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Tales of the conscious and subconscious

Tusar Talukder notes vivid signs of scholarship
Whenever I come across any story of Syed Manzoorul Islam, I recollect the boomtime litterateurs of Latin America, namely, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jorge Luis Borges and so on. The reason is that the way the story tellers of Latin America tell their tales is very similar to the way Syed Manzoorul Islam tells his stories. I find a resemblance between our culture and Latin American culture because they have a very rich tradition of story telling like us. Since magic realism is an inseparable part of this oral tradition of story writing, Islam's tales are packed with magical happenings which we can relate to our everyday realities. His latest volume of short story entitled Bela Obelar Galpