Bengali nation was in fact wounded and paralyzed.<br />

As a result, probably no literature was produced in that era; and even if<br />

produced, those have not come to our hands. Literary practice in this province had to<br />

wait for another century. Yet some hold the idea that the medieval poet Ramai<br />

Pundit wrote Shunyopuran in the 13 th century; but their opinion is not supported by<br />

linguistic evidence.<br />

The Turkic rulers began to marry native girls; as a result, a new race called<br />

Bengali-Turkic emerged. Thus the Turkic Muslims were slowly integrating in the<br />

mainstream of Bengali society. History gave the hint that they would make effective<br />

role in Bengali culture in the next century.<br />

The Sultanate (Mid 14 th –15 th Centuries)<br />

In course of time, the alien brutes were slowly merging with the native people<br />

of our province. The rulers even started patronizing our art and culture. Thus, since<br />

the 14 th century, literary pursuit had a rebirth under patronage of the independent<br />

sultans.<br />

The historians recognize Fakruddin Mubarak Shah as the first sultan of<br />

Bengal. He declared himself as a distinctive monarch in 1338. Thereafter many<br />

feudal lords ruled the Bengal Sultanate until it was merged with the Mogul Empire in<br />

the early 17 th century. But it is noteworthy that the sultans’ reign in literature lasted<br />

only till the 15 th century; afterward it came under the influence of the Chaitanya<br />

movement.<br />

Poetical works of the era were quite creative, besides free translations of<br />

Sanskrit texts. Although poets had no common trend, the age holds the features that<br />

sultans and rajas patronized many of them, and a new language which was not more<br />

than a dialect before, became the vehicle of literature.<br />

Sultan Shamsuddin Ilias Shah, Raja Ganesh, Raja Shiva Singha (King of<br />

Mithila), Sultan Ruknuddin Barbak Shah, Sultan Hussain Shah and some other<br />

monarchs patronized Bangla literature.<br />

Baru Chandidas’s Sree-Krishna-Kirtan is the first ever surviving work of the<br />

period. It is considered a masterpiece of the Middle Ages.<br />

Krittibas Ojha, patronized by either Raja Ganesh or Sultan Ruknuddin Barbak<br />

Shah, wrote Sree-Ram-Panchali based on the Sanskrit epic Ramayana. Rama had<br />

less popularity than Krishna in medieval Bengal. That is why literature on Rama did


5<br />

not flourish here. Krittibas’s work is also not at per with Tulsidas’s Hindi epic Ram-<br />

Charit-Manas. However, it is a remarkable work of the early Middle Ages.<br />

Vidyapati Thakur (poet laureate of Mithila) is immortal for his Vaishnava<br />

Padas (i.e. Kirtan songs). He composed love songs (surrounding the myth of Radha<br />

and Krishna) that have artistic delicacy and romantic imagination.<br />

Narayandev, Bijoy Gupta and Bipradas Piplai wrote Padmapuran (or<br />

Manasha-Mangal). Narayandev’s long poem on the myth of Manasha is often called<br />

an epic by some critics.<br />

Kabindra Parameswar (urged by Sultan Hussain Shah’s military commander<br />

Paragal Khan) and Sreekar Nundi (instructed by Paragal’s son Chuti Khan)<br />

translated Mahabharata in brief.<br />

Sreedhar Kabiraz, under Shahjada Feroze Shah’s patronage, wrote the first<br />

ever Bidya-Sundar.<br />

And Maladhar Basu, who was given the title ‘Gunaraj Khan’ by Sultan<br />

Ruknuddin Barbak Shah, wrote Sree-Krishna-Bijay based on Sreemad-Bhagabat.<br />

The poets of the period were sold by heart and soul to the feudal rulers. A<br />

sense of dependence, fear and helplessness gripped their mind. They expressed<br />

their allegiance to the gods and goddesses in a time of feudal despotic rule. Their<br />

gods and goddesses are also authoritarian and tyrant. Free will and humanistic ideas<br />

are absent in their writings. They only served the demand of their age, which was – a<br />

revival of Hinduism. And the era mainly produced mythic and folk culture.<br />

The Vaishnava Age or The Age of Chaitanya<br />

(16 th Century)<br />

Vaishnavism is a stream within Hinduism which is based on the popular<br />

worship of the god Vishnu and his two incarnations named Rama and Krishna. The<br />

movement of Bhakti (love for a personal god) developed in the middle ages<br />

surrounding these two avatars. Particularly in Bengal, Krishna captured the public’s<br />

mind.<br />

The 16 th century was the era of the Vaishnava movement led by the mystic<br />

philosopher Sree Chaitanya (1485-1533). It made a vast influence on the whole<br />

culture of the period named after him. Chaitanya preached the doctrine of ‘Love and<br />

Devotion’ (i.e. Prem-Bhakti Dharma), which interprets the love of the heroine Radha<br />

for her deity Krishna as a devotee’s love for God. The ritual he initiated was just<br />

choral performances of Kirtan songs with spontaneous dance. Although he himself<br />

was not a writer, his movement gave birth to a rich literature in an age of the<br />

Vaishnavites.<br />

It was the age of Chaitanya. His Vaishnava mysticism changed the course of<br />

history of the entire Eastern India. He was in fact a prophet who, with visionary and<br />

spiritual touch, made our culture having golden fruits.<br />

Around him, even a new genre i.e. hagiography developed in Bangla.<br />

Brindabandas, Lochandas, Jayananda, Krishnadas Kabiraz and some other poets<br />

wrote his hagiographies. Among these works, Krishnadas’s Sree-Chaitanya-


6<br />

Charitamrita is a poetic gift and historically remarkable. Brindabandas’s Chaitanya-<br />

Bhagabat is a well-reliable work on Chaitanya’s life and contemporary Bengal.<br />

The Vaishnava poets saw him from very close distance. They comprehended<br />

his mystic doctrines and greatness of his life-story. The hagiographers and Padapoets<br />

drew their guru’s life-sketches and images like class painters. He influenced<br />

the whole Bhakti movement of India, which he himself had initiated. The<br />

contemporary poets glorified Chaitanya’s life what Jayadeva had done for Krishna. In<br />

this context, two lines from Sree-Chaitanya-Charitamrita are notable: Vishnu (of who<br />

Chaitanya is recognized an ‘incarnation’) made an oath in heaven –<br />

“I shall descend on the earth for having three tastes<br />

Having the complexion and appearance of Radha.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

And his intention, as the poet says, is to know the madness of Radha’s love<br />

for her divine lover. The message is that one gets salvation if one loves God like a<br />

true lover. And Chaitanya is, to his followers, a ‘fusion incarnation’ of Krishna and<br />

Radha in a single body.<br />

The poets influenced by Chaitanya’s philosophy also made an analogy<br />

between love and lust – lust is the sexual impulse for another living being while love<br />

is such one for Krishna.<br />

Chaitanya declared that there is no caste-divide for the worship of Krishna;<br />

Brindabandas recalls his word in Chaitanya-Bhagabat –<br />

“An untouchable is no untouchable, if he calls ‘Krishna’,<br />

A Brahmin is no Brahmin, if he walks along sinful path,<br />

Whoever worships, is the devotee, a heretic is a mean damned,<br />

Neither caste nor creed Krishna-puja demands.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

Chaitanya gave a sharp conception of the depth of mystic love. In order to<br />

glorify his godlike guru, Krishnadas says –<br />

“He is the main dancer, all the rest are co-dancers;<br />

Everyone dances in the way he wishes.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

However, these are just conceptions of the Middle Ages and quite archaic<br />

now.<br />

Nevertheless, the inner richness, ornamental language and astonishing<br />

philosophy of Vaishnava literature are eligible to be compared to the classics of<br />

world literature.<br />

The period was influenced by Chaitanya in mainly four ways –<br />

1. Vaishnava Padas conveyed his mystic ideas,<br />

2. Vaishnava Padas even about him were composed,<br />

3. A new genre – hagiography was created centering his life, and<br />

4. Verse-fictions (actually Mangal-Kabyas) having humanistic ideas were<br />

written.<br />

Vaishnava Pada-literature reached its peak in this period. The greatest poet of<br />

this genre is Chandidas. Unlike others of the era, his Padas are rich in witty words<br />

and attractive naivety. His historicity is untraced and therefore, I include him in


7<br />

Chaitanya’s era as the mystic features of his songs bear a resemblance to the poetry<br />

of this time.<br />

Balaramdas, Gandas, Gobindadas Kabiraz, Narottamdas, Basanta Ray,<br />

Shekhar Ray were other Vaishnava poets. But the fundamental difference between<br />

the pre-Chaitanya and the Chaitanya literature is that while the former poets wrote<br />

literally erotic poems, the latter ones composed Vaishnava lyrics based on mystic<br />

thoughts. They even wrote songs on Chaitanya as he himself was deemed ‘an<br />

incarnation of Krishna, who wanted to achieve a taste of the divine love of Radha for<br />

himself having her fair complexion’.<br />

Avayamangal (or Chandimangal), a poetical work by Mukunda Chakraborty,<br />

is a social document of that time. It can be called a verse-novel and some critics hold<br />

assumption that the author would be a novelist in lieu of poet if he took birth in the<br />

modern era.<br />

Raghunath Pundit wrote Sree-Krishna-Prem-Tarangini based on Sreemad-<br />

Bhagabat. And Kashiram Das translated the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata.<br />

The Mogul Age (17 th Century)<br />

The Moguls of Delhi completed their occupation of Bengal in the first decade<br />

of the 17 th century. The name of Maan Singh, the true founder of Mogul rule in<br />

Bengal, was first mentioned in a Bangla writing in 1601. Along with the Moguls, their<br />

art and lifestyle too were taken by the Bengalis; especially Persian and Hindustani<br />

poetry and music made profound influence on Bengali art and culture.<br />

Although Bengal was not endowed with any architectural masterpiece like the<br />

Taj Mahal, our literature kept pace with the literatures of other Indian languages.<br />

Leaned toward one of the richest literatures of the world (i.e. Persian and Hindi), the<br />

Muslim poets of Bengal introduced a new poetic tradition. So the 17 th century is<br />

justifiably named the Mogul Age as it encompasses a huge amount of literary<br />

classics contributed predominantly by the Muslim poets under the political and<br />

cultural influence of the Mogul Empire.<br />

The art and literature of the Mogul reign were secular and quixotic. Poets<br />

under their influence championed beauty, love and mysticism in their writings. The<br />

Bengali poets of the age followed Persian and Hindi literature a lot; many works were<br />

adapted from these two languages. They took secular stories and wrote verses with<br />

Sufi mystic tinge.<br />

With the Mogul invasion, Bangla literature lost its royal patronage. The<br />

Bengali poets now found petty feudal rulers as their patrons.<br />

Especially the Muslim poets of Arakan (now in Burma), Chattagram and<br />

Sreehatta contributed to the poetry of this era. Particularly Arakan court became a<br />

centre of Bengali poets and artists. Poets like Daulat Kazi, Syed Alaol, Mardan and<br />

Magan Thakur wrote romance poems based on stories without deities and those<br />

added a new dimension to medieval Bangla poetry.<br />

Daulat Kazi (?-1638) wrote the incomplete poem Lore-Chandrani O Sati<br />

Mayna which Alaol completed after his death. For his charismatic use of words and


8<br />

metaphors and depth of art, Kazi sometimes seems the most creative poet of the<br />

age.<br />

But Syed Alaol’s (1597?-1673) real reputation lies in the poem Padmabati,<br />

which he wrote taking the story of Malik Muhammad Jaysee’s Hindi romance<br />

Padumabat. Alaol will have a place in history for his liberal outlook and brilliant<br />

combination of poetry, music and dance. He is in fact, the greatest poet of the age as<br />

he perfectly assimilated poetical and musical artistry with theological and humanistic<br />

ideas.<br />

Shah Muhammad Shagir is an important poet of the age. He composed the<br />

Sufi poem Yusuf-Julekha, which is based on a love story.<br />

Syed Sultan composed the epic Nabi-Bangsha which is a great emblem of<br />

non-communalism in medieval Bengal.<br />

A poet named Dwiza Pashupati composed a romance poem titled<br />

Chandrabali. Another poet – Khalil, probably from Sreehatta, wrote a poem titled<br />

Chandramukhi in the Nagari alphabet.<br />

The folk tales of Mymensingh Gitika and Purbabanga Gitika can be included<br />

in this era. Malua and Mahua are two remarkably charming tales.<br />

In the 17 th century, a huge number of Muslim poets emerged. Other wellknown<br />

poets are Shah Birid Khan, Sheikh Faizullah, Abdul Hakim and Mohammad<br />

Khan. Among them, Shah Birid composed Bidya-Sundar and Faizullah wrote<br />

Goroksha-Bijay.<br />

The Nawabi Age (18 th Century)<br />

The Urdu word ‘Nawab’ literally denotes a noble man mainly in medieval<br />

India. In fact a Nawab was lower than a Badshah, Samrat, Sultan or Raja.<br />

Murshid Quli Khan, eventually the first ruling Nawab of Bengal – came to this<br />

province probably in 1700 as the Diwan (i.e. Tax-collector) of Mogul empire. In 1717,<br />

he was appointed as the ‘Nawab Nazim’ (i.e. Revenue & Civil Administrative Officer)<br />

of Bengal by the emperor of Delhi. Gradually he captured the political power of the<br />

state and became its sovereign ruler. Thus in Bengal, a Nawab became practically<br />

equal to a Sultan or Shah.<br />

In 1757, a victory in the battle of Plassey over Nawab Sirajuddaula’s army<br />

gave the British East India Company a recognized authority over this province. They<br />

removed the last independent nawab from power and made Bengal a British colony.<br />

The company was sarcastically called ‘Nawub’ by the Bengali natives, because their<br />

ruling system and attitudes were quite like the nawabs.<br />

The Nawabi Age of Bangla literature actually includes the whole 18 th century –<br />

comprising the independent Nawabs’ and the British East India Company’s (called<br />

‘Nawub’) early rule.<br />

Bengal’s capital Murshidabad was a center of foreign (Persian) culture and its<br />

impact was increasing on our own decadent culture. Then even the elite Hindus<br />

began to learn the Persian language widely. The Hindu and Islamic cultures were


9<br />

slowly merging. Even after the Battle of Plassey and Bengal’s subjection by the<br />

British East India Company (1757), the practice of Persian was still widening.<br />

Faced before the collision of two different foreign races, social stability and<br />

peace were much disturbed. Aesthetic joy and pleasure were fading and emotion<br />

and simplicity took their place. Appreciation of sublime poetry perished and linear<br />

literature and simple outlook replaced it.<br />

Artificial, sentimental and erotically perverse works were written throughout<br />

the period. One of the patrons was Raja Krishnachandra Ray (1710-’82) of Nadiya.<br />

His court-poet Bharatchandra Ray (1712?-’60) wrote the pornographic work Bidya-<br />

Sundar that has ornamental perfection but morally and philosophically is of little<br />

worth.<br />

Ali Raja was a Sufi poet. He expressed his religious ideas in his poems.<br />

Ramprasad Sen (1720?-’81) and Kamalakanta Vattacharya wrote Sakta<br />

Padas (devotional songs addressed to Goddess Kali) that have superfluous<br />

simplicity and emotional outburst.<br />

Rameswar Vattacharya composed Shiv-Mangal and Ghanaram Chakraborty<br />

wrote Dharma-Mangal. Their works too are not free of artificiality.<br />

Even vulgar folk tales were made around a person (historical or imaginary?)<br />

named Gopal Bhar. And Kavi and obscene Kheur songs too were written in many<br />

areas.<br />

Those poetasters actually brought an end to medieval Bengali culture, which<br />

was waiting to revive in a new era of an entirely different environment.<br />

The Scholastic Age (1801-’58)<br />

The British occupied Bengal in 1757. Gradually the entire India became their<br />

colony. As the Turkic invasion of the 13 th century had introduced a new age, the<br />

British occupation brought an amazing change on the life, culture, economy, art and<br />

literature of the nation. Western thoughts and culture began to enter the nation’s<br />

mind; the biggest impact was on its literature. Thus the cultural and cognitive<br />

movement called Bengal Renaissance occurred around the 19 th century. A new age<br />

started for Bengal and marked the beginning of modern Bangla literature.<br />

Our modern literature began its journey in the early 19 th century.<br />

Rediscovering and reshaping were two principal ideologies of the early modern era.<br />

It was the age of the Christian missionaries, the British orientalists, the Brahmo<br />

Samaj, the Young Bengal – the age of Jones, Carey, Rammohun, Derozio,<br />

Vidyasagar and other reformers. The orientalist scholars of the Asiatic Society [e.g.<br />

William Jones (1746-’94)] first sowed the seed of Renaissance by rediscovering<br />

history and literature of the pre-Islamic era. Rammohun introduced the monotheistic<br />

Brahmo movement. Then Derozio advanced the trend of progression further toward<br />

enlightenment based on reason.<br />

It was primarily an age of prose, and of academic books; most of the writers<br />

wrote for scholastic purpose. Bangla prose came into being through translations of<br />

foreign literary works by some scholars, most of whom were associated with the Fort


10<br />

William College. This group includes Ramram Basu (1757?-1813), Chandicharan<br />

Munshi (1760?-1808), William Carey (1761-1834), Mrityunjay Vidyalankar (1762?-<br />

1819), Golaknath Sharma (?-1803), Tarinicharan Mitra (1772?-1837?), Rajiblochan<br />

Mukhopadhyay, Haraprasad Roy, Kashinath Tarkapanchanan (?-1851) and so on.<br />

Among them, perhaps, Carey contributed most, because he founded the Fort William<br />

College and patronized its pundits. The age began in 1801 with the publication of<br />

Ramram Basu’s Raja Pratapaditya Charitra – the first ever prose book in Bangla.<br />

Rammohun Roy (1774?-1833) remarkably bore their inheritance. He was a<br />

social reformer and founder of the Brahmo Samaj, and was also engaged in a longlasting<br />

debate with the Fort William College scholars on primitive religious and social<br />

norms. He expressed his reformist thoughts in miscellaneous languages – Persian,<br />

Arabic, English, Bangla etc. His Bangla works include translations from Vedanta.<br />

Among other mapmakers of prose, Bhabanicharan Bandyopadhyay (1787-1848)<br />

drew satirical social sketches. And Hanna Katherine Mullence wrote the story<br />

Fulmoni O Korunar Biboron (1852) based on a Christian theme.<br />

The radical philosopher and educationist Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809-<br />

