& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

My WORLD

The End of a Decade — and Then We Move on

s. M. Ali
S we walk back along the dimly-lit memory lane, this writer is certain to stumble a lot. almost to the point of giving up the whole exercise. But there are recollections - and faces — which can no longer be committed to oblivion.
My persistence is based on a couple of solid reasons, This column is written essentially for the younger Star readers, among whom we count some of our favourite nephews and nieces to whom the lime often covered in this column belongs to another time and another place. True, there arc a few good memoirs, especially by politicians, written mostly about themselves, often more eloquently than truthfully, without capturing the sound and smell, the noise and dirt ol the time they lived tn.
So, we arc left with cnor mous gaps In our contemporary history.
Tills writer had an unexpected and unique chance oi bringing up the subject with Sardar Swaran Singh, a former Indian cabinet minis ter - a position he probably held for over three decades -when he visited Kuala Lumpur in late 1987 in his caiciiy as the Member of the UNESCO Executive Board. Thank God. our non-stop conversation was more about our sub-conlincnt. its past, present and future, than about tlxUnited Nations.
Wc talked about our Liberation War when Sardar Sahib -- as this writer addressed him - was his country's Foreign Minister, about Khallstan. about the late l’andit Nehru ("Oh. how he hated dhoti which lx- regarded as an ungainly outfit for jixn!) and even about Nelson Mandela wliom Singh had just met. as a member of the Commonwealth Oliscrver team, tn a South African prison ("No one ever reminded me more of Ganrlhl)l Ilian Mandela I
Il was quite beyond the capacity of this writer to per stiadc tlx 82-ycar statesman to write his memoirs, even a couple of long chapters on our Ubcratlon War as seen from inside tlx Indian Government. All he agreed to do. somewhat reluctantly. was to welcome me al his home in l*unjab and to talk io me on our contemporary scene Yes. I will lake him up on his offer, before this writer is "old and grey and full of sleep ’
I low fascinating it will be to listen to Sardar Shaib about Bangladesh. For instance, he once said. "Ah. your country has such Insurmountable problems. What surprises me is wliat a lot of people are so desperate to come to power and some arc so sure of solving your problems." And then he asked for the number of political parties in the country, a question I could not then answer.
****NE other reason lor imposing this column on my readers is that.through generations, the family of this writer has earned the dubious distinction of being reasonably good raconteurs, which wc probably share with lots of otherin Bangladesh. A distinction ? I wonder. It is said that in the olden days, back in the thirties. it was virtually Impossible for anyone to pass by the road in front of our ancestral home al Moulvt Bazar II my grandfather was sitting out on the verandah. The passerby would be called in — not in-vfled - for a clutt, often a long one. Depending on my grandpa's mood, the visitor would cither get a cup of lea or receive a rebuke lor not wearing a headgear. This would then give my grandpa the ex cusc for relating some stories, mostly about his children living In faraway places.
In one form or another, the tradiilon survived. as II probably did In so may other famf lies. But will It continue much longer ? I wonder
When my good first cousin. Abdul Qadir passed away late last year, rather prematurely. In his mid-sixties, who was known io most people here as a retired ctvil servant with a distinguished career, wc losi perhaps one ol the last racon leurs ol tiic family Qadir or Monl Bhal as wc called him -could turn any conversation into an exercise In wit and humour, punctuated by smites and laughters. but It Would lx always free from any mallee and bad taste. During one of my last meetings with him a year earlier. I presented him with a pen which he studied carefully. afTcctlonalcly. and then asked, as If speaking to himself. 'What should I do with a pen ?.•
"Isn't It much more fun talking T lie queried. He was pmltably right.
**** ■OWEVEH. i In our university iuya In the . late forties. wc were given no excuse lor staying away from serious writing, whatever wc could come up with. TWo lca4tcrs who were primarily responsible for putting us on the track were Shahecd Jyotirmoya Guha-Thakurta and the late AG Stock.
In the days wlten we studied under him. Prof Guha-Thaktirta was Just a good teacher, friendly, articulate and highly knowledgeable. Now. after some four decades, he appears to me in a different light, not Just because of the martyrdom he embraced in 1971 but due to the way he exercised some quiet subtle in-llucncc on our Intellectual life, rather unobtrusively, without much of a push or drive.
Many of us then belonged to what was loosely called the Ixft movement. In reality, barring a lew exceptions, wc were living in a hall way Itousc Ilie 194K upsurge over the language Issue had shattered our hopes iilxiui our place In Pakistan --our faith In the Two-Nation Theory was virtually dead and gone -- but wc had discovered no new faith. Il was fashionable to be tell, but difficult to be a Marxist without undertak Ing a sustained study which tew of us were capable of. The local British Information Services then distributed copies of the book. The God that Failed" among university students and journalism here just to alert them of lite danger of Itaving anything to do with Communism.
A Radical Humanist by conviction, so we were told. Gulta-Thakurta did not offer us a iK w God to worship Instead, he took us to small meetings, some Iwki In a house close to the Azad newspaper office, or ganiscd by a visiting Quaker team. Never numbering more than 25 io 30. we would sit on the floor, discussing issues ranging from literature to politics. listening to our European visitors, all dressed in pyjama and kurla. talking about the philosophy of MN Roy. Or was it part of the Congress for Cultural Freedom which, by then, had already establisltcd its base In Calcutta ? Or did it have anything to do with the Moral Rearmament which, despite all the confusion surrounding it. had started Its recruitment in Europe ?
Whatever wc learnt or un-leamt from these meetings, wc produced a venture, a quarterly Bengali Journal, a brainchild of Prof Guha-Thakurda. In keeping with lite philosophy of Radical Humanism. the magazine was called 'Mukli* (Freedom). with one of my closest friends. Mahbub Jamal Zahedi appointed as Its Executive Editor. In years to come. Zahedi was to make his mark In English language lournalism at home and abroad - he served as the IM II or of the Kliakxj Tbtxs ol Dubai with distinction lor several years - but. In those days, one could only think of him as a promising literary editor, with a superb command over both Bengali and English. As the editor of 'Mukli', one of his major achievements was to persuade me to do one of my first pieces in Bengali, an ap preciaLion of poet Sukanta Bhattachetjce. but he went on io discover more genuine writ ers than myself, ones who shone over our literary horizon for many years to come.
Somewhere in Dhaka, wc may still have bound volumes of "Mukli*. but I wodld not know how may issues Gulw-Thakurdah and Zahedi managed to publish. Wc were long on enthusiasm, but terribly short of hinds.
From her vantage position as the Head of the Department of English Language and Literature. AG Slock probably watched with interest how a gentle bailie was going nil over tlx minds and thoughts of tier students, a battle In which her younger colleagues In the Department served as catalytic agents. Iler main concern, as she once told some of us, was whether we could maintain our freedom of thinking and look out al the wide intellectual horizon, without losing our individual identities.
The contribution of Ms Slock to our intellectual life was undoubtedly more aca domic than political, but at limes incredibly innovative.
She had a way of picking up subjects for tutorials lor her students which would get us all very excited, perhaps because they often brought out some of our own innermost thinking. Not surprisingly, therefore. I was asked to do a 2000-word piece on the "Elements of Class Struggle in Shakespeare's Coriolanus. wtjllc several others. Including Zillur Rahman Siddiqui, worked on English war poetry in the twentieth century. Alter all these years. I still feel puzzled why I was tied down to class struggle In one single Shakespearean play, while Siddiqui was given the freedom to cover the whole range of war poetry. Well, as the saying goes, the teacher knows best.
Tints, wc reached the end of the forties, and stood at the threshold of a new decade Unit was to see the climax ol Ute Language Movement in the Ekttshcy February, the fall of the Muslim League govern ment. the rise of Awami league
and Its leaders (Including Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) and Ute imposition of the first military dictator ship on the country, under General Ayub.
Then. I was on the move, and so were a few of other contemporaries. It was also tlx lime lor budding poets, like Hassan Haflzur Rahman. Alauddln Al Azad. Sayyid Atiqullah and Horhanuddin Khan Jahangir, to Join the ranks of established ones like Alai I Hussain. Ahsan Habib. Farrukh Ahmed and Ashraf Siddiqui. Thia was when Shamsur Rahman, still then seemingly a Mule unsure of his talent, wrote a moving poem on Krlshnachura Dowers being tn bloom which I learnt by heart. Some three decades later. I recited It during a luncheon gathering at Ute residence of Zillur. Shamsur listened to It with a show of po IltcncM. but. believe It or not.
I then write the poem myself ? I wonder. Who can say what happened four decades ago ?