BLiterature-Apratim

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autobiographical novel. It is a gigantic work, a mirror of contemporary social attitudes
and an implicit document of Sarat’s own life and outlook.
Sarat lived in an era while the common Bengalis were much more emotional
than they are today. He wrote his novels in empathetic and compassionate language
that makes the reader schmaltzy for the deprived and oppressed.
He not only won the hearts of common readers but also many younger writers
were inspired by his writing techniques; particularly his influence on Tarashankar is
worth mentioning. He had also a deep, long-lasting influence on Bangla cinema.
Personally Sarat believed in conservative and rigid ideas about society and
politics. His personal letters reveal this fact.
But through his literary works, Sarat fought against all crude and inhuman
social oppressions. Such height in the language of protest against social evils is rare
in his contemporary Bengali writers’ works. We pay our homage to the ‘Oporajeyo
Kothashilpi’ (i.e. Invincible Fictionist) as a visionary of human well-being, as a great
rebel against all evils of a backward and decadent society.
Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976)
India’s political and economic life went through a great upheaval in the first
half of the 20 th century. The colonial rulers intensified their atrocities; the whole
country turned to a large crematorium. Its vivid sign was in the Amritsar massacre of
1919. Economic exploitation made the nation continuously poorer day by day. The
agitation against the injustice done by the British rulers gradually increased and it
eventually led the nation to its independence. That disrupted era of struggle for
freedom found its best artistic exposure in Nazrul’s poems. He gave birth to a typical
style and diction, which conveys the tone of heartrending protest.
Nazrul is commonly known in Bengal as the ‘Rebel Poet’, as the epitome of
Bengali nationalism and independence. Perhaps no other poet of the world has
expressed so artistically the firm voice of protest against tyrant rulers. But his entire
reputation does not lie merely in these traits. He was also a poet of love, a classical
musician and a skilled translator of Persian and Arabic poems. Not only that; he also
brought Middle Eastern and Hindustani artistic flavor into our literature.
His immortality in Bangla literature is mainly for his first book of poems
Agnibina (The Harp of Fire). However, he has another quite similar work titled Bisher
Bashi (The Flute of Poison).
“Bidrohi” (“The Rebel”), which is widely recognized as his immortal
masterpiece, is a great example of pluralistic ideas. Themes and characters of
Indian, Greek and Middle Eastern mythologies are assimilated here. He professed
his vision of himself as a poet of love and rebellion in the following line of the poem,
“A curbed bamboo-flute is in my one hand, in the other a war-drum.”
(Translated by the author)
In “Raktambardharini Ma” (“Red-colored Mother”) and “Agamani” (“The
Coming Deity”), he presents goddess Durga symbolized as the opponent to demonlike
imperial power.