’31) made the pioneering role in that historical era. He was a storm-petrel in our<br />

cultural life. As an ideal educator, he procreated an advanced generation. He was<br />

the proponent of the Enlightenment values like bourgeois humanism, secularism and<br />

nationalism in our country. He was a conveyor of the Romantic spirit that had turned<br />

upside down the English culture in the early 19 th century. Derozio made Thomas<br />

Paine’s (1737-1809) The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason popular with his<br />

pupils, who eventually became a new vibrant generation of free thinkers. He taught<br />

them to judge everything on the scale of reason derived from conscience, not<br />

necessarily as he or other superiors instructed. In fact it was not Derozio’s own<br />

philosophy but Reason that reigned over the period. His influence is evident on many<br />

of his contemporary litterateurs especially who graduated from the Hindu College.<br />

Vidyasagar was influenced by his rational and secular ideas, and Bankim took his<br />

nationalistic zeal. In fact it was Derozio’s rationalistic teaching that gave birth to an<br />

epoch that bore reason in its prose writings. He took the consciousness of scholastic<br />

level to its maturity.<br />

Rammohun was an iconoclast – a rebel within the halo of religion; he did not<br />

try to exceed it. He rebelled against the shape and nature of Hinduism, not against<br />

the concept of religion itself. It was Derozio whose scientific teaching on rational<br />

ethics brought about the most alarming changes in those days’ Bengali life. He,<br />

along with his students, made effective role against widow-burning, polygamy, childmarriage<br />

and orthodox Hinduism, and spoke in favor of remarriage of widows and<br />

also for women’s education and freedom. He was accused of being the main<br />

contributor to Bengali youths’ inclination to drinking; his newly found work titled On<br />

Drunkenness gives testimony to his favor of wine-addiction. Such activities of<br />

Derozio made a deep impact on those days’ Bengali psyche.<br />

Derozio’s most famed disciples and pupils, who were known as the Young<br />

Bengal, first appeared in the field of literature through Enquirer and Gananwesan,<br />

two famous literary journals of the age. At least three Bengali writers –<br />

Dakshinaranjan Mukhopadhyay (1812-’87), Krishnamohan Bandyopadhyay (1813-


11<br />

’85) and Piarichand Mitra (1814-’83, whose pseudonym was Tekchand Thakur),<br />

were Derozio’s pupils. The first two of them compiled encyclopedia.<br />

Another leader of the era was Iswarchandra Vidyasagar (1820-’91). He too<br />

was an educationist and used his pen mainly for scholastic purpose. But his literary<br />

endeavor is also evident in his works. He pioneered the creed of the era for shaping<br />

Bangla prose and can be acclaimed the founder of its first standard form. Vidyasagar<br />

fulfilled Derozio’s unaccomplished dream through his movement for widow-marriage<br />

and women’s education. His Shakuntala (1854) and Sitar Banabas (1860) have even<br />

some features of fictional work. The attempt of the Fort William College scholars of<br />

creating Bangla prose finally achieved the goal through him. And following his path,<br />

many other educated persons joined the mission of advancing Bangla prose. Among<br />

them, Kaliprasanna Simha (1840-’70) made a huge prose translation of<br />

Mahabharata.<br />

Akshaykumar Datta (1820-’86) is another unforgettable name. Inspired by late<br />

Derozio’s secular outlook, he was one of the chief propagandists of materialism. His<br />

Bharatbarshiya Upashak Sampraday (1870,’83) is an essay full of information about<br />

the Hindu sects.<br />

But poetic achievement of the phase is not very affluent. Ramnidhi Gupta<br />

(1741-1839) composed secular love songs called Tappa. And Iswarchandra Gupta<br />

(1811-’59) composed satirical poems.<br />

Outside the urban mainstream, mystic Baul song was developed in the<br />

countryside by Fakir Lalan Shah (1774?-1890). His songs are exuberant in inner<br />

depth and remind us of the great mystic poets of medieval Persia. He was influenced<br />

mainly by Sufi and Sahajiya philosophies. Although he composed his songs with<br />

medieval style, history aligns him with the artists of the early modern era.<br />

The Heroic Age (1858-’90)<br />

The failed independence war of 1857-59 (which was called ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ by<br />

the British rulers) created nationalistic fervor all over India. A new search for national<br />

identity was seen in the educated class of a new generation.<br />

Also the radical movement of the early modern era changed into reactionary<br />

views in the late 19 th century. The secular radicalism propagated by the Derozians<br />

gave birth to a counter-reformation, the introducer of which trend was<br />

Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay (1838-’94) and which found its culmination in the<br />

Hindu revival finally mapped by Vivekananda. Moreover, extremely modern views on<br />

social norms were replaced by conservative and rigid outlooks. Rigorousness on<br />

moral codes and stiff social values were restored in a large measure; the age saw a<br />

rebirth of religiosity. Bygone attitudes concerning love and sexual relationships came<br />

back.<br />

In Bangla literature, it was an era of rise of heroic passion and of a<br />

resurrection of religious beliefs and theocratic nationalism. Bankim and other writers<br />

made new explanations of Hindu scriptures. They emphasized religious values and<br />

identity and ignored the Derozean ideal of secularism. Above all, idealism was


12<br />

restored in the place of materialism. It was an age of restoration of traditional Hindu<br />

mythologies and glorification of historical monarchs and legendary heroes. And in<br />

response to their Hindu nationalism, a counter Muslim nationalism too developed.<br />

Derozio’s alcoholism too was challenged by the writers of this epoch like Tekchand,<br />

Michael, Dinabandhu and Hutome. Rangalal Bandyopadhyay’s heroic poem Padmini<br />

Upakhyan (1858) marked the beginning of the age and it ended with the publication<br />

of Tagore’s lyrical work Manashi (1890).<br />

The poets of the era were much influenced by Western classics; in their<br />

works, they proclaimed bourgeois values like individualism, humanism and<br />

nationalism. The most promising and innovative genius among them was Michael<br />

Madhusudan Datta (1824-’73). He worked in several sections – epic, romance,<br />

sonnet, monologue, lyrical poem and drama. He first wrote in English, but later in<br />

Bangla and introduced blank verse in this language. His Meghnadbadh (1861) is an<br />

epic poem where he broke the tradition of Hindu myth by making the abhorred<br />

demon Ravana into the protagonist and Rama a brute villain. He imposed human<br />

qualities on mythic demons and wrote of human instincts and emotions in his poems.<br />

Michael was not a secularist like Derozio, rather he was remarkably influenced by<br />

the religious views prevalent in those days’ Bengali society. His verses also bear the<br />

mark of influence of the prose of that era.<br />

On the other hand, Bankim was the leading writer of the period in a number of<br />

genres – novel, philosophical essay and satire. His Kopalkundala (1866) and<br />

Krishnakanter Will (1878) are examples of supreme romantic novels. His writings<br />

sometimes offended Muslim sentiments but in fact he was a great patriot and<br />

attacked the British colonial rule in an implicit way. It is evident especially in his great<br />

novel Anandamath (1882). He, although wrote prose, was a sublime poet; his poetic<br />

prose bear an introspective outlook of life and beauty. He was the composer of the<br />

greatest national song of the age – “Bandey Mataram”. He was also the editor of<br />

Bangadarshan, the most famous literary journal of those days.<br />

The other writers of the era were influenced by these two genius authors’<br />

thoughts and writing techniques. In poetry and drama, it was Michael’s reigning<br />

period and in fiction and no-fictional prose, it was the age of Bankim.<br />

In this context, it needs to be said that the word ‘heroic’ is not always<br />

associated with warfare; in literature, it also refers to a high-flown and grand<br />

language. The writers of the age (especially Michael and Bankim) fulfilled these<br />

requirements. Besides, they were influenced by fatalistic ideas of antique Greek<br />

literature. Michael’s and Bankim’s heroes and heroines fall victim to their predestined<br />

fate; they had a likeness of drawing the pictures of man’s tragic fall. Even the<br />

romances of the age uphold heroism and awful consequences of their protagonists.<br />

The genre of epic was run on by Hemchandra Bandyopadhyay (1838-1903)<br />

and Nabinchandra Sen (1847-1909) who were deeply influenced by Michael’s poetic<br />

principles and Bankim’s nationalistic views. Hemchandra wrote Bitrashanghar Kabya<br />

(1875,’77) maintaining the tradition of poetic justice. Nabinchandra, influenced by<br />

Bankim’s Krishna-Charitra (1886), composed Raibatak (1887), Kurukshetra (1893)<br />

and Pravas (1896), an epic-trilogy in total commonly known as ‘the Mahabharata of<br />

the 19 th century’. And Kaikobad (1857-1951) and Ismail Hossain Siraji (1880-1931)


13<br />

were two late representatives of this epic tradition. But all those ‘epic poets’, in merit,<br />

were far behind Michael.<br />

Krishnachandra Mazumder (1837-1907) wrote Sadbhab Shatak (1861)<br />

following Persian Rubaiyat. Dwijendranath Tagore (1840-1926), the eldest brother of<br />

Rabindranath, composed a romance poem in blank verse entitled Sapnaprayan<br />

(1875). Jagatbandhu Bhadra’s (1841-1906) Chucchundaribadh (1868) is a parody of<br />

Meghnadbadh; he satirized Michael’s epic style in this poem. Another satirist named<br />

Indranath Bandyopadhyay (1849-1911) wrote the mock-epic Bharat-Uddhar (1878).<br />

Biharilal Chakraborty (1835-’94), Surendranath Mazumder (1838-’78),<br />

Gobindachandra Das (1855-1918), Devendranath Sen (1858-1920) and<br />

Akshaykumar Baral (1860-1919) introduced lyrical poems in Bangla. Biharilal is<br />

called the ‘Bird of Dawn’ of Bangla lyrical poem. He became ideal to many young<br />

poets including Tagore. Saradamangal (1878) is his masterpiece.<br />

Even before Bankim, Tekchand Thakur wrote the first ever Bangla novel –<br />

Alaler Gharer Dulal (1858). But Hutome Pencha’s (pen-name of Kaliprasanna<br />

Simha) Naksha (1861-’62) is widely regarded as the best social document of the 19 th<br />

century.<br />

Mir Mosharraf Hossain (1847-1912) and Rameshchandra Datta (1848-1909)<br />

wrote historical novels following the model of Bankim. Maharastra Jibanprabhat<br />

(1878) and Rajput Jibansandha (1879) are two famous historical novels by<br />

Rameshchandra. Mosharraf narrated the story of assassination of Imam Hossain at<br />

the battle-field of Karbala in his prose-epic Bishad Shindhu (1885-’91). Taraknath<br />

Gangopadhyay (1843-’91) wrote a family-story entitled Swarnalata (1874) and<br />

Trailokyanath Mukhopadhyay (1847-1919) wrote humorous works.<br />

Bangla drama got its birth in this period. It will not be wrong to say that<br />

Shakespeare was the role model of the playwrights. However, they never achieved<br />

the great writer’s height. Michael composed several good tragedies and comedies.<br />

Besides, he also wrote a farce entitled Akei Ki Boley Sabhyata? (1860). And<br />

Dinabandhu Mitra (1830-’73) wrote a famous social play titled Nildarpan (1860) and<br />

a class farce entitled Sadhabar Ekadashi (1866). Nildarpan was a protest against the<br />

atrocities of the British tyrants of the 19 th century. Girishchandra Ghosh (1844-1912)<br />

wrote mythic, historical and social plays being influenced by Bankim’s nationalistic<br />

ideologies. His excelled not as a playwright but as an actor and director. Amritlal<br />

Basu (1853-1929) wrote satirical comedies.<br />

Sanjibchandra Chattopadhyay (1834-’89), elder brother of Bankim, wrote<br />

Palamou (1880-’82) – the first ever travelogue in Bangla.<br />

This time’s essay literature was centred on theological issues. Bankim,<br />

Devendranath Tagore (1817-1905), Rajendralal Mitra (1822-’91), Rajnarayan Basu<br />

(1826-’99), Bhudev Mukhopadhyay (1827-’94), Keshavchandra Sen (1838-’84) and<br />

Dwijendranath Tagore were the renowned essayists of the age. They mainly wrote<br />

on religion and philosophy. Devendranath preached philosophies of the<br />

Upanishadas. Bhudev wrote on social and family values.


14<br />

The Romantic Age or The Age of Tagore<br />

(1890-1936)<br />

Romanticism can be defined as an idealized and lofty vision of the temporal<br />

world which, to the general mind, may seem bizarre or unfamiliar. The origin of this<br />

concept may be dated back to the antique philosopher Plato’s time.<br />

In Bangla literature, Romanticism was introduced by Bankim and it reached<br />

an incredible height in Rabindranath Tagore’s (1861-1941) era. It came possible<br />

not only through his outstanding individual achievement but also through ambitious<br />

efforts of many other writers of the age who were influenced by his style and diction.<br />

Tagore’s age started with the publication of his Manashi (1890), a lyrical<br />

poetical work. It came to an end in 1936 with the coming to light of Jibanananda’s<br />

book of poems entitled Dhushar Pandulipi.<br />

The difference between Bankim and Tagore is not only artistic but also<br />

ideological. While Bankim was an admirer of Geeta, Tagore was a Brahmo and his<br />

philosophies were based on the Upanishadas. He had a universal vision and loved<br />

this world much more than any other poet has ever done till today. This is why he is<br />

called “Biswa Kavi” (i.e. Poet of the World).<br />

Tagore’s Manashi (1890), Sonar Tori (1894), Chitra (1896), Gitanjali (1912),<br />

Balaka (1916), Punascha (1932), Prantik (1938) are significant contributions to<br />

romantic and mystic poetry. He was awarded the Nobel Literature Prize in 1913 for<br />

Gitanjali, a collection of his mystic poems which he himself translated into English<br />

entitling Song Offerings. Chokher Bali (1903), Gora (1910), Chaturanga (1915),<br />

Shesher Kabita (1929) are his famous novels. He introduced short story in Bangla<br />

and took it to its supreme shape. His short stories are collected in an anthology titled<br />

Galpaguccha. Further, he is also our greatest dramatist; his Chitrangada (1892),<br />

Dakghar (1912) and Raktakarabi (1926) are remarkable plays of world drama.<br />

Three leading literary journals of the era were Bharati, Sabujpatra and Kallol.<br />

Bharati was the early haven of Tagore and some other young writers who wanted to<br />

free themselves of the strong reign of Bankim. Sabujpatra introduced the movement<br />

of a new standard of Bangla prose (called ‘Chalita Bhasha’) led by Pramath<br />

Chowdhury (1868-1946). Tagore himself was engaged with that movement. And<br />

Kallol was the leading journal of the rebels against the dominant literary trend.<br />

Dwijendralal Roy (1863-1913), famed for his historical plays and songs, was<br />

an early literary rival of Tagore. The works of the Tagorean school seemed<br />

extremely modern to the conservatives and they developed as a different group with<br />

Roy – their leader.<br />

The other poets of Tagore’s era gave birth to more or less individualistic styles<br />

but failed to exceed his artistic halo. Among them, Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976)<br />

stands next to him in many respects. He achieved the glory of ‘Rebel poet’; no other<br />

poet has yet succeeded to express so artistically the tone of political rebellion. He<br />

assimilated Hindu, Greco-Roman, Christian and Islamic cultural heritages and thus<br />

exposed himself as a model of non-communal Bengali writers. But unfortunately his<br />

non-communal humanism was turned into sick Pakistanism (influenced by Jinnah’s<br />

two-nation theory) by some later Muslim poets [e.g. Farrukh Ahmad (1918-’74)].


15<br />

Panju Shah (1851?-1914) and Hason Raza (1855?-1922) were two mystic<br />

folk poets of the time. Kantichandra Ghosh (1886-1949) translated the Persian<br />

mystic Omar Khayyam’s poems.<br />

Other renowned poets of the period were Karunanidhan Bandyopadhyay<br />

(1877-1955), Jatindramohan Bagchi (1878-1948), Satyandranath Datta (1882-1922),<br />

Kumudranjan Mallik (1883-1970), Jatindranath Sengupta (1887-1954), Sukumar Ray<br />

(1887-1923), Mohitlal Mazumder (1888-1952), Kalidas Roy (1889-1975) and<br />

Jasimuddin (1903-’76). Satyandranath is famed as the ‘wizard of rhythm’ and<br />

Jasimuddin is well-known as the ‘Pastoral poet’ of modern Bengal.<br />

Saratchandra Chattopadhyay (1876-1938) wrote social and psychological<br />

novels, which are worthy assets of Bangla literature. Among his fictional writings<br />

Pallisamaj (1916), Charitrahin (1917), Sreekanta (1917-’33), Datta (1918),<br />

Grihadaha (1920), Pather Dabi (1926), Shesh Prashna (1931) are popular and<br />

recognized by critics. In portraying social scenario and psychological insight, he was<br />

influenced by Tagore’s Chokher Bali.<br />

Prabhatkumar Mukhopadhyay (1873-1932) was renowned for his short<br />

stories. Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880-1932) wrote against suppression and<br />

seclusion of the Bengali Muslim women. She is our first feminist writer. Parashuram<br />

(1880-1960, pseudonym of Rajshekhar Basu) wrote popular funny stories.<br />

Nareshchandra Sengupta (1883-1964) wrote novels with explicit sexual candor.<br />

Manindralal Basu (1898-1986) wrote pure romantic novels [e.g. Ramala (1923) and<br />

Sahajatrini (1941)] based on modern urban life; Tagore refined his style in Shesher<br />

Kabita.<br />

Tagore, Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) and Ramendrasundar Trivedi<br />

(1864-1919) wrote philosophical essays. Dineshchandra Sen (1866-1939), Birbal<br />

(pseudonym of Pramatha Chowdhury), Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951) and<br />

Mohitlal Mazumder wrote critical essays on art and belles-lettres.<br />

Sreema (1854-1932, pen-name of Mahendranath Gupta) wrote the mystic<br />

Ramakrishna’s (1836-86) hagiography titled Sree-Ramakrishna-Kathamrita (1897-<br />

1932). And Jagadishchandra Basu (1858-1937) was a famed scientist who<br />

expressed his scientific ideas and observations through his literary works.<br />

The High Modern Age (1936-’60)<br />

In the first half of the 20 th century, two world wars changed the course of<br />

human history. Highly humanistic values were replaced by inhuman and abominable<br />

attitudes. Merciless brutalities stained the war-inflicted West and its impact was seen<br />

across the colonial Orient. Several genocides caused the most memorable human<br />

disaster so far. Famine shattered the poverty-stricken India. Economic disaster<br />

gripped the colonized and later independent nations. Besides, life and the society fell<br />

in the grip of mechanization. A sense of helplessness and frustration was seen<br />

among artists and intellectuals. Hyper romantic thoughts found its place in cultural<br />

trashcans. Thus the post-Romantic era of literature, which is now called the High<br />

Modern Age, launched its voyage.


16<br />

Modernism, the general trend of the age, is the combined name of several artmovements<br />

including symbolism, impressionism, expressionism, futurism, cubism,<br />

surrealism, existentialism etc. Those movements actually started their journey in the<br />

West speeding up after the First World War. The political philosopher Karl Marx<br />

(1818-’83) and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) influenced most of the<br />

intellectuals since that time. Marx spoke for establishing a classless society through<br />

the abolition of private property. And Freud dealt with man’s unconscious behaviors<br />

in his psychoanalytical writings. Bearing their influence, the Modernist writers opened<br />

a new artistic and philosophical world expressing the crises of modern man.<br />

Jibanananda Das (1899-1954) is the true icon of the age and greatest<br />

Modernist poet. Called the ‘Nilkantha of endangered humanity’, he invented a new<br />

diction of Bangla poetry and achieved the glory of the greatest poet after Tagore.<br />

The age itself was initiated in the year 1936 with his book of poems titled Dhushar<br />

Pandulipi. Beside this work, his Banalata Sen (1942), Mahaprithibi (1944), Sathti<br />

Tarar Timir (1948), Rupashi Bangla (1957), Bela Abela Kalbela (1961) are valuable<br />

contributions to modern poetry.<br />

Amiya Chakraborty (1901-’86), Sudhindranath Datta (1901-’60), Manish<br />

Ghatak (1902-’79), Ajit Datta (1907-’79), Buddhadev Basu (1908-’74), Bishnu Dey<br />

(1909-’82), Arun Mitra (1909-2000), Bimalchandra Ghosh (1910-’82), Dinesh Das<br />

(1913-’85), Samar Sen (1916-’87), Ahsan Habib (1917-’85), Subhash<br />

Mukhopadhyay (1919-2004), Birendra Chattopadhyay (1920-’85), Sukanta<br />

Vattacharya (1926-’47) – all of them have enriched the world of Bangla poetry.<br />

Sudhindranath is famed especially for his choice of high-sounding words; he was<br />

influenced by Tagore’s diction. Bishnu is our greatest Marxist poet. Amiya and<br />

Buddhadev too have made signs of their merit.<br />

Manik Bandyopadhyay (1908-’56) is the most successful representative of<br />

Marxism in Bangla fiction. Manik’s Putul Nacher Itikatha (1936), Padma Nadir Majhi<br />

(1936) and Ahimsa (1941) are class works; his social and psychological revelation<br />

takes him to an amazing height.<br />

Jagadishchandra Gupta (1886-1957), Shailajananda Mukhopadhyay (1901-<br />

’76), Premendra Mitra (1904-’88), Gajendrakumar Mitra (1908-’94), Subodh Ghosh<br />

(1909-’80), Jyotirindra Nundi (1912-’82), Adwaita Mallabarman (1914-’51), Narayan<br />

Gangopadhyay (1917-’70), Narendranath Mitra (1916-’75), Narayan Gangopadhyay<br />

(1918-’70), Santoshkumar Ghosh (1920-’85), Samaresh Basu (1924-’88) are other<br />

Marxist fiction-writers.<br />

The great leader and political moralist Mahatma Gandhi’s (1869-1948)<br />

influence is evident on many Bengali writers. His doctrines of Ahimsa and<br />

Satyagraha showed us and many other colonized nations a peaceful way of<br />

achieving freedom. Mahatma had exerted influence on the Bengali writers since the<br />

very Tagore’s age. But in the High Modern era, his impact found an intense shape.<br />

Among the Gandhian novelists, Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay (1898-1971)<br />

occupies a place in the front line. In his novels, there is a depth of social and<br />

psychological consciousness and also touchy poetic expressions. He masterly<br />

portrayed the transition of Bengali society from the feudalistic to a capitalistic one.<br />

His Jalsha-Ghar (1938), Dhatri-Devata (1939), Kalindi (1940), Gana-Devata (1942),


17<br />

Panchagram (1943), Hashuli Banker Upakatha (1947), Arogyoniketan (1953) are<br />

eternal assets of Bangla fiction.<br />

Satinath Bhaduri (1906-’65), Bonoful (1899-1979, pseudonym of Balaichand<br />

Mukhopadhyay) and Annadashankar Roy (1904-2002) are other famed Gandhian<br />

writers. The first one’s Jagari (1946) and Dhorai-Charit-Manas (1949, ’51) are widely<br />

appreciated political novels. Also the poets and playwrights of the period were<br />

inspired by Mahatma’s humanistic principles.<br />

Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay (1894-1950), Jarashanda (1902-’81) and<br />

Ashapurna Devi (1909-’95) are other great fictionists from that era. Bibhutibhushan’s<br />

Pather Panchali (1929) and Aranyak (1938) are remarkable novels.<br />

This age also saw a significant turn in drama. Jogesh Chowdhury (1889-<br />

1948), Sachin Sengupta (1892-1961), Tulshi Lahiri (1897-1959), Manmath Roy<br />

(1899-1988), Bonoful, Pramathnath Bishi (1901-’85), Manoj Basu (1901-’87),<br />

Bidhayak Vattacharya (1907-’86), Digindrachandra Bandyopadhyay (1908-’91),<br />

Buddhadev Basu, Mahendra Gupta (1910-’84), Bijan Vattacharya (1915-’78) were<br />

the notable dramatists. Some of them upheld contemporary socio-political crises and<br />

struggles in their dramatic works. They had more or less Marxist outlook.<br />

Syed Mujtaba Ali (1904-’74) and Jajabar (b. 1909) are famous for their<br />

humorous works (‘Ramya Rachana’) of varied tastes.<br />

Muhammad Shahidullah (1885-1969), Sunitikumar Chattopadhyay (1890-<br />

1977), Kazi Abdul Odud (1894-1970), Niradchandra Chaudhuri (1897-1999),<br />

Sukumar Sen (1900-’92), Sudhindranath Datta, Gopal Halder (1902-’93),<br />

Niharranjan Roy (1905-’81), Humayun Kabir (1906-’69), Abu Sayeed Ayyub (1906-<br />

’82), Buddhadev Basu, Shashibhushan Dasgupta (1911-’64), Deviprasad<br />

Chattopadhyay (1918-’93), Ranajit Guha (b. 1923) have added class works to essay<br />

literature. They have written on different subjects – linguistics, history, literary<br />

criticism etc.<br />

The Liberation (1960-’90)<br />

India achieved its freedom in 1947 but unfortunately it was partitioned into two<br />

sovereign nations based on the communal leader Jinnah’s two-nation theory. Bengal<br />

and Punjab were also divided. West Bengal, where the Hindus were the majority,<br />

was included in the Indian Federation, while East Bengal joined the new nation<br />

Pakistan. And since the birth of this theocratic nation, the people of East Bengal<br />

were deprived.<br />

The trend of the culture and politics of East Bengal leaned toward separatist<br />

aim after the imposing of martial law by the dictator Ayub Khan in 1958. Especially<br />

since the 1960s the literature of East Bengal upheld revolutionary ideas against<br />

tyranny, and the concept of a theocratic nation was gradually sickening. And the<br />

ideological guru was no other than the independence leader and founding father of<br />

the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920-’75).<br />

Litterateurs like Showkat Osman (1917-’98), Munir Chowdhury (1925-’71),<br />

Shamsur Rahman (1929-2006), Shaheed Kadori (b. 1942) and many others began


18<br />

to write against Pakistani atrocities. However, their exposition was sheltered under<br />

myths and symbols.<br />

Finally East Bengal torn out of Pakistani rule in 1971 but in 1975, a<br />

reactionary military insurrection brought the country back to a revival of the<br />

ideological darkness that the nation witnessed during its Pakistani regime. So the<br />

struggle for liberation continued till the 1990s in this ‘liberated’ Bangladesh. As a<br />

result the literature of independence movement lasted since 1960 till 1990 before it<br />

was overshadowed by the latest artistic concept - Postmodernism.<br />

East Bengal and its capital Dhaka became the centre of Bangla literature. The<br />

writers of West Bengal, who were influenced by the leftist Nakshal movement, were<br />

undermined. We can trace the beginning of the period with Shamsur Rahman’s<br />

poetic collection Prothom Gan Dwitio Mrityur Aagey (1960). Showkat Osman’s<br />

Kritadasher Hashi (1962) was a milestone in this time’s fictional literature. Also his<br />

Janani (1958) is a widely acclaimed novel.<br />

Shamsur Rahman, Shankha Ghosh (b. 1932), Samir Roy Chowdhury (b.<br />

1933), Sakti Chattopadhyay (1933-’95), Sunil Gangopadhyay (1934-2012), Binoy<br />

Mazumder (1934-2006), Al Mahmud (b. 1936), Shaheed Kadori, Sikder Aminul Haq<br />

(1942-2003), Amitabha Gupta (b. 1947), Khandakar Ashraf Hossain (1950-2013),<br />

Joy Goswami (b. 1954) are chief poets of the age. Among them, Rahman and Kadori<br />

have written brilliant political poems. And Mahmud has created a new diction of<br />

modern poetry. His poems have rural setting, are rich in rural words and also uphold<br />

modern consciousness. Unfortunately since the 1980s he leaned toward<br />

fundamentalism and thus brought an untimely death to his poetic prospect.<br />

The war of 1971 has also been portrayed in contemporary fiction-writers’<br />

works. Some of these writers are Abu Zafar Shamsuddin (1911-’88), Showkat<br />

Osman, Rashid Karim (1925-2011), Alauddin Al Azad (1932-2009), Syed Shamsul<br />

Haq (b. 1935), Hasan Azizul Haq (b. 1939), Mahmudul Haq (1941-2008),<br />

Akhtaruzzaman Elias (1943-’97), Humayun Azad (1947-2004), Selina Hossain (b.<br />

1947), Humayun Ahmed (1948-2012) and Imdadul Haq Milon (b. 1955). Among<br />

them, Mahmudul Haq was a master of language and epitomized the war and<br />

contemporary life in diction of modern poetry. His Anur Pathshala (1973), Nirapad<br />

Tandra (1974), Jiban Amar Bone (1976), Khelaghar (1988), Kalo Baraf (1992) are<br />

great novels. But in fact Elias occupies the top position of the age with his two<br />

outstanding novels Chilekothar Sepai (1986) and Khoabnama (1996).<br />

It was not only an age of political liberation but also of a cultural war for<br />

achieving freedom from rigid conventions of Bengali society, especially in its attitude<br />

toward sex; for example – the avant-garde Hungryalist movement took place in the<br />

1960s, with which Samir Roy Chowdhury, his brother Malay Roy Chowdhury (b.<br />

1939), Sakti Chattopadhyay and some other writers were involved. This period also<br />

witnessed the rise of homosexuality in fiction; for example – in Buddhadev Guha’s<br />

(b. 1936) works.<br />

It was accompanied with a great struggle against the emerging<br />

fundamentalism in Pakistan-ruled East Bengal. Especially Syed Waliullah (1922-<br />

’71) will be remembered for his critical views about fundamentalist ideologies. His<br />

Lalshalu (1948) achieved worldly acclaim. Showkat Osman was his ideological<br />

comrade.


19<br />

Also a new trend of historical novels illumined our dark past in this age.<br />

Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay (1899-1970), Pramathnath Bishi (1902-’85), Bimal Mitra<br />

(1912-’91), Amiyabhushan Mazumder (1918-2000), Sunil Gangopadhyay, Showkat<br />

Ali (b. 1936) and some others have written historical novels. Sunil’s Shei Samay<br />

(1982), Purba-Paschim (1988) and Prothom Alo (1996,’97) have given him a<br />

distinctive position in this field. Bimal’s Saheb Bibi Golam (1953) and Kori Diey<br />

Kinlam (1962), Pramathanath’s Carey Saheber Munshi (1958), Amiyabhushan’s<br />

Nayantara (1966) and Rajnagar (1984), Showkat’s Prodoshe Prakritajan (1984) too<br />

are brilliant historical novels.<br />

Abu Rushd (1919-2010), Bimal Kar (b. 1921), Ramapada Chowdhury (b.<br />

1922), Samaresh Basu (1924-’88), Mahasweta Devi (b. 1926), Shamsuddin Abul<br />

Kalam (1926-’97), Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay (b. 1935), Ahmad Sofa (1943-2001),<br />

Samaresh Mazumder (b. 1944) are other class fictionists. Mahasweta is a Marxist<br />

writer and she writes on various political issues. Her Hazar Churashir Ma (1974) is a<br />

famous novel on the Nakshal movement.<br />

Dwijen Sharma (b. 1929) is an out-of-the-way writer; he has contributed to<br />

Bangla scientific literature.<br />

Badal Sarker (b. 1925), Mohitkumar Chattopadhyay (b. 1934), Barnik Roy (b.<br />

1936) have added ‘comedy of the absurd’ to dramatic literature that have become<br />

popular nowadays. Syed Waliullah, Munir Chowdhury, Syed Shamsul Haq and Selim<br />

Al-Deen (1949-2008) are important playwrights from East Bengal. Selim is widely<br />

recognized as the greatest playwright after Tagore; his plays are classics of modern<br />

literature. Krishna Dhar (b. 1928) and Manoj Mitra (b. 1938) are other famous<br />

playwrights.<br />

Ahmad Sharif (1921-’99), Badaruddin Omar (b. 1931), Sirajul Islam<br />

Chowdhury (b. 1936), Golam Murshid (b. 1940), Humayun Azad and some others<br />

have made bright signs of intellect through their essay literatures.<br />

The Postmodern Age (Since 1990)<br />

In the 20 th century, the society and especially family became more and more<br />

disintegrated. Alienation gripped the society and frustration became an inseparable<br />

part of man’s life. Empathies and other humanistic values slowly diminished. The<br />

inhuman brutalities during the two world wars shattered all previous norms of<br />

civilization, which now seemed meaningless. Life gradually lost all its nobleness. The<br />

new philosophers and artists bore anguish against this meaninglessness of human<br />

existence in the core of their heart. The dictum of the Enlightenment failed resulting<br />

in emergence of the new artistic idea Postmodernism.<br />

The concept of Postmodernism is indebted to the western thinkers Jacques<br />

Lacan (1901-’81), Jean-Francois Lyotard (1924-’98), Michel Foucault (1926-’84)<br />

and especially Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). Based on Derrida’s deconstructionist<br />

philosophy, it has in fact, given birth to a typical kind of absurd art – devoid of reason<br />

and remarkably dehumanized. It denies all grand narratives and opposes all notions<br />

of modernity.


20<br />

Postmodernism is not merely confined to literature – it has a wider concept.<br />

Postmodernism reached its height even in the Dutch football team’s performance in<br />

1974 world cup. Moreover, the natural tendency of literature is to follow the<br />

Enlightenment values that are opposed by Postmodernism. Postmodernism largely<br />

limits the capacity of the exposition of literature and is in fact subversive of it. And<br />

Postmodernism can also be called a distorted and poorer form of Modernism. If<br />

Modernism is compared to a dazzling grand palace, Postmodernism is only the<br />

wreck of that palace.<br />

Now our literature and other genres of art are shrouded in a Postmodernist<br />

trait. The comic magazine ‘Rosh+Alo’ is one of the most eligible exponents of<br />

Postmodernism in this country. Its artists have assimilated visual pun, paradox and<br />

parody; and thus have presented a new type of pictorial art. But if we take their<br />

presentations as literature, the entire concept of literature deserves to be rewritten.<br />

Postmodernism has given birth to some new genres: concrete poem, antinovel,<br />

science-fiction, pop art, installation art, video-music and computer game.<br />

Postmodernism has allowed the entrance of apparently negligible matters into<br />

art. Poems, for example, now roam around the topics like industrial products,<br />

scientific theories, mathematical formulas, animals, insects, human organs etc. Thus<br />

it has concentrated the reader’s mind on dehumanized issues, signifying the<br />

hollowness of the new-age humans.<br />

The genre that mostly maintains both the conditions of high intellectualism of<br />

literature and the principles of Postmodernism at the same time, is science-fiction.<br />

The impact of science-fiction is evident on Michael Jackson’s (1958-2009) videomusic,<br />

his movie The Moon-Walker, computer games, animation films (and<br />

reasonably the movie Spy-Kids) and obviously sci-fi movies. Thus literature still<br />

keeps its lead in the world of Art.<br />

Sukumar Ray, the eminent composer of nonsense rhymes, can be regarded<br />

as the first ever Bengali Postmodernist. His rhymes can be considered as the<br />

earliest specimen of our postmodern literature. His son, the world-renowned filmdirector<br />

Satyajit Ray (1921-’92) is famed in literature for his well-readable short<br />

stories, science-fictions and detective thrillers. Especially his short stories bear good<br />

examples of pun and paradox, and thus are deemed to be postmodern.<br />

But my observation reveals the postmodern era of Bangla literature was really<br />

initiated in the 1990s. We can identify its beginning with Nasser Husain’s book of<br />

poems titled Operation Theatre (1990).<br />

Reasonably pioneering the most powerful genre of the era, Muhammad Zafar<br />

Iqbal’s (b. 1952) sci-fi stories are so far the most remarkable postmodern writings in<br />

Bangla. Among others, Syed Manzoorul Islam (b. 1951) and Shahidul Jahir (1953-<br />

2008) are two Postmodernist fiction-writers with recognition. Qazi Anwar Hossain (b.<br />

1936) is a popular thriller writer. And the Feminist writer Nasrin Zahan’s (b. 1964)<br />

works too have enriched our postmodern fiction.<br />

Many other writers have taken the mission of creating a postmodern era<br />

through their unified attempts. But this age is still in its formative years and it has still<br />

miles to go for its accomplishment.


21<br />

3<br />

Great Bengali Writers<br />

Jayadeva (12 th Century)<br />

It is a matter of controversy whether Jayadeva belongs to Bengal or Orissa. In<br />

that era, the whole Eastern India had a common cultural entity. That is why even if<br />

Jayadeva is proved to be an inhabitant of Puri, Bengal’s claim over him cannot be<br />

ignored. His writings had profound impact on medieval Bangla literature. Therefore, I<br />

include him in this essay as he is still relevant to the history of our culture.<br />

Jayadeva appeared in the field of poetry in an era that was a lingual transition<br />

period – an era of merging between Sanskrit and new Eastern Indian languages.<br />

The royal patronage was biased on the Sanskrit language and the common peoples’<br />

rebel eyes were fixed on the new-born dialects. It cannot be denied that the few<br />

poets who wrote in Sanskrit, achieved an astonishingly high order. But many<br />

invaluable manuscripts were totally destroyed by the barbarian Turkic invaders;<br />

some of those have survived and we have nothing to do but sigh for the rest until a<br />

time-machine is invented.<br />

Jayadeva is one of the greatest antique poets in entire India. He was not a<br />

perfect Romantic like John Keats but was a unique one who influenced our national<br />

literature till the 19 th century. The entire Vaishnava literature, of which we are proud,<br />

is indebted to this genius artist.<br />

His immortality is based on a single piece of poetical work – Gitogobindam<br />

(The Song of the Lord) which he wrote in vernacularized Sanskrit. It is not really a<br />

religious poem as the Hindus have accepted but actually an artistic piece of work.<br />

Whoever has read it, must admire it as an extra-ordinary Romantic poem. And<br />

although Jayadeva’s life-story is now fabricated, this work of him has probably<br />

reserved its original shape till today.<br />

The poem is based on the love story of Krishna and Radha. Jayadeva has<br />

given it a possible perfection with extra-ordinary imageries, metaphors and erotic<br />

colorings.<br />

In the Hindu period of India, the term ‘love’ was totally absent and ‘lust’ took<br />

its place. It is why the erotic approach of the loving couple is entirely physical in this<br />

poem. But this mere physical attraction has been shaped with incomparable stilted<br />

diction. Such is his artistic exuberance –<br />

“She is kissing the darkness black as clouds<br />

Imagining her Lord has come.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

Krishna tells his Radha –<br />

“If you talk to me for a moment, the moonlight of thy teeth<br />

Shall drive away the severe darkness of my mind;<br />

The glittering moonbeams of thy face<br />

Tempts this Chokor bird’s eyes to perceive.”<br />

(Translated by the author)


22<br />

Spring is the season that has reigned in this poem. According to antique<br />

oriental philosophers and artists, spring is the perfect time for falling in love. And<br />

Jayadeva has presented a hyper-romantic picture of a love-affair which is at the<br />

same time, physic and psychic.<br />

But this poem’s appeal is more than a mere love-story deserves. Here<br />

Krishna is God himself and Radha is his devotee. And according to the Vaishnava<br />

preachers, a mortal can have God’s blessings only when they are true lovers.<br />

Its highly appealing presentation, ornamentation, beauty and freshness have<br />

given it a truly high position in the entire world literature. Jayadeva deserves to have<br />

our love and respect as he still enthralls our crude and mechanized modern world.<br />

And he is in fact, a historic contributor to Bangla literature.<br />

Vidyapati Thakur (15 th Century)<br />

Vidyapati is one of the greatest medieval poets of Eastern India. Although he<br />

was Mithila’s poet-laureate, he is also a Bengali poet as his most Padas have been<br />

found in this province. His poems seem to be written in a hybrid language of<br />

Abahatta, Bangla and Maithili; and it is closer to Bangla than Mithila’s present<br />

language Hindi. Reasonably these songs are now a quintessential part of Bangla<br />

literature.<br />

Vidyapati’s works are a proof of his subtle cosmic imagination. A delicate<br />

sense of art is found in his Padas. Also his poems are lyrical and quixotic. They<br />

present picturesque beauty and have a touchy sensuousness.<br />

The Maithili poet’s greatness lies in such artistic delicacies –<br />

“From the hair Water falls down,<br />

Looking at the moon of her face Darkness cries.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

His Radha tells her friend about Krishna –<br />

“That love, that charm becomes newer and newer with growth,<br />

Since birth I have seen his beauty, my eyes still not contended,<br />

Have heard his sweet talks in the ears, entered not the path of hearing,<br />

Have spent many honeyed nights with love, not fully understood,<br />

On his eyes have fixed mine for millions of ages, but eyes not gratified.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

Another song tells of love’s frustration in a rainy day –<br />

“O my beloved friend, my sorrows know no ending,<br />

This full monsoon, this heavy rain<br />

Is my mind’s empty temple.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

Then after a few lines –<br />

“The frogs get mad, the Dahuks call, and my heart breaks.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

While Jayadeva made spring the ground of his Gitogobindam, monsoon is the<br />

season that has reigned in Vidyapati’s poems. Instead of depicting lovers’ happily<br />

union as is evident in Jayadeva’s poem, Vidyapati drew the pictures of deprived


23<br />

lovers’ pains. According to his ideas, monsoon is a suitable time for love’s sighs and<br />

sorrows.<br />

Almost all other Vaishnava poets followed Jayadeva’s model. Their Padas<br />

can be divided into the sections as they are in Gitogobindam. In fact, a<br />

Gitogobindam can be compiled from every Vaishnava poet’s complete works.<br />

Vidyapati is no exception.<br />

Vidyapati’s Maithili verse gave birth to a typical Bangla diction called Brajabuli.<br />

Many later Vaishnava poets (e.g. Gobindadas Kabiraz and Shekhar Ray) followed<br />

this diction. Even modern day poet Tagore wrote his Bhanushinger Padabali in<br />

Brajabuli. This verse-diction nullifies the idea that medieval literatures were mainly<br />

intended for religious purposes.<br />

He wrote books on other topics. He composed poems surrounding Shiva and<br />

Parvati. He even wrote books on rhetorical subject in Sanskrit. But it is his Vaishnava<br />

Padavali that became popular in this region.<br />

Vidyapati is called the ‘sovereign poet’ of the middle ages. In poetic<br />

gorgeousness, he often looks as great as the modernist Jibanananda. Known as the<br />

‘unique Jayadeva’ in his own time, Vidyapati will ever be remembered as a great<br />

designer of Radha-Krishna Padavali.<br />

Chandidas (15 th /16 th Century)<br />

Chandidas is the only medieval Bengali poet who claims a place in the entire<br />

world literature. In the world of poetry, his place is unique and everlasting.<br />

This great poet’s historicity is shrouded in mystery. A large number of poets of<br />

this same name lived in this province in the middle ages. They held different<br />

sobriquets like Baru, Dwiza, Dina, Taruniraman etc. As a result, a great poet of<br />

Bangla literature (whoever he is) is in historical sense, confined to a mere name.<br />

Chandidas’s life-story (probably fictitious) is associated with a washerwoman<br />

named Rami (or Tara). He wrote love poems to his beloved glorifying her as equal to<br />

Krishna’s consort Radha.<br />

Chandidas mainly wrote of the sorrows of love in his poems. However,<br />

Chandidas’s tears of love are not the outcome of a failed lover’s broken heart (as<br />

apparently seems), but in fact a crave for getting attached to a soul of higher order.<br />

His poems sometimes tell of Platonic love – his perception reaches at a love<br />

beyond any physical attraction. Sometimes his temporal love develops into divine or<br />

mystical love. When he tells us that love is like an inscription on stone and cannot<br />

be removed, he at the same time expresses love’s sorrows, eternity and greatness; it<br />

does not remain an ordinary feeling.<br />

And his love develops into a divine perception from a usual temporal idea. He<br />

says in a song –<br />

“I feel the joy of wearing the necklace of infamy<br />

Around my neck<br />

For you, my love.”<br />

(Translated by the author)


24<br />

He tells us in another poem –<br />

“If I<br />

Don’t see in the eye,<br />

Then I do in my mind,<br />

Chandidas says he wears the touch-jewel<br />

Around his neck.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

Then it seems he is telling of an unearthly love.<br />

He exposes his dangling heart in such lines –<br />

“Goes the blue sari wringing out along with my mind.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

He professes his firm conviction of love in these two lines –<br />

“I’ll live in Love Town, will build a house with love,<br />

Tracing love I’ll make neighbors, except which all are far ones.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

Again –<br />

“Pi-ri-ti : these three syllables are the three worlds’ all substance,<br />

Taking it in mind I think day and night, without it nothing remains.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

Here the poet expresses the mystic sense of his love for the beloved –<br />

“My outer door is closed, my inner door is wide open,<br />

Come sweet-hearts, come silently, passing darkness, to the light.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

Chandidas inwardly tells us of godly love when outwardly he just says of<br />

human love. His poems are free of all kinds of so-called ‘vulgarism’ that are evident<br />

in many other medieval poets’ works. He does have a journey of transition from the<br />

bodily flesh to an enlightened soul. And the arc of this mission of the poet is his<br />

immortal mystic songs.<br />

Mukunda Chakraborty (16 th Century)<br />

‘Kabikankan’ Mukunda Chakrabarty is the greatest poet of Mangal-Kabya. His<br />

Avayamangal (which is commonly known as Chandimangal) can be accepted as a<br />

verse-novel and it is the masterpiece of medieval literature.<br />

Mangal-Kabya is a genre of medieval poetry that was intended to glorify a<br />

deity. The story of such a poem would be how the puja of that deity was commenced<br />

in the world.<br />

The story of Avayamangal is concerned with how the puja of Goddess Chandi<br />

was initiated through sacrifice and sufferings made by two outcastes: a hunter<br />

named Kalketu and a merchant named Dhanpati.<br />

Avayamangal is a remarkably unique work in respect of medieval poetical<br />

standard. This work encompasses at the same time, the worlds of both the earth and<br />

‘paradise’ where the deities dwell. The gods and goddesses cast their curses and<br />

blessings upon the mortals. Such themes of the poem remind us of the Homeric<br />

epics.


25<br />

This poem is a reflection of the society and lifestyle of common people living<br />

under the Sultanate in the late 16 th century. It is also a mirror of the political scenario<br />

of the then Pathan-ruled Bengal. But the Pathans were then struggling with the<br />

Moguls on the question of ruling authority. So the background of the poem is set in a<br />

transition period of our national history.<br />

The poet has masterly depicted the poverty, sorrows and sufferings of<br />

ordinary people. A sense of pity, morbidity and humor is tinged with such portrayal.<br />

Unlike other medieval poets, Mukunda does not focus either on love or<br />

mysticism. He is primarily a secular poet. His expressions of both happiness and<br />

pathos are heart-rending. However, he does not ignore natural landscape, and<br />

sometimes his work bears the tone of Vaishnava Padavali. Especially he gives us a<br />

good description of the varieties of nature and the seasons of the province.<br />

He does not solely contemplate on Bengali Hindu community, but also<br />

expresses his outlook of the Muslims and the non-Bengalis. He even concerns with<br />

some political issues of different regions of India.<br />

Mukunda narrates even such matters as bird-hunting, cooking, congregational<br />

prayer and merchants’ business. His narration of hunting can be taken as a<br />

metaphor of man’s helplessness at the hands of fate.<br />

He assimilates the story of merchants from Manashamangal into his poem.<br />

Later Bharatchandra Ray was influenced by his narrative style. So he represents the<br />

entire literature of Mangal-Kabya.<br />

Mukunda is comparable to Geoffrey Chaucer for his art of depicting the true<br />

livelihood of humans. His rhymes and alliterations are also praiseworthy. He is a<br />

class artist of verse-fiction. He is an object of glory for us and an asset of medieval<br />

literature.<br />

Fakir Lalan Shah (1774?-1890)<br />

Buddhist, Vaishnava and Islamic Sufi mysticisms were assimilated into a new<br />

cult in the 19 th -century rural Bengal. The followers of that cult used to pray neither in<br />

temples nor in mosques but in open field under the sky. They belonged to no specific<br />

institutional religion. And this unique mystic practice still continues. They are called<br />

Bauls. This artist-sect just needs flute, drum and Dotara for their musical<br />

instruments.<br />

Lalan is considered the greatest Baul ever born. He is artistically a member of<br />

the mystic club including Khayyam, Sadi, Rumi and Hafiz. Tagore was highly<br />

inspired by his magical art. And those pieces of song bear high philosophies.<br />

Lalan’s principal philosophy is that his birth as a human being is a divine gift.<br />

He says in a song –<br />

“I have not seen Him even for a day;<br />

Near my home there is a mirror-city,<br />

And my Neighbor dwells in it.”<br />

(Translated by Brother James)


26<br />

He wants to tell that there is a mirror-city (i.e. a mirror in his own soul) where<br />

he has a neighbor. He means he himself absorbs God’s essences; and he despairs<br />

he has never met his distinguished neighbor.<br />

And in another song, he finds the reason – he is a blind man.<br />

In another song, he says –<br />

“How does the Unknown Bird go<br />

Into the cage and out again?<br />

Could I but seize it,<br />

I would put the fetters of my heart<br />

Around its feet.”<br />

(Translated by Brother James)<br />

It means he imagines a bird (which he wanted to captivate) has entered the<br />

cage i.e. his own body, and has again flown away from it. The bird is in fact, his own<br />

high soul which gradually enters and comes out of his body similar to a cage.<br />

Another song tells us that our bodies are just God-created factories. There<br />

flowers get birth and their incense spreads out into the world.<br />

Look how beautifully introspective the following lines are,<br />

“O Boatman, take me to the other shore;<br />

Here I am, O Merciful One,<br />

Sitting stranded on this side.<br />

I have been left alone at the landing-place;<br />

The sun has gone down already.”<br />

(Translated by Brother James)<br />

Lalan, like other Bauls, emphasized love for the ‘Creator’ and the creation.<br />

Their devotion is not aligned with the erotic love that the Vaishnava poets held but<br />

much deeper and stronger.<br />

All the Bauls have a strong voice against communalism and they are true<br />

admirers of mankind. They believe in humanism and brotherhood. Especially Lalan,<br />

who inspired even the great Tagore, deserves the respect of all. He in fact, made a<br />

brilliant fusion of Bengal’s Buddhist, Vaishnava Sahajiya and Sufi mystic<br />

philosophies.<br />

Michael Madhusudan Datta (1824-’73)<br />

Michael started his literary career in the English language in his very early life.<br />

Soon his efforts proved futile and he began to write in Bangla. Although he was<br />

thought not to be as at per with Hemchandra Bandyopadhyay by some 19 th -century<br />

Bengali critics, his supremacy as an epic-poet is now established beyond any<br />

controversy.<br />

In Meghnadbadh (The Slaying of Meghnada), Michael broke the tradition of<br />

Ramayana by making Ravana the hero and Rama, the recognized prophet, a mere<br />

villain, as I have already stated in the introductory essay. Although written in an<br />

oriental language, it is in fact a great epic based on western thoughts. Its invocation,<br />

proposition, subject-matter and ending make us remember the ancient classics of<br />

Pagan European literature.


27<br />

Michael’s epic has a prehistoric base. It is dated back to the ancient past<br />

while the Aryan invaders were involved in a centuries-long clash with the native<br />

Dravidians. In Hindu mythology, the Aryans are honored as gods and the native non-<br />

Aryans are defamed as Rakshashas (i.e. demons). Rama and Ravana represent the<br />

Aryan and the Dravidian races respectively. In Michael’s epic, the myth of Ramayana<br />

has found a new significance. Ravana stands for the Indian soul while Rama’s army<br />

is an implicit reflection of the British invaders. Thus Meghnadbadh appears to be an<br />

epic of Indian nationalism.<br />

It has also references to the poet’s own life. As he had forsaken his own<br />

community and had been thrown aside by his conservative family and expelled from<br />

Hindu college for conversion to Christianity, and because he had neglected his duty<br />

towards his parents, he later expressed his ‘remorse’ through his depiction of<br />

Meghnada, a patriot and obedient son, Ravana, a defender of his country and<br />

Bivishana, a betrayer to his own countrymen. Besides, in this epic, he portrayed the<br />

helplessness of man at the hands of fate. Its musical blank verse, its<br />

characterization, its inherence of national contemporariness and above all, the tragic<br />

presentation, rank it among the greatest epics of world literature.<br />

Michael also wrote sonnets which are important for discovering the dark<br />

corners of his life-history but which are, to my own judgment, quite archaic in<br />

structure and in subject-matters and do not reveal his real poetic merit to us. An<br />

exception is “Kapotaksha Nad” (“River Kapotaksha”) where he expresses patriotism<br />

through his deep love for a river.<br />

He even wrote dramatic monologues in Birangana (The Heroines) which are<br />

more accurate in blank verse than his recognized masterpiece and exposes his<br />

progressive outlook and respect for the fair sex.<br />

But his dramatic works, though hailed by critics and spectators in his life-time,<br />

are quite poor in artistic charisma. The only play that can be ranked in the first<br />

category is a farce entitled Ekei Ki Boley Sabhayata? (Is It Called Civilization?) in<br />

which he attacked the Bengali youth of his time for their blind imitation of western<br />

life-style. It was later superseded by Dinabandhu Mitra’s Sadhabar Ekadashi (The<br />

Fasting of Wives).<br />

Sayeed Abubakar (b. 1972) has done a great job by translating Michael’s<br />

English works into the typical Bangla diction that the master poet created.<br />

Abubakar’s translations have been added to Michael’s works and thereby have<br />

enriched Bangla literature.<br />

Michael is an Augustan poet; with his sole attempt, he filled the want of Virgil,<br />

Horace and Ovid; and also of Homer, Milton and Petrarch. He is in fact the greatest<br />

poet of Renaissance whose works perfectly reveal the spirits of individualism,<br />

liberalism and humanism.<br />

Many poets of his time (e.g. Hemchandra and Nabinchandra) tried to<br />

compose epic poems, but none of them achieved his equal position. Michael’s<br />

Meghnadbadh has never been subsided by any other epic work in our language.


28<br />

Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay (1838-’94)<br />

Bankim is at the same time, one of the greatest and one of the most<br />

controversial writers of Bangla literature. In his life-time, he was hailed as ‘Sahitya-<br />

Samrat’ (i.e. Emperor of Literature). After death, some canonized him as a ‘Rishi’<br />

(i.e. sage). Some others, annoyed with his political and social views, have<br />

questioned his greatness.<br />

The first and foremost allegation against Bankim in this country is that he was<br />

from top to bottom an anti-Muslim, therefore communal and fundamentalist, a<br />

conservative and reactionary about social norms and also an implicit contributor to<br />

imperialism. But a careful scrutiny of his works does not definitely vindicate such<br />

ideas. He was a humanist, patriot, rationalist and progressive writer. It is true that he<br />

was religious and like Tolstoy, a strict believer in a deity but he was never a<br />

communal man, let alone fundamentalist. Such accusations are made by those who<br />

do not read his works thoroughly and hold superficial ideas about his mind. In this<br />

context it can be said that in his historical novels, he depicted the splendid<br />

aristocracy of feudal Moslem India alongside its dark sides.<br />

The severest accusations are usually made against his Anandamath (The<br />

Abbey of Bliss). In this novel, as I have already said, he actually condemned the<br />

contemporary British rulers considering them as a replacement of their predecessor<br />

Muslims who too had been invaders and assaulters of India’s own culture and<br />

civilization. Here he wished the success of a Hindu Revival which he saw had<br />

already begun. This novel celebrates a great puja of the motherland incarnated in<br />

the shape of Goddess Durga. The emulsion of the goddess is done leaving a dream<br />

of resurrection which predicts a recurrence of the rebellion that he narrates.<br />

However, this novel is definitely not his masterpiece. This honor is deserved<br />

by Kopalkundala, a highly Romantic fiction in which Bankim depicts the contradiction<br />

between social and alienated human beings – the inadaptability of an outsider<br />

heroine in social stream. An orphan girl, who was brought up by a hermit, elopes<br />

with a gentleman, later marries him and then finds social life bitter for her. She<br />

admits the hermit’s (who comes to the town in search for her) call to make her a<br />

sacrifice for the deity. That moment never comes, but she drowns in the river along<br />

with her husband. Thus the author gives a glory to man’s predestined fate. The<br />

heroine, after whose name the novel is entitled, lacks social competence and is<br />

devoid of love which is a product of only civilized and cultivated mind.<br />

Even his first attempt of Bangla fiction, Durges-Nandini (The Daughter of the<br />

Fort-Lord) bears his deep consciousness of medieval Indian society and its<br />

fabrication by communal divide. Here a Rajput prince and a Bengali princess fall in<br />

love with each other. A Pathan princess later does have a crush on him. And finally<br />

the prince marries the first one because of their religious commonness.<br />

His Chandrashekhar, despite having a historical background, is exuberant in<br />

psychological revelation of socially deprived lovers. Lovers denying social barrier<br />

suffer from guilt-complex and Shaivalini’s vision of hell is the result of her remorse for<br />

committing such a ‘sin’. In this novel, Bankim depicts sexual perverts along with true


29<br />

lovers. And at the end of the novel, he glorifies sacrifice for religiosity and piety on<br />

the question of love and sexuality.<br />

Rajani, another fictional work by him, is a dramatic presentation (comprised of<br />

monologues) of different characters who are inflicted with psychological dilemma.<br />

The characters uphold their own speech and thus the exposition of the writer’s own<br />

mind seems objective.<br />

And Krishnakanter Will (The Will of Krishnakanta) is a social novel having<br />

deep psychological revelation. A babu (i.e. Bengali Hindu gentleman), who loved his<br />

wife sincerely, leaves her for a widow who has extraordinary physical beauty. Later<br />

that woman betrays with him and he kills her mercilessly. His first wife also dies, and<br />

he becomes a vagabond hermit forsaking social life. Bankim, in this outstanding<br />

novel, depicts man’s sexual hunger, thirst for beauty and false lovers’ immorality. He<br />

champions pure and loyal love, a love based on religiosity, a love beyond mere<br />

physical attraction and false moments’ momentary impulse.<br />

His Kamalakanter Daptar (Kamalakanta’s Office) is a memorable satire,<br />

perhaps the best in this genre. The behavioral incongruities of a Bengali gentleman<br />

are drawn and ridiculed in this writing; his words are mostly philosophical and<br />

sometimes poetic. Lokrahashya (Mysteries of Men) and Muchiram Goorer<br />

Jibancharit (A Life-sketch of Muchiram Goor) are his other satires.<br />

Philosophically Bankim was a Positivist – a follower of August Comte. He took<br />

Comte’s religion of human welfare and finally reshaped it into the service of<br />

motherland.<br />

Bankim was also a ruthless moralist. His humanism is overshadowed by his<br />

religious thoughts. And he always vilified the idea of ‘love’ which is to him, a mere<br />

thirst for beauty.<br />

Nevertheless, through his works of huge range and complexities, Bankim<br />

shows us his gigantic might in visualizing the dark deep ocean of human mind. His<br />

discovery of human psyche largely reminds us of the great Shakespeare. Such<br />

attempt makes Bankim a visionary and prophet; he truly passed this tough trial.<br />

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)<br />

Tagore is the Angel of Romantic literature. His artistic achievement can be<br />

compared to no one else. So much subtlety, depth of contemplation and diversity are<br />

found in very few writers of the world. He worked in approximately five genres of<br />

literature – poetry, novel, short story, drama and essay. Besides, he was a class<br />

musician, painter, actor, dance-director and architect.<br />

He is definitely not aligned with the 19 th -century English Romantics because<br />

he was not an escapist like Keats or Coleridge. But like Goethe, he is a Romantic in<br />

the sense that he based his artistic work strongly on an optimistic aestheticism.<br />

Tagore’s entire poetic works possess an elemental philosophy. It is that the<br />

world is not eternal but perishable – it is bound to a cycle of life and death; the earth<br />

and other planets, the stars, the solar system, the cosmos, life, love and reasonably


30<br />

his own grand achievement will face extinction in course of time. But all natural<br />

objects will come back into existence following the omnipresent rule of death and<br />

rebirth. Admitting this truth, humans have to perform their duties in this world. His<br />

other views of life and the world surround this fundamental doctrine. He has given<br />

this single message again and again in various (and every time uniquely new) ways<br />

in his poems.<br />

Tagore showed the sign of his talent in Shandha-shangeet (The Evening<br />

Song) and Pravat-shangeet (The Morning Song). But Manashi (The Woman of<br />

Fancy) is his first major individualistic attempt. He contemplated on nature in this<br />

book of poems. Especially notable is the poem “Ahalyar Prati” (“To Ahalya”) that<br />

concerns with an imaginary soul of earthly matters and its profound relation with the<br />

spirit of the universe. “Meghdut” (“The Cloud-Messenger”) is an ode addressed to<br />

the great Sanskrit poet Kalidasa who wrote a poem of the same name.<br />

Manashi was undermined by his later work Sonar Tori (The Golden Boat).<br />

And his third original effort – Chitra surpassed those all. It includes such immortal<br />

poems as “Joytsna-Ratrey” (“In a Moonlit Night”), “Shandha” (“Evening”), “Shwarga<br />

Hoitey Biday” (“Departure from the Paradise”), “Urvashi”, “Jiban-Devata” (“The God<br />

of Life”) etc which covey his crave for beauty and life. In the first mentioned poem, he<br />

tries to give a spiritual essence to a moonlit night relating it to eternity. In “Shandha”,<br />

the world sighs on a crimson evening for its indecisive journey. “Shwarga Hoitey<br />

Biday” asserts his preference for the temporal world to a divine one. In his “Urvashi”,<br />

he addresses a heavenly dancer who is not a woman of flesh and blood at all, but an<br />

epitome of timeless beauty. And in “Jiban-Devata”, he tries to illustrate a conjugal<br />

relationship between him and the deity whom he thinks to be the immanent soul.<br />

Tagore turned from Romanticism to Mysticism in his middle age. His personal<br />

disasters (especially wife’s death) made him melancholy that enthused him to<br />

compose mystic songs. The messages of Upanishadas found their supreme artistic<br />

form in the songs of this period. Gitanjali (The Song Offerings) is the highest<br />

achievement of this phase which earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.<br />

Here he envisions limitlessness in limitation, sings the song of real beauty unfound in<br />

the ocean of temporal splendor.<br />

The First World War (1914-’18) inspired his romantic and mystic trend to be a<br />

little diverted into deep concerns of the modern catastrophic era. But he was never a<br />

pessimist; he strongly believed in human potentiality and good will. Balaka (The<br />

Cranes) is the masterpiece of this time. Tagore dreams of survival of the civilization<br />

tearing up a catastrophic gloom in the entitling poem of the book. In “Chanchala”<br />

(“The Restless”), he comes to the realization that the cosmos, for its existence,<br />

needs an unstoppable speedy motion of all its ingredients –<br />

“O great river,<br />

Your invisible and silent water<br />

Continuous and inseparable<br />

Flows for eternity.<br />

The Space shivers at your terrible shapeless speed;<br />

Matter-less flow’s violent trauma makes<br />

Piles of matter-foams arise;<br />

The sky and the earth cry out at your crimson cloud;


31<br />

An intense ray is dispersed into stream of colors<br />

From an advancing darkness;<br />

The Sun, the Moon and all the stars<br />

Move dying in rotation<br />

Layer up to layer<br />

Like a lot of bubbles.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

And he imposes transience upon the glory of an unquestionably pure love in<br />

“Shahjahan”. The Indian emperor Shahjahan founded the great mausoleum called<br />

Taj Mahal to immortalize his beloved wife’s memory. Tagore believes the great<br />

emperor has eventually forgotten her memory on his journey from this planet to a<br />

more glorified and enlightened world.<br />

He was still a Romantic in the broader sense, but later during the more<br />

destructive Second World War (1939-’45), his chaste romantic nature was severely<br />

struck. Tagore became a Modern, but his modernism is colored by romanticism; he<br />

“carried his romanticism intact into the modern world” (a comment by William<br />

Radice). He foresaw a demon arising to devastate the civilization exactly as W. B.<br />

Yeats did; but he had a deep belief in a supernatural good power and had optimism<br />

in Man’s will for returning to purity and piety. Punascha (The Post-Script), Prantik<br />

(The Border-Land), Shejuti (The Lamp), Shanai (The Cornet), Shesh Lekha (The<br />

Last Writings) and some other poetical collections fall in this era. In the poem<br />

“Shishutirtha” (“The Pilgrimage of the Child”) of Punascha, Tagore envisions the<br />

victory of humanity and an enlightened glory of the civilization’s journey. “Banshi”<br />

(“Flute-music”) of Punascha is a poem having the theme of unconsummated love of<br />

a socio-economically deprived man who appears at such comprehension of the<br />

sorrows of love through the sadness of flute-symphony –<br />

“……nothing distinguishes Haripada the clerk<br />

From the Emperor Akbar.<br />

Torn umbrella and royal parasol merge,<br />

Rise on the sad music of a flute<br />

Towards one heaven.”<br />

(Translated by William Radice)<br />

In “Ekjan Loke” (“A Man”), he tells of the eternal sadness of alienation in the human<br />

world. And in “Apaghat” (“The Shocking News”) of Shanai, he shows how the<br />

catastrophe of another part of the world disturbs the merriment of a few ordinary men<br />

of a distant locality.<br />

In “Janmadin” (“My Birthday”) of Shejuti, the poet memorializes his life-history<br />

and the gradual fall of civilization alongside. He suspects the civilization is going to<br />

be caught in the clutches of ‘human-animals’.<br />

In the poem “Pakshi-Manab” (“The Bird-like Man”) of Nabajatak (The Newborn<br />

Baby), he pleads mankind to save the world from a possible catastrophe<br />

caused by technological advancement.<br />

Even a few days before his death, he wrote a number of good poems which<br />

are collected in Shesh Lekha. Especially memorable is “Prothom Diner Surya” (“The<br />

First Day’s Sun”) –<br />

“The first day’s Sun<br />

Asked the being at its newer birth –


‘Who are you?’<br />

It wasn’t replied.<br />

32<br />

Years and years passed,<br />

The day’s last Sun<br />

Uttered the last question across the western sea<br />

At silent evening –<br />

‘Who are you?’<br />

He got no reply.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

The same anthology contains another poem titled “Rupnaraner Kule” (“At the Bank<br />

of Rupnaran”) where the poet’s last message is -<br />

“Life is a worship of sorrow till death,<br />

To get the high prize of truth,<br />

And to pay all debts with the last breath.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

Since his early life till the last days, he made continuously newer<br />

experimentations of poetic techniques.<br />

Tagore’s novels for the most part focus on sociopolitical issues of our national<br />

life; his novels are similar to ‘national allegories’. However, he has also written<br />

psychological and romantic novels.<br />

His novels are not many in number, but nevertheless remarkable. And if we<br />

wish to call a single novel the greatest in whole Bangla literature, it should be,<br />

according to most critics’ evaluation, his Gora. A young man, who is proud of his<br />

Hindu identity, eventually comes to the fact of his Irish blood, and takes the hands of<br />

a Brahmo girl whom he loved but was hesitant to marry her for communal distinction.<br />

Here the writer champions Indian nationalism and identity above all communal<br />

factions. And his own notion is that nationalism is not conflicting with<br />

cosmopolitanism. Ghare Baire (Home and Outside) and Char Adhyay (Four<br />

Chapters) are his other two nationalistic novels. He criticized terrorism and<br />

supported Mahatma’s non-violent policies in these two novels.<br />

Tagore’s Chokher Bali (The Detested) was an epoch-making psychological<br />

novel. Here he presents sexual love tinged with promiscuity and complexity. It is the<br />

story of a triangular love-affair. A babu leaves his wife for a widow whose marriage<br />

proposal he rejected some years ago. Thereafter that widow gets proposal for<br />

marriage from that babu’s friend. But finally rejecting both of them, she takes a<br />

pilgrim’s life. Unlike his predecessor Bankim, Tagore recognizes a widow’s right for<br />

love-affair, although however, does not feel necessary to give it a marriage license.<br />

Later Saratchandra Chattopadhyay too was largely influenced by this novel.<br />

His Shesher Kabita (The Last Poem) is an amazing Romantic novel set in the<br />

20 th -century urban background. Most of the characters here, including the<br />

protagonist (Amit), belong to the bourgeois elite class, and their persona is shallow.<br />

They are modern men. The main theme is: as love fades in the dullness of marital<br />

life, a couple decides not to marry each other in order to eternalize their love. Here<br />

the writer places love beyond all monotony and superficiality of conjugal triviality.


33<br />

Shey.(S/he) is a novel out of the mainstream of fictional literature. Here the<br />

author’s way of telling sometimes reminds us of Postmodernist forms of writing.<br />

Tagore’s novels have a general mistake: his characters, irrespective of their<br />

age or academic qualification, appear to be matured enough to talk highly<br />

philosophical words. This fault has to some extent, diminished the worth of his<br />

fictions.<br />

Tagore’s short stories are unique and empathetic; eternal human sorrows and<br />

joys are depicted in these stories and are worthy to be ranked with those of<br />

Maupassant, Chekov and O’ Henry. His short stories are not based on any intricate<br />

themes, rather they tell us of eternal humanistic ideas like father’s affection,<br />

childhood love, the sorrows of a boy who is separated from his mother, a dumb girl’s<br />

mental agonies, women’s sufferings in loveless marital life, one’s love for a tree<br />

which one has seen from childhood etc.<br />

His “Postmaster”, “Khudhita Pashan” (“The Hungry Stones”), “Nastanir” (“The<br />

Spoilt Nest”), “Madhyabartini” (“The Middle Woman”), “Monihara” (“The Lost Jewel”),<br />

“Malyadan” (“Awarding of Garland”), “Guptadhan” (“The Hidden Treasure”), “Balai”,<br />

“Laboratory” – all have eternal appeal in the world of short story.<br />

“Postmaster” is the story of a town man, whose mind has grown up with selfcenteredness<br />

because of urban civilization and who creates an escapist logic to<br />

leave an orphan and helpless village girl who loves him. That man’s escapist moral<br />

is that none belongs to none in this world.<br />

“Khudhita Pashan” is apparently a Gothic horror story but it in fact reveals the<br />

dark history of medieval India’s sexual immorality.<br />

“Nastanir” tells us about the alienation of a married couple. The wife, who<br />

leads a lonely life for her husband’s unconcern, falls in love with her brother-in-law,<br />

which finally leads to the breaking down of their marital life.<br />

“Madhyabartini” tells us how marital life was often devastated by child<br />

marriage and polygamy in the 19 th century. Here the husband and his wife both are<br />

responsible for this family disaster. The wife provokes her husband to marry an<br />

under-aged girl, and after the marriage, they get isolated from each other day by<br />

day. At last the immature girl dies leaving them ashamed, repented and emotionally<br />

detached.<br />

“Monihara” is the story of Monimala, a complex woman whose selfcenteredness<br />

is the outcome of her alienation from her husband. All that she cares<br />

for is her ornaments. As a result, being requested by her husband to give him the<br />

ornaments, she flees with her distant cousin and thereafter becomes his victim. Her<br />

ghost now haunts her husband’s mind. The ghost appears being adorned with the<br />

ornaments that Monimala took for herself. It is the ghost of a woman of conservative<br />

Bengali society, who was forced to live a loveless marital life and whose heart was<br />

thereby falsely glittering like golden jewelries.<br />

“Malyadan” is the story of an undesirable love-game played by elders with an<br />

under-aged girl, which results in bitter consequences.<br />

In “Guptadhan” we come across a man who spends a large part of his life for<br />

hidden treasure and finally returns home barehanded forsaking his greed for riches.


34<br />

“Balai” is a unique story. Here the writer depicts a boy whose heart is full of<br />

admiration for a tree. This boy gradually grows up as a nature lover. And the sad<br />

happening of uprooting that tree separates him from his beloved kith and kin.<br />

“Laboratory” is a story of self-righteousness of modern women – a story of<br />

contradiction between freedom and ruthlessness. The laboratory of the story is in<br />

fact a lab of humans’ dark mind intended for animalistic sexual practice.<br />

Tagore’s dramatic works are diversified, but the ultimate fact appearing from<br />

those works is that he is a poet; because he wrote his plays in stilted language, and<br />

often in verses.<br />

In his plays, Tagore upholds humanity and criticizes all prejudices and<br />

inhuman practices prevailing in the society. In a number of his dramas, he conveys<br />

the notion that a society cannot survive without adaptations of its faiths and traditions<br />

with the demand of time.<br />

In the famous verse-drama Bisharjan (Emulsion), he draws the conflict of love<br />

and convention through a story of making human sacrifice at a temple.<br />

His Chitrangada is a beautiful verse-drama; here he shows the conflict of<br />

physical beauty and inherent competence of the female. The ugly princess<br />

Chitrangada worships to the love-god to lend her appealing beauty for a year in<br />

order to impress prince Arjuna. Her wish becomes fulfilled as Arjuna marries her, but<br />

he leaves her when after a year her god-gifted beauty disappears. Then the princess<br />

recognizes that beauty as her own antagonist.<br />

His mystic thoughts are exposed in the metaphorical plays Raja (The King)<br />

and Dakghar (The Post-office). Dakghar tells us of man’s dream for a union with the<br />

cosmic soul. A boy dreams of becoming a runner, as he wishes to carry news to all<br />

corners of the world. When the king of the world decides to meet him, he plans to<br />

ask the lord to make him a cosmic runner. However, before his departure, a girl<br />

expresses her love for him. Thus a mystic boy, who is on the way of the great world,<br />

does not lose his entire existence in this earth.<br />

In Muktadhara (The Unbound Stream), a symbolic play, Tagore shows the evil<br />

nature of civilization in an emerging age of mechanical technology. A king builds a<br />

dam in a river to gratify his vengeance against another kingdom. Then the prince, the<br />

son of the king, sacrifices his own life in order to destroy the dam and make the river<br />

water free-flowing.<br />

But another symbolic play titled Raktakarabi (The Red Oleander) is his<br />

dramatic masterpiece. Here he attacks materialism, religious fanaticism, imperialism,<br />

capitalism and evil exercise of power; and sings the song of victory of love,<br />

humanity, motherhood of nature and the invincible spirit of eternal youth. The story<br />

is: the king of the netherworld engages his slave-laborers to get the hidden treasures<br />

of the earth. A loving couple is suspected by the workers’ leader to be miscreants.<br />

The couple unknowingly makes the key role to split the workers’ class. Then, as the<br />

result of a conspiracy made by the gang-leader, the king kills the lover boy without<br />

identifying him. Out of remorse, he decides to destroy his kingdom of the<br />

netherworld. Then the farmers’ song reaches there from the outer world, and endless<br />

light of that free land gives them new hope.


35<br />

Tasher Desh (The Play-Cards’ Land) shows the incongruities of home politics<br />

in the guise of personified play-cards’ tale.<br />

His other important plays are Raja O Rani (The King and the Queen),<br />

Chandalika (The Untouchable Girl), Sharodyotshab (The Autumn Festival) etc.<br />

He wrote essays on different issues like art, philosophy, religion, politics,<br />

society etc. His autobiographical work Jiban-Smriti (Memory of My Life) is highly<br />

estimated in essay literature. And his Russiar Chithi (Letters from Russia), which<br />

was banned by the British rulers, shows his liberal ideas about politics.<br />

Bangla literature bore Tagore’s legacy for a long time. The poems of Nazrul,<br />

Bishnu, Sudhindranath and Buddhadev have the mark of his influence. Also the<br />

prose of the following decades acknowledge his contribution. Even Ahmad Sofa’s<br />

classic translation of Faust (1986) is indebted to his poetic style.<br />

It is not true that he was relatively silent about the colonial rule in India. His<br />

vision of impermanence of everything includes his belief in the ultimate fall of the<br />

British Raj.<br />

Tagore is also sometimes criticized for not portraying Muslim characters or<br />

society. Think for a while: if he did, wouldn’t the Muslims focus more on his negative<br />

comments on them (and get angry) than on the positive ones, since a writer can’t<br />

always praise a society or a community?<br />

From an overall impression, Tagore’s poems are a door to the great world of<br />

unending mysteries; his novels are a message of peace and amity for the diverged<br />

human species; his short stories tell us of helpless and forlorn earthly beings; the<br />

plays of Tagore are a mirror of the internal conflicts and clashes of ideological rivals;<br />

his paintings are the alarm of an impending darkness; and in his songs, all<br />

perplexities, concerns and turbulences are subsided by a universal vision of<br />

unearthly bliss.<br />

The following words by Saratchandra perfectly evaluate Tagore’s<br />

achievement – “Master of poets, our astonishments find no limit looking at you.”<br />

Saratchandra Chattopadhyay (1876-1938)<br />

Saratchandra was a desperate and lonely passer-by in the way of progression<br />

of the Bengali Hindu community. Despite being a son of a conservative Brahmin<br />

family, he torn out of his social net and became a bright star in the whole history of<br />

the Bengalis’ effort of gaining social and psychological liberty. In spite of writing in<br />

the great Tagore’s era, he presented unique creations and bluntly saying, surpassed<br />

even Tagore in artistry of the genre of novel. And so much progressive outlook is<br />

hardly found in other contemporary Bengali writers’ works.<br />

In most of his works Sarat depicts social evil, some good men’s fight against it<br />

and human (especially female) psyche; and he was a propagandist against the<br />

institution of marriage.


36<br />

His early attempt Devdas, although poor in structure, gives a little hint to his<br />

progressive and revolutionary mind. It is the story of a young man who dies out of<br />

anguish for his fatal love-affair. His Palli-Samaj (Country-Society) is a good portrayal<br />

of an unconsummated love-affair in Bengal’s rural society.<br />

Arakshaniya (The Eligible Girl) is the story of a girl of dark complexion, whose<br />

mother finds it too difficult to marry her off. It results in her pitiable humiliation in the<br />

society. This novel questions the anachronistic values of the heartless society that<br />

considers physical beauty (and fair complexion) a must for the female.<br />

Chandranath is the story of another girl’s disgrace – this time, for being a<br />

‘dishonest’ mother’s daughter.<br />

Charitrahin (The Characterless) questions the character of a society itself<br />

which suppresses its members’ carnal desires due to traditional and outdated<br />

concepts. It tells us two stories alongside; one of them is of a love-affair between a<br />

babu and her maidservant; the other tale is of a similar relationship of a widow and<br />

her distant brother-in-law. The first one ends in the beloved’s disapproval of a<br />

possible marriage (as she honors the class divide) and the other relationship ends in<br />

tragic consequences as the widow loses her mind.<br />

Grihadaha (Burning of the House) suspects the very existence of a society<br />

which finds itself helpless while perverted and contaminated by the betrayal of its<br />

dishonest members. Here Sarat shows how marital bond loosens for economic<br />

inequality amid a man, his wife’s parental home and her extramarital lover. In it he<br />

masterly depicts illicit love and its consummation through adultery by a lustful man<br />

(Suresh) and his friend’s (Mahim) disloyal wife (Achala). At the same time the writer<br />

portrays the conflict between emotional love and physical impulse. However, with<br />

due apology to his memory, I convict him of corruption in this context; the reason is:<br />

he does not give the reader any scene of intimate relationship between Achala and<br />

her husband Mahim, which he does in case of her and her lover Suresh. Does Sarat<br />

make this bias for commercial accomplishment?<br />

Marital bond loosens due to economic difficulties in Birajbou too. This novel is<br />

also a mirror of physical persecution on those days’ Bengali women. A village<br />

housewife, who is devoted to her husband, endures long days’ poverty and<br />

persecution with great patience, a virtue which those days’ Bengali Hindu women<br />

were believed to must have. Excessive torture forces her leave her in-laws’ house for<br />

what she later repents.<br />

Sarat professes his firm belief of the insignificance of marital bond in Shesh<br />

Prashna (The Last Question). Love, if is based on trust, loyalty and sincerity, does<br />

not need social approval; it is this novel’s motto.<br />

Many of his works focus on family values, for example – Shuvoda, Bamuner<br />

Meye (A Brahmin’s Daughter) etc. Datta is a love story where the writer prefers the<br />

choice of heart to formal socio-religious convention. And his Pather Dabi (The Claim<br />

of the Road) is a political novel that was banned by the British government.<br />

But he excelled in Sreekanta which is regarded as a great picaresque novel. It<br />

is the story of a vagabond man (a writer), observing the complexities of the Bengali<br />

Hindu middle class society and commenting about those in first person narrative. In<br />

reality, Sarat himself appears as Sreekanta as this work is recognized by him as an


37<br />

autobiographical novel. It is a gigantic work, a mirror of contemporary social attitudes<br />

and an implicit document of Sarat’s own life and outlook.<br />

Sarat lived in an era while the common Bengalis were much more emotional<br />

than they are today. He wrote his novels in empathetic and compassionate language<br />

that makes the reader schmaltzy for the deprived and oppressed.<br />

He not only won the hearts of common readers but also many younger writers<br />

were inspired by his writing techniques; particularly his influence on Tarashankar is<br />

worth mentioning. He had also a deep, long-lasting influence on Bangla cinema.<br />

Personally Sarat believed in conservative and rigid ideas about society and<br />

politics. His personal letters reveal this fact.<br />

But through his literary works, Sarat fought against all crude and inhuman<br />

social oppressions. Such height in the language of protest against social evils is rare<br />

in his contemporary Bengali writers’ works. We pay our homage to the ‘Oporajeyo<br />

Kothashilpi’ (i.e. Invincible Fictionist) as a visionary of human well-being, as a great<br />

rebel against all evils of a backward and decadent society.<br />

Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976)<br />

India’s political and economic life went through a great upheaval in the first<br />

half of the 20 th century. The colonial rulers intensified their atrocities; the whole<br />

country turned to a large crematorium. Its vivid sign was in the Amritsar massacre of<br />

1919. Economic exploitation made the nation continuously poorer day by day. The<br />

agitation against the injustice done by the British rulers gradually increased and it<br />

eventually led the nation to its independence. That disrupted era of struggle for<br />

freedom found its best artistic exposure in Nazrul’s poems. He gave birth to a typical<br />

style and diction, which conveys the tone of heartrending protest.<br />

Nazrul is commonly known in Bengal as the ‘Rebel Poet’, as the epitome of<br />

Bengali nationalism and independence. Perhaps no other poet of the world has<br />

expressed so artistically the firm voice of protest against tyrant rulers. But his entire<br />

reputation does not lie merely in these traits. He was also a poet of love, a classical<br />

musician and a skilled translator of Persian and Arabic poems. Not only that; he also<br />

brought Middle Eastern and Hindustani artistic flavor into our literature.<br />

His immortality in Bangla literature is mainly for his first book of poems<br />

Agnibina (The Harp of Fire). However, he has another quite similar work titled Bisher<br />

Bashi (The Flute of Poison).<br />

“Bidrohi” (“The Rebel”), which is widely recognized as his immortal<br />

masterpiece, is a great example of pluralistic ideas. Themes and characters of<br />

Indian, Greek and Middle Eastern mythologies are assimilated here. He professed<br />

his vision of himself as a poet of love and rebellion in the following line of the poem,<br />

“A curbed bamboo-flute is in my one hand, in the other a war-drum.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

In “Raktambardharini Ma” (“Red-colored Mother”) and “Agamani” (“The<br />

Coming Deity”), he presents goddess Durga symbolized as the opponent to demonlike<br />

imperial power.


38<br />

“Kheyaparer Tarani” (“The River Boatman”) is based on an Islamic legend.<br />

Nazrul presents Prophet Mohammed and his followers as social reformers and<br />

propagators of a new age. The following line of the poem makes it a masterpiece of<br />

anti-communal literature –<br />

“The helmsman sings a Shari song: La sharik Allah.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

This poem influenced some later Muslim poets like Farrukh Ahmad, although in<br />

entirely different and limited sense.<br />

It also needs to be said that he was not simply a preacher of noncommunalism;<br />

he inspired the Bengali Muslims to revaluate their cultural identity. He<br />

remarkably made an imprint of Hindu myths and philosophies on the psyche of his<br />

community.<br />

Nazrul believed in a deity; but he sometimes expressed his antagonism to that<br />

deity to express his revolutionary thoughts. Many of his poems expose the mind of a<br />

Renaissance poet who is in a dilemma between theistic and its contradictory beliefs;<br />

for example, in “Dhumketu” (“The Comet”) –<br />

“And I eat the Creator chewing.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

Or in “Bidrohi” –<br />

“I’m the rebel Vrigu, and shall mark my footprint on God’s breast.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

“Jhar” (“Storm”) is a poem professing the poet’s political (implicitly Marxist)<br />

aim.<br />

He wrote love-songs which, although not equal to Tagore’s in poetic appeal,<br />

are rather excellent in musical artistry.<br />

He composed songs of Kali which are much worthier than those of<br />

Ramprasad or Kamalakanta. He wrote Islamic songs that are no less worthy than<br />

those of the great Persian poets. He is the only poet of Bengal who has composed<br />

Islamic and Hindu religious songs at the same time. He masterly assimilated the<br />

cultural heritages of the two principal religious communities of the country.<br />

Nazrul is called “Bengal’s Bulbul” for his adept replication of Persian poetic<br />

style. He also skillfully translated some masterpieces of Persian literature into Bangla<br />

– especially Khayyam’s and Hafiz’s poems. His fictional writings too have similar<br />

romantic colorings.<br />

But he has limitations. He gives few unique philosophies concerning either life<br />

or politics. He composed verses which are worthy in the vigor and vitality of youth<br />

but even these, if we evaluate with the scale of artistic delicacy, do not exceed the<br />

merit of mature rhymes. Moreover, he was not a secularist like Shelley or Neruda<br />

rather acutely religious. But he did not take the words of the ‘holy’ books in strictly<br />

literal sense and was even occasionally critical about those.<br />

Nazrul is a late poet of Renaissance in spite of his exposition in Tagore’s<br />

romantic era. But without his contribution, the age of Tagore would not get its<br />

accomplishment. Now he is glorified as a preacher of progressive outlook and noncommunal<br />

humanism, as a dreamer of national and human freedom, and above all,<br />

as a prophet of patriotic nationalism. And throughout his life, he was a freedom-


39<br />

fighter and eventually a martyr (though not literally) in the war against tyrant alien<br />

rulers. And all these traits perfectly vindicate his status as the ‘Rebel Poet’ of Bengal.<br />

Bishnu Dey (1909-’82)<br />

Bishnu Dey is one of the pioneering Modernist poets. He is also the foremost<br />

person of Marxist poetry in Bangla; and in fact, one of the greatest Marxists of world<br />

literature.<br />

Bishnu mainly tells us of social discrimination, its impact on culture, common<br />

people’s deprivation, crudity and curse of poverty, and its overall effect. He left his<br />

light on the communal riots during the country’s partition, its people’s deprivation,<br />

poverty and a humiliating lifestyle. He has a sage-like patience. His voice is not<br />

shrouded in a helpless frustration; he is optimistic. And his outlook of self gripped by<br />

the world’s disturbances is tinged with a god-like aloofness.<br />

He is the most brilliant among the accomplished elevators of Tagore’s poetic<br />

technique and diction. He is superior to Sudhindranath, Samar, Sukanta, Subhash<br />

and many other contemporaries. Also many poets from later generations were<br />

influenced by his diction, for example – Amitabha Gupta, Shankha Ghosh and Anik<br />

Mahmud.<br />

Bishnu’s world-view is not confined to Marxism; he gives a philosophy of<br />

man’s achieving a high order of existence. He envisions an equalitarian society<br />

which will attain for itself a resplendent world of supreme consciousness. On the<br />

surface, he announces his Marxist dream and in the deeper sphere of contemplation,<br />

he is found playing on a universal music. Amidst endless bloodsheds in Calcutta’s<br />

unrest streets, he is optimistic of future –<br />

“Arriving at evening sward, I see in the selfless sky –<br />

A calm, auspicious being keeps awake<br />

Rinsing a wrong moment gathered by the flow of time<br />

Certain, rather ascetic like a humble lotus<br />

Speechless in the sense of work<br />

A flawless and perfect being<br />

As a star of the night in the sky of sane existence –<br />

A bunch of free, white jasmines.”<br />

(Translated by the author)<br />

Sometimes an exotic sense is integrated into his dialectical materialism.<br />

Some critics have evaluated Bishnu’s such essence of life and the world as ‘Marxist<br />

mysticism’. In this respect, he has a higher position than Manik, the other great<br />

Marxist.<br />

His world-view is comparable to Plato’s. He wanted to reform this world in<br />

both of its material and spiritual aspects. Thus we even can call him a Platonist poet.<br />

Not only that; his words are well-chosen and his diction is highly standard. Through<br />

his high category of verse, he appears as a prophetic philosopher.<br />

And love in his poems is not confined to two persons’ mutual matter; it<br />

develops into a collective consciousness, a wider concept leading to the concern of<br />

the civilization’s welfare.


40<br />

Frequently in his poems, he used Tagore’s lines in ironical way; some of his<br />

poems apparently seem to be Tagore’s parody. But the fact is that he did so in order<br />

to draw a contrast of his modern consciousness with the thoughts of the Romantic<br />

King having the intention of clarifying his new philosophies.<br />

His Chorabali (Quicksand) was a milestone in the grand road of Bangla<br />

modern poetry. His long poems titled Smriti Sotta Vabishyat (Memory, Entity and<br />

Future) and Jol Dao (Give Me Water) have epic qualities like Eliot’s The Waste Land.<br />

It is not an exaggeration that Bishnu’s poems are all times classics.<br />

Manik Bandyopadhyay (1908-’56)<br />

Manik is the greatest Marxist fiction-writer of Bangla literature. Besides by Karl<br />

Marx, he was deeply influenced by Sigmund Freud.<br />

Freud reigned over his mind in the early life; his three great novels titled Putul<br />

Nacher Itikatha (The Story of Puppets), Padma Nadir Majhi (The Boatman of the<br />

Padma) and Ahimsha (Non-violence) are products of this period.<br />

Putul Nacher Itikatha tells us of Man’s helplessness at the hands of his<br />

unconscious sexual desire. Man’s suppressed carnal impulse dominates over his will<br />

and plays with him as if with a puppet. Two women (one, a village housewife and the<br />

other, a town man’s wife) choose two unique destinies: the first one leaves her<br />

extramarital lover when after long days’ wait her erotic feeling dies and the second<br />

one admits her disturbed marital life finding sexual urge irresistible. This novel is one<br />

of the very greatest achievements of Freudian psychoanalytical literature.<br />

But Padma Nadir Majhi is a more matured attempt. Here he mingles Marx and<br />

Freud; the harsh life of the proletariat (particularly fishermen) along with their psyche<br />

is revealed in this work. Here he also presents a picture of how the common people<br />

get trapped in the net of colonization.<br />

But the novel that surpasses all other Bangla Modernist novels in merit is<br />

Ahimsa. A woman, who finds her husband less energetic than she expects, chooses<br />

a hypocrite sage who once raped her; in fact a strong masochistic impulse forces the<br />

woman share her life with a man of sadistic nature. It is a surprisingly complex work;<br />

he focuses on sadism and masochism of the male and the female respectively. And<br />

he gives freedom of choice to those who surrender to such sexual urges.<br />

Chotuskone (Four Corners) is a unique creation of Manik. A person<br />

(apparently bohemian) has a fondness to play love game. A girl gets mentally sick<br />

for him and at her father’s plea, that person agrees to live with her just for her<br />

recovery. Here he depicts human life and the exposition of the mind like a game and<br />

rather the last sentence of the novel is: “Human life is not a mere game.”<br />

Halud Nadi Sabuj Ban (The Yellow River and the Green Wood) is a Marxist<br />

novel. Since then he leaned to Marxism and remained with it throughout the last<br />

days of his life. But saying bluntly, the crude artistic features of Marxism largely<br />

limited his literary merit.<br />

Moreover, Man’s spiritual essences are quite absent in his fictions; he sees<br />

Man as a totally material entity. These are his limitations.


41<br />

He died a premature death out of poverty and hunger; and the loss caused by<br />

a writer’s untimely demise cannot be ever fulfilled. The literary style that a writer<br />

nourishes through his life-time can be taken to its perfection by no other than<br />

him/herself. Manik’s early departure too has made this mission unfinished.<br />

But what he has given us in this short literary career is really astonishing. His<br />

novels are like documents; portrayal of characters and presentation of stories and<br />

dialects are so realistic. Among the Modernist fiction-writers, his place is in the first<br />

rank.<br />

Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay (1898-1971)<br />

Tarashankar is one of the greatest Gandhian novelists. He was born in a time<br />

while Bengal Renaissance reached its peak. Vidyasagar and Bankim had already<br />

died and Tagore was in the middle of the sky like the shining sun.<br />

He saw two great wars as a result of which there were great upheavals in<br />

social, political and economic spheres of the world. The old order changed to the<br />

extent never thought of and the new waves of change rolled through life in remote<br />

corners of Bengal. At the same time, Mahatma’s Satyagraha speeded up the Indian<br />

nationalist movement. His movement for the country’s freedom was accompanied<br />

with his struggle against inhuman cruelties with the so-called untouchables.<br />

Tarashankar saw the new polarization in the society which was vividly<br />

depicted in his vast literary works. He could feel the mood of the age and wrote<br />

rather documented life on the edge – life and struggle of marginal people like<br />

‘Santal’, ‘Dom’, ‘Kahar’, ‘Bagdi’, ‘Bauri’ i.e. so-called untouchables. He amazingly<br />

penetrated the hearts and minds of such people and drew their lively pictures.<br />

Also Tarashankar was a member of the decaying land-lord aristocracy. He<br />

has described the gradual fall of the feudal system, the continued exploitation of the<br />

poorest of the poor, and the contemporary contradictions of the rural society. His<br />

works remained mostly confined to the dry desolate western part of Bengal and the<br />

characters were mostly drawn from the downtrodden and exploited people of that<br />

region for which he is sometimes referred as Bengal’s Hardy.<br />

He professed his political ideas through his novels. He included sociopolitical<br />

problems of Bengal in his novels. War, famine, communal riots, economic inequality<br />

– these are the subject-matters of his novels.<br />

Especially Tarashankar depicted the subtle conflict between feudal<br />

traditionalism and bourgeois modernity. Among his vast works, Jalsha-Ghar (The<br />

Dance Room), Dhatri-Devata (Goddess Mother), Kalindi, Kavi (The Poet), Gana-<br />

Devata (People’s God), Panchagram (Five Villages), Hashuli Banker Upakatha (The<br />

Legend of Hashuli Bank), Arogyoniketan (The Hospital) are the principal ones.<br />

Especially Hashuli Banker Upakatha can be regarded as a grand masterpiece<br />

of Realist fiction. Here the writer, like a sociologist, tells us the tale of a local tribe’s<br />

own life-style, primitive culture, faiths, internal conflict and tragic fall. The writer also<br />

narrates the story of struggle of two opposing generations and the rule of eternal<br />

victory of muscle-power.


42<br />

Dhatri-Devata, Gana-Devata and Panchagram are called an epic trilogy in<br />

total set in the region of Birbhum. Tarashankar tells us the story of Indian mass<br />

uprising in this trilogy.<br />

Jalsha-Ghar is a novella based on the historical fact of the defeat of feudal<br />

aristocracy to newly emerged bourgeoisie.<br />

Kalindi is a fiction of two political activists from an inhabitance of the Santals –<br />

one of them is a Marxist and the other one, a follower of Gandhi. At the end, both of<br />

them embrace imprisonment and the writer seems to be more sympathetic to the first<br />

one.<br />

Kavi is a tale of a proletariat folk poet who represents the all times Bengali<br />

poetasters.<br />

In some other works, he questions human moral judgment like Tolstoy.<br />

Saptapadi (Seven Circles) and Bicharak (The Judge) are such two works.<br />

Tarashankar followed Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophies surrounding nonviolence.<br />

In his early life, he was a political activist of the Indian National Congress<br />

party. Sometimes he was even imprisoned and persecuted. He joined the anti-<br />

Fascist movement and later became a member of independent India’s parliament.<br />

In literature too, Tarashankar did not follow Marx like Manik. He was a bearer<br />

of an Indian leader’s unique philosophies. Rather he succeeded in the perfection of<br />

artistic achievement and reached the height of fictional art.<br />

Jibanananda Das (1899-1954)<br />

Jibanananda is called the ‘Nilkantha (i.e. Shiva) of endangered humanity’. He<br />

drank the death-poison of man’s inhuman and heartless conscience. His exuberance<br />

and high aim of poetical art surpasses all other poets of the High Modern era<br />

including Yeats and Eliot.<br />

Dhushar Pandulipi (The Gray Manuscript) is his first original attempt. In this<br />

anthology his first encounter with the filthiness of life and the world is revealed. The<br />

book starts with “Nirjan Sakshar” (“The Desolate Sign”) which is a handsome piece<br />

of work by any poet newly entered into the post-war modern world. “Campe” (“At the<br />

Camp”) is the most significant poem of this anthology. Here the poet says we all are<br />

like wild dear murdered by this cruel world because of our desperation and tire of<br />

love. He says –<br />

“We go on living with the valor of love – its longings – dreams – nursing our wounds,<br />

encountering hate – death;<br />

Don’t we?”<br />

(Translated by Fakrul Alam)<br />

In “Pakhira” (“The Birds”) he wishes if we had the taste of simplicity of life and love<br />

like the flying birds. “Mrityur Agey” (“Before Death”) is another memorable piece of<br />

poem. It was praised even by the aged Tagore for its picturesque exposition of<br />

natural image.<br />

Banalata Sen is one of his most popular poetical works. It starts with the<br />

entitling poem which is famed for its romantic exposition. It bears the message that


43<br />

the tiresome journey of Man is now to be substituted for an appeasing love. Another<br />

poem entitled “Nagna Nirjan Hat” (“The Bare and Lonely Hand”) is a sigh for the past<br />

glory of fertility of civilization which has now been exchanged with sterility. “Hower<br />

Rat” (“A Windy Night”) is a futuristic poem. And a love poem titled “Dujan” (“The<br />

Couple”) coveys the theme of triviality of love, life and even of the world.<br />

Mahaprithibi (The Big Earth) is his third endeavor. This anthology has the<br />

poem titled “Aat Bachar Aager Ekdin” (“A Day Eight Years Ago”) where the poet<br />

masterly glorifies the significance of sustenance of life in the context of an existential<br />

quest. He tells us the story of a suicide –<br />

“Not riches nor deeds; nor even a life of ease –<br />

Some other beguiling disaster<br />

Frolics in our blood;<br />

It wearies us;<br />

Wearies – wears us out;<br />

But the morgue<br />

Is free of weariness<br />

And that is why<br />

Flat out on the table in the morgue<br />

Defeated, he will lie.”<br />

(Translated by Fakrul Alam)<br />

But despite all filthiness of life and the world, he himself wishes to survive and to<br />

engage himself to temporal existence. “Adim Devatara” (“The Primitive Gods”) is<br />

another poem which tells us the worthlessness and repetitiousness of prevailing<br />

subject-matters of art like beauty and love.<br />

Sathti Tarar Timir (The Darkness of Seven Stars) is Jibanananda’s most<br />

complex poetical work. In “Akashleena” (“The Sky-Suffused One”), the very first<br />

poem of the collection, he sees how love has turned to a matter of mere<br />

consummation in the modern world. But here the deceived narrator’s love for the<br />

beloved is also merged with his love for the whole planet. Another poem titled<br />

“Godhulisandhir Nritya” (“The Dance of Twilight”) shows the transition period of warinflicted<br />

civilization.<br />

Bela Abela Kalbela (Time: Good, Bad and Awesome) is his last unique<br />

collection of poems in life-time, which is also tinged with philosophical thoughts.<br />

The great poet’s masterpiece is but Rupashi Bangla (The Beautiful Bengal)<br />

which was published posthumously. Here he longs for a gorgeous Bengal which has<br />

in course of time, faded and fallen in an awesome crisis due to turmoil and<br />

dissection.<br />

Some of his good poems were published in an anthology titled Shrestha<br />

Kabita (Best Poems). Especially memorable is “1946-47” where Jibanananda<br />

expresses his deep anguish at the communal riots between Hindus and Muslims and<br />

the partition of our motherland. Here he utters some words of hope –<br />

“And yet man continues to move on even now,<br />

From blinding despair to pleasing darkness,<br />

From total darkness to festivities marking the founding of new cities and villages,<br />

Surmounting the sources of errors and sins in his soul,<br />

Staying within the orbit of consciousness seemingly on his own merit.”<br />

(Translated by Fakrul Alam)


44<br />

Jibanananda’s poems possess an innate consciousness about women, which<br />

had a precursor in Sarat’s novels. His poems tell us of the catastrophe of love in the<br />

modern world.<br />

His poems bear the mark of townsmen’s nostalgia for country-life and nature<br />

from what they’ve been alienated.<br />

There is a sham accusation against him; it is that he just copied many of his<br />

poems from English and other Western literatures which, I sternly say, is an insulting<br />

infamy. I have matched his poems with those of the western poets who are called his<br />

‘preceptors’ and have found that he just assimilated those. Now if assimilation is a<br />

sin in the world of art, then all literary artists including Shakespeare must face<br />

posthumous penalty.<br />

In merit, Jibanananda stands next to Tagore in modern Bangla poetry. His<br />

accidental death did not let him achieve the supremacy in poetry. A critic (Abdul<br />

Mannan Syed) called him ‘the perfect poet’; this honoring of Jibanananda is not<br />

entirely imperfect.<br />

Showkat Osman (1917-’98)<br />

The narrative style that Saratchandra had introduced in fiction, was advanced<br />

by Tarashankar and Manik. Later it found a unique shape in the works from East<br />

Bengal. Showkat Osman used the style of Sarat in portraying Bengali Muslim life of<br />

the Eastern part of the province. His literary achievement (especially the novel<br />

Janani) could be envied by Sarat himself. He took this typical style of fiction to a<br />

different height.<br />

Showkat’s Janani (Mother) is a great achievement not only of Bangla<br />

literature but also of world fiction. Before him, Maxim Gorki, D.H. Lawrence, Manik<br />

Bandyopadhay and Mahasweta Devi wrote on the similar theme. But in Showkat’s<br />

novel, ‘mother’ has been unprecedentedly glorified. The mother portrayed by<br />

Showkat achieves an eternal appeal.<br />

A poor mother named Daria Bibi’s lifelong struggle for her children is<br />

portrayed in this novel. After her first husband’s death, Daria marries for the second<br />

time thinking of her son’s future. However, she is forced to leave him with her inlaws.<br />

She gives birth to three more children by her second husband. Her husband,<br />

who feels disturbed by cruel poverty, now and then leaves his family and goes out of<br />

the village in search of livelihood. She forbears all these manners of her husband.<br />

For her children, she sometimes goes against him.<br />

Meanwhile, Daria’s distant brother-in-law, who is a lustful man, begins to<br />

come to their house now and then. He helps them financially and thus wins their<br />

heart. Daria finds him to have ill motive, but allows him thinking of her economic<br />

helplessness. Her second husband too dies. Thereafter that shrewd person gratifies<br />

her lust for Daria. But thinking of her sons’ survival, she accepts her victimization by<br />

him. But more pathetically, the helpless widow becomes pregnant. She does not try<br />

to abort the child rather she gives its birth with motherly affection. Therefore thinking<br />

of her and her children’s humiliation in the society, she decides to take her own life.


45<br />

Giving the child a farewell kiss, Daria commits suicide. Her death is accompanied by<br />

her outpouring love and heartbreaking sorrows for the children. Thus a selfless<br />

mother’s life ends in a tragic way. Besides narrating this tale, the writer portrays<br />

natural landscape; but nature is always indifferent to man’s weal and woe. Through<br />

this grand novel, Showkat draws a picture of eternal Bengali mother. The mother is<br />

glorified, and the novel gets its place in world literature with great honor.<br />

Kritadasher Hashi (The Laugher of a Slave) is his second most acclaimed<br />

novel. It was intended to oppose the martial rule of the then Pakistan. The Bengalis<br />

did not have peace while living under the autocratic rule by the Pakistani army. They<br />

did not have any pleasure in life. The writer tells us of his anguish against that in a<br />

symbolic way. The story is: one night Caliph Harun-ur-Rashid of Baghdad hears a<br />

Tatar slave laughing out of joy when making love to his wife. The monarch gets<br />

pleased, makes the slave an authoritarian rich man, but makes the slave’s wife his<br />

own queen. Thus he deprives the slave of his happiness forever. He orders the slave<br />

to laugh, the slave doesn’t and then inhuman torture is befallen on him. But the slave<br />

does not abide by the cruel ruler’s command till death.<br />

Beneath the surface of this story, Showkat tells us of life’s everlasting<br />

aspiration for survival and happiness. He prefers temporal life to an unearthly one,<br />

and he emphasizes man’s enjoyment of life. Only thinking of death and afterlife<br />

cannot be man’s aim. A life without freedom and pleasure is not a life at all; it is an<br />

eternal truth which was denied by our foreign rulers.<br />

His other remarkable novels are Boni Adam (The Mankind), Raja Upakhyan<br />

(The Tale of a King), Nekre Aranya (Wolves’ Forest) and Patanga Pinjar (Insects’<br />

Cage).<br />

Showkat’s novels emphasize humanity and human consciousness of life and<br />

the world. His Daria Bibi is a great woman despite her endless poverty and<br />

humiliation. His Tatar slave is an adamant rebel against all tyranny and persecution.<br />

Showkat’s artistic exposition and glorification of human character takes him to the<br />

hall of great humanists. He is a great artist whose works tell of sublime human<br />

nature to all-time readers.<br />

Syed Waliullah (1922-’71)<br />

A sense of morbidity and serene sadness is traced in the art and literature of<br />

East Bengal covering the time-span from the 1940s to 80s. It is found in poems,<br />

songs, paintings, novels and what not? This melancholic tone is set on country life<br />

with natural landscape. It is tinged with a sense of helplessness derived from the cry<br />

of pitiless poverty and uncertainty. Zainul Abedin’s paintings, Waliullah’s novels and<br />

Al-Deen’s plays are the best representatives of this artistic archetype.<br />

Waliullah is specially known as an existentialist writer. However, this<br />

philosophy has few expositions in his first novel Lalshalu (Red Cloth). It rather<br />

conveys his reaction to fanaticism and fundamentalism. Majid, a shrewd person from<br />

a conservative Muslim family, comes to a village and announces an earth-pile<br />

covered by red cloth to be the shrine of a sacred pir (i.e. saint). He achieves some


46<br />

people’s obedience, and some others confront him (including his second wife<br />

Jamila), and he seems to overcome all difficulties through his shrewd tactics. It is the<br />

story of a religion-monger’s power-hunger, cruelty, ambition for riches and<br />

unrestricted lust. The novel is also celebrated for its poetic language.<br />

His second novel Chander Amabashya (The Darkness of the Moon) is a good<br />

example of existentialist fiction. It tells us the story of a school-teacher who comes<br />

close to a murder and does have a dilemma whether he will inform the police or keep<br />

it a secret, because he cannot be sure whether it was a murder and if was so, then<br />

who committed it. At last he becomes confirm of the crime and finds it his own<br />

responsibility to expose it. And doing so, he himself is charged with murder. The<br />

world, which is dominated by exploiters and persecutors, always backs its powerful<br />

patrons. Even the school-teacher’s local guardians, who simulate as `pious’ persons,<br />

are engaged in this hypocritical act. As a result, it is a story of a person’s inner<br />

dilemma, his prolonged decision to carry out his own duty toward the society and<br />

naked power politics of village people.<br />

His third novel Kando Nodi Kando (Cry River Cry) can be acclaimed a<br />

masterpiece of existentialism. A girl commits suicide for her cousin whom she loved.<br />

The man apparently has no sympathy for her, but inwardly he suffers from confusion<br />

and repentance. At last that man too kills himself. A more surprising incident is that<br />

the people of the small town, where such incidents take place, hear the nearby river<br />

cry. That ghostly happening symbolizes the woe of nature for moral decadence and<br />

behavioral flaws of people of the town. Thus personal fall signifies the ethical<br />

disaster of all the people living there. Man’s social role and its conflict with his inner<br />

world are drawn in the novel with mastery. Besides, this novel is a good example of<br />

the ‘stream of consciousness’ technique; it bears a tinge of ‘magic realism’ too. And<br />

Waliullah’s poetic language too reaches a new height here.<br />

Waliullah began to write in English during his exile in Europe, which we regard<br />

as an unwise decision; his English writings have little contribution to either western<br />

or oriental literature. However, Ugly Asians and How Does One Cook Beans are his<br />

two remarkable English novels; these are satires of the Western civilization.<br />

Waliullah’s novels have lucid vision. The dark inner psyche of man is<br />

presented in his works with secular philosophies. His novels aim at some delicate<br />

consciousness of humanity. He had a progressive mind and he never compromised<br />

on it. His novels are a significant addition to 200 years’ fictional art. His language is<br />

poetic; and in this respect, he sometimes seems to be the predecessor of Mahmudul<br />

Haq. He would certainly give much more to literature if he lived longer, as he is a<br />

great artist of rare qualities which makes him immortal in the world of letters.<br />

Sunil Gangopadhyay (1934-2012)<br />

Sunil is the most successful ambassador of the American Beat Generation in<br />

Bangla novel and poetry. He can also be called the true shape-maker of the<br />

Hungryalist movement of the 1960s.


47<br />

Sunil’s poems are a unique play-world of sexy, smart and lucid words with a<br />

delicate sense of morbidity. Often his poems are Dadaistic and sometimes those<br />

lack logic or reason. His love poems are tinged with physical sensations. Pun and<br />

humor are his likings.<br />

He is a champion of historical novel. Another strong contender for this honor<br />

is obviously Bankim, but he, to our judgment, focused on portraying human instincts<br />

more perfectly than depicting the past. On the other hand, Sunil presented<br />

picturesque document of the dark gloom of our past in his fictions.<br />

His first novel – Atmoprakash (Self-Revelation) is the tale of a bohemian<br />

young man.<br />

His most acclaimed novel is Shei Shamay (Those Days); in this novel, he<br />

drew an accurate socioeconomic picture of the 19 th century Bengal, which was in<br />

transition from a feudalistic to a bourgeois construction through Renaissance. He<br />

brought here a large number of historical figures – Vidyasagar, Devendranath,<br />

Michael, Bankim, Dinabandhu, Kaliprasannna Simha (although he is fabricated) etc.<br />

He astonishingly presented us the exact dialect of those days’ Bengali people<br />

centering Calcutta. And his empathy for the poor and therefore his Marxist outlook<br />

too are revealed in this work.<br />

Purba-Paschim (The East and the West) is set in another era of history. The<br />

politically segregated India of the 20 th century is drawn here. The dark and<br />

impenetrable psyche behind the catastrophic partition of India (in 1947 and ’71) is<br />

attempted to uphold. The novel begins with personal duality and ends with universal<br />

dilemma. He portrays man’s mental, carnal and intellectual darkness and his<br />

endeavor for achieving freedom from those. And his philosophy is that an East and a<br />

West exist not only in the planet but also in our mind.<br />

Prothom Alo (The First Light) is a sequel to Shei Shamay. Here too, a large<br />

number of historical characters are presented. They include Ramakrishna,<br />

Girishchandra, Vivekananda and even Tagore. In this novel, Sunil also tells the story<br />

of a journey of the Bengali nation into the grand road of the world civilization.<br />

Sunil has written novels on contemporary issues too, which however, do not<br />

reach the perfection of the above three ones.<br />

He also wrote novellas like Rakta (Blood-line), Radha-Krishna and Shandhar<br />

Meghmala (The Evening Clouds). These are, however, worthy in literary appeal.<br />

However, to my own judgment, Sunil’s historical novels surpass any other<br />

writers’ attempts. His oversize and thoroughly contemplative novels bearing<br />

historicity, in a simple word, stun us in artistry. Moreover, the documentary and<br />

credible pictures of society in his novels rank him among the great writers of the<br />

world; he will certainly have a long lasting fame in the genre of historical novel.<br />

Mahmudul Haq (1941-2008)<br />

Mahmudul Haq is famed in Bangla fiction for his poetic language, perfect use<br />

of dialects, true portrayal of life and deep insight of human inner soul. Although he


48<br />

was shy of publicity and relatively unknown in his life-time, he will surely achieve a<br />

high position in the realm of fictional literature.<br />

His first novel was Anur Pathshala (Anu’s School) in which his deep insight<br />

into the psyche of childhood, his extra-ordinary poetic presentation and above all, his<br />

comprehension of the deep crises of human soul and civilization in the modern era,<br />

astonish us. These issues are presented through poetic symbols and ornamentation.<br />

Jiban Amar Bone (Life is My Sister) is a valuable document of man’s<br />

confusion and helplessness at times of national crises. Khoka, a sexual pervert, tries<br />

to neutralize himself when the war of liberation has begun in this country; but his<br />

escapist endeavor fails and his love (?) turns from his sister-in-law to his own sister.<br />

His all aim centers on his attempt to save his sister’s life. And it ends in futility and<br />

tragedy; and Khoka now realizes that all are integrated into mass and national halo.<br />

Now the country seems to him a pond in which his beloved sister (as his other two<br />

sisters did in a real one) has been drowned.<br />

Nirapad Tandra (Safe Sleepiness) was his third publication. In it Haq depicts<br />

the tragic life of a low-class minority girl who elopes with her Muslim lover and is put<br />

by fate into severe sorrows and torments through horrendous experiences. She<br />

starves in slums day after day, is violated again and again and at last is compelled to<br />

engage herself into white slavery. And the narrator, who does not attach himself to<br />

any compulsion of the harsh world, is at last met with her last painful existence with a<br />

body reduced to a thin skeleton.<br />

Matir Jahaz (A Ship of Clay) is a novel presenting the humble lives of the<br />

proletariat. Haq is a bit Marxist here.<br />

Kalo Baraf (Black Ice) is his autobiographical novel which exposes the<br />

author’s own deep anguish for the partition of Bengal in 1947. The memory of this<br />

tragic historic incident, which is derived from the writer’s own dreamlike childhood<br />

experience, haunts him throughout his life. Tinged with extra-ordinary poetic and<br />

exuberant vision, this novel is his masterpiece.<br />

Khelaghar (The Play-Room) is a novel set in the background of our Liberation<br />

War of 1971. A young girl, being violated by the Pakistani army, loses all her moral<br />

conscience. Rescued and sheltered in an old house in a village, she builds up a<br />

love-affair with the narrator Yakub and later forsakes him. The tortured girl no more<br />

holds the noble essence of loyalty of love; does no more believe in its greatness.<br />

Through this novel, the writer shows what worthy assets we have sacrificed for our<br />

political liberty.<br />

Ashariri (The Phantom) is another fictional work on 1971. Here Haq depicts<br />

the unbearable pain of persecution of a war-victim.<br />

And Patalpuri (The Underground World) narrates the story of an unemployed<br />

youth who even surrenders himself to prostitutes out of tension and frustration<br />

despite having love for a girl.<br />

Haq’s short stories too, which concentrate on the depiction of human<br />

character, sorrows and sufferings, are of great appeal.<br />

Haq is undoubtedly a great fiction-writer. His deep perception of human mind,<br />

his poetic unfolding, his humanitarian consciousness and above all, his artistic<br />

integrity – will be a matter of great surprise till man’s taste of art and good will<br />

survives; the poet of a dirty and deserted world will remain alive till that time.


49<br />

Akhtaruzzaman Elias (1943-’97)<br />

Neither a huge number of works he has written, nor has he attempted. But his<br />

works have achieved a significant position in modern Bangla fiction. Elias’s fictions<br />

have equalized with the word ‘photorealism’. His each sentence is like the focus<br />

point of a camera. He mastered the narrative technique of fiction.<br />

His Chilekothar Sepai (The Soldier of an Attic) tells us of the mass revolution<br />

of 1969. Each word of the novel is like an inseparable brick of a grand palace. His<br />

depiction is vivid and heart-touching. He penetrates especially into the minds of the<br />

proletariat. Their life-style, behavior and talks (which may seem vulgar to any<br />

cultured mind) are drawn with brilliant skill. The historical revolution of a poor and<br />

exploited nation is depicted like cinematography. The picture of their poverty and<br />

deprivation too is realistic. The fact that the mass insurrection was carried on by the<br />

poorest and most exploited people, is mirrored here. The pictures of both village and<br />

city life are masterly drawn.<br />

The continuous exploitation and persecution of this impoverished nation by<br />

the foreign rulers made traumatic affect on the common people’s psyche. Thus<br />

alienation, a byproduct of the Pak-ruled tyrannical society, often made psychotic<br />

disorder. It is also evident that poetic expressions also sometimes appear in this<br />

work, though not as intensely as in Mahmudul Haq’s novels. An existential quest is<br />

also found in this master novel.<br />

His other novel – Khoabnama (The Tale of Dreams) is a masterpiece of Magic<br />

Realism. It tells us of heartbreak – both in personal and political life of the<br />

countrymen. Beginning in the British reign (during the Tebhaga movement), it is the<br />

story of a village, the folk of which is clad with superstitions and odd behaviors. An<br />

old man interprets people’s dreams with the use of a manuscript that previously<br />

belonged to his wife’s grandfather. However, dreams surround personal ambitions<br />

that differ from man to man. Some person’s aim is to get intimate to an imaginary<br />

power; some aspire for earthly fortune; a woman desires to have her favorite man;<br />

someone dreams of the return of a historically famous revolutionary.<br />

All dreams shatter after the partition of the country. The man searching for a<br />

supernatural idol drowns in the quicksand; the dreamer for a revolution is<br />

assassinated; communal riots occur and the country is flooded by the blood of<br />

innocent common people. The manuscript goes to a young woman’s hand who<br />

interprets people’s dreams in a new way. To her, dreams are no longer the most<br />

important matter; now more important is the men and women in the dreams. High<br />

ambitions are now constrained to some person’s own aspirations. Nights’ dreams<br />

are wrecked, but life goes on in its own way in quest of new dreams. Thus in this<br />

novel, the history of a political disaster is spoken in a symbolic way.<br />

His short stories focus on poverty-stricken proletariat people’s lives. Their<br />

shabby lifestyle, deprivation and vulgar practices are well-written in these stories. His<br />

short stories are collected in three anthologies titled Onyo Ghore Onyo Swor<br />

(Different Voices in Different Chambers), Dudhbhate Utpat (Disturbances in Eating<br />

Milk and Rice) and Dojokher Om (The Heat of Hell).


50<br />

As a fictionist, Elias was a good technician that can be called both his merit<br />

and limitation. His language too is sometimes unnecessarily crude or vulgar.<br />

However, his works reflect his extraordinary worth as a portrayer of the country and<br />

its people. He opened a new horizon of fiction with his outstanding narrative<br />

technique.<br />

Muhammad Zafar Iqbal (b. 1952)<br />

Postmodernism, the latest artistic concept, relies on irrationality. But literature<br />

is justifiably intended for enlightenment and thus it apparently seems unfit for this<br />

concept. The works of pictorial art, which I recognize as one of the most typical<br />

postmodern genres, cannot be included in the realm of literature. As literature must<br />

convey something higher than thoughts of surface level, it cannot be similar to other<br />

postmodern genres. Only science-fiction owns at the same time, postmodernist<br />

illogical expression and a highly standard outlook of the world fit for literature.<br />

In this respect, Muhammad Zafar Iqbal is not only Bengal’s greatest sciencefiction<br />

writer, but he is also the pioneer of Postmodernism in our literature.<br />

His sci-fi stories outwardly concern with scientific inquisitions, atomic wars,<br />

space travels, attacks of aliens, time-machine disasters etc. Using such themes, he<br />

has given birth to a new diction of prose.<br />

But his works are not just the vehicle of scientific and technological ideas; he<br />

assimilates philosophies (sometimes his own) with those ideas for implying a higher<br />

meaning of life. Sometimes his notion turns to utopian (and sometimes even<br />

dystopian) thoughts. He envisions an ideal society having scientific application, a<br />

society run by its quintessential scientific consciousness. And sometimes he depicts<br />

the picture of the future world as a deceased waste land.<br />

Some of his fictions show the contradictoriness between robots and men; he<br />

depicts the dark sides of human nature while depicting those distinctions. He at the<br />

same time draws the superiority of men over machines – not just ethically but also<br />

intellectually, and also in the measure of scientific knowledge and innovative ability.<br />

His machines, although at first seem mightier than men, later surrender to men’s will<br />

and strength.<br />

His fictions have a world-wide background (which is an essential postmodern<br />

feature), not strictly oriental as is drawn in most other Bengali sci-fi writers’ works.<br />

His cosmopolitanism can be compared to Tagore’s.<br />

Human feelings and emotions are not absent in his science-fictions, rather<br />

human values and refined essences now and then appear in his writings. He<br />

sometimes uses natural landscape in order to express human feelings, for example<br />

– in Nihshongo Grahachari (The Lonely Dweller of a Planet), he expresses his<br />

lovers’ passion through the metaphor of volcanic eruption.<br />

Sometimes keeping scientific imagination aside, he seeks shelter in<br />

metaphysical ideas like god, fate and rebirth.


51<br />

He warns mankind of a possible future catastrophe and indirectly advises<br />

them to be self-restrained about their evil tendencies and harmful behavioral flaws.<br />

His fictions sometimes seem to present an ethical code for the future human race.<br />

His works are, above all, full of optimism of human potentiality, which is<br />

mingled with his deep confidence on man’s eternal supremacy. His robots tell us of<br />

man’s greatness, and assure us of an unending journey of human civilization. That<br />

makes Zafar more a human being and artist than a celebrity author, a pioneer of<br />

humanity more than a visionary of science.<br />

4<br />

The Millennium, Prospects and Possibilities<br />

The future and prospect of our literature seem uncertain due to the socioeconomic<br />

crises it has faced. We are, at the same time, fighting anarchy and<br />

fundamentalism that are eternal rivals of all norms of art, culture and civilization.<br />

The so-called Postmodernism has grabbed the mind of our every young artist.<br />

But the question is: will it eventually succeed? It seems a rather trivial trend and a<br />

poor stream like Neoclassicism, because it is based on absurdity and denies all<br />

traditional good norms of civilization. And the civilization cannot survive simply with<br />

absurdist thoughts. It should always be based on reason.<br />

Along with the side of the so-called Postmodernists, rationalist philosophers<br />

too are reviving. It is like the condition of the 19 th century Bengal while progressive<br />

visionaries were attacking the darkness of social primitivism; and now we are fighting<br />

the darkness of a threat of tyranny and totalitarianism, an emergence of anarchy and<br />

the arrival of a strong new force against reason. We are in a battle against all these<br />

pre-modern opponents. So it is the time for a world-wide Renaissance. And after all<br />

these arguments, if we continue to mark our time as ‘Postmodern’, rather it will mean<br />

a Renaissance. In fact there is no problem of marking this period as ‘Postmodern’.<br />

But the Postmodernist artists will definitely not be the pioneers of this artistic era.<br />

Also excessive technological advancement has made man a crude<br />

mechanical being. Technological innovations like TV, computer and internet have<br />

diverted human interest. 3D movies, video music and computer games have become<br />

the media of entertainment for the new generation. Man’s consciousness has been<br />

confined to some shallow and limited ideas. As a result, the civilization has come<br />

close to a tremendous change and the whole idea of literature is under threat of<br />

extinction; and the death of literature reasonably signifies civilization’s death.<br />

Alongside, the concept of literature needs to be reconsidered. Literature<br />

needs not be confined to some ideological boundaries. It also essentially does not<br />

need to have specific features. A writer even has no liabilities of maintaining<br />

boundaries of genres. A writer can at the same time draw replicas of Tagore,<br />

Jibanananda, Jayadeva, Nazrul and Lalan. Championing these principles of<br />

composition, s/he has to make his/her unique art.


52<br />

Literature is not for just entertainment; it has a nobler purpose. With its power<br />

of enlightenment of the readers, literature can serve a nation and also the entire<br />

human society. A society’s progression can be traced with the advancement of its<br />

literature and philosophy.<br />

At the beginning of a new Platonic year, we hope the civilization will come out<br />

of its long-lasted gloom, reject all primitivism and embrace a new light of the genuine<br />

good will of a loving heart. Let the triumph of light and love be marked on the<br />

forehead of the human civilization in the new Millennium. May the good power be<br />

victorious against its evil arch-rival! And may our great nation be a fellow of this<br />

mission.<br />

APPENDIX<br />

• For selecting the writers for detailed discussions in the third chapter of the<br />

essay (‘Great Bengali Writers’), I have adopted the following principles -<br />

1. S/he must be the best writer of an artistic type, for example – Jibanananda.<br />

2. S/he must be eligible to be called the greatest (or one of the greatest) writer of<br />

her/his period.<br />

3. S/he must be a unique writer as far as possible. If several or more number of<br />

writers’ works have remarkable resemblance, the best and older ones have<br />

been prioritized. That’s why I have not included Gobindadas (who is inferior to<br />

Vidyapati) or Mir Mosharraf (who is inferior to Bankim) or Sudhindranath (who<br />

is reasonably a minor poet than Tagore) in this list.<br />

4. Some poets’ diction is too wordy and their poems convey few unique<br />

philosophies, like Bharatchandra Ray, Sudhindranath and Al Mahmud. I have<br />

avoided such poets.<br />

5. I have avoided translators or rewriters, like Alaol or Vidyasagar.<br />

6. From the poets of High Modern era, I have selected Jibanananda and Bishnu<br />

Dey and I believe this selection does not require any explanation.<br />

7. I have not taken the writers of linear techniques, for example – Humayun<br />

Azad or Syed Shamsul Haq (in fact they are too concerned with sexuality to<br />

have real artistic qualities); and taken Waliullah, Mahmudul Haq and Elias as<br />

they are comparatively much greater writers.<br />

8. Among the Marxist poets, I have taken Bishnu Dey for his artistic depth and<br />

left Sukanta and Subhash for their linearity. I have also excluded Joy<br />

Goswami, because excessive intricacies have made his poems artistically<br />

bizarre.<br />

9. Among the writers of historical novels, I have taken Sunil Gangopadhyay, and<br />

reasonably left Bimal Mitra and Amiyabhushan.<br />

10. Among the Sanskrit poets, I have accepted only Jayadeva because his<br />

Sanskrit is close to Bangla what cannot be said about others’ verses.


53<br />

• A writer who wrote in two literary eras, has been included in the era that<br />

ideologically matches her/him. For example – Jasimuddin began in the<br />

Romantic Age (i.e. Tagore’s era) and flourished in the High Modern era.<br />

Considering his literary traits, I have included him in Tagore’s age. Again,<br />

despite beginning in the High Modern era, Syed Waliullah has been placed in<br />

the age of Liberation for ideological resemblance.<br />

• For the chronology of the writers in the third chapter, I have followed the years<br />

of publication of their first recognized books. Sometimes I have followed the<br />

probable time of their establishment.<br />

WORKS CITED<br />

• Roy, Niharranjan. Bangalir Itihas: Adi Parba. Kolkata: Dey’s Publishing, 1995.<br />

• Bandyopadhyay, Dhirendranath. Sanskrita Sahityer Itihas. Kolkata: Paschimbanga<br />

Rajya Pustak Parshat, 2000.<br />

• Halder, Gopal. Bangla Sahityer Ruprekha. Dhaka: Muktadhara, 1997.<br />

• Bandyopadhyay, Ashitkumar. Bangla Sahityer Sampurna Itibritta. Kolkata: Modern<br />

Book Agency Private Limited, 1995.<br />

• Chowdhury, Sree Bhudev. Bangla Sahityer Itikatha. Kolkata: Dey’s Publishing,<br />

1984-87.<br />

• Murshid, Golam. Hazar Bacharer Bangali Sanskriti. Dhaka: Sahitya Prakash, 2006.<br />

• Bimanbihari Majumdar. Chandidaser Padabali. Kolkata: Bangiya Sahitya Parishad,<br />

1403 BD.<br />

• Kabiraz, Krishnadas. Sree Sree Chaitanya Charitamrita. Gorakshpur: Geeta Press,<br />

2008.<br />

• Hai, Muhammad Abdul & Sharif, Ahmad (Ed.). Madhyajuger Bangla Gitikabita.<br />

Dhaka: Maula Brothers, 1998.<br />

• Sukumar Sen (Ed.). Chandimangal (Kabikankan Mukunda Birochita). New Delhi:<br />

Sahitya Academy, 1975.<br />

• Kazi, Daulat. Lore Chandrani O Sati Mayna. Kolkata: Sahitya Samsad, 2010.<br />

• Ahsan, Syed Ali (Ed.). Alaol Padmabati. Dhaka: Ahmad Publishing House, 2002.<br />

• Sen, Sukumar. Islami Bangla Sahitya. Kolkata: Ananda Publishers Private Limited,<br />

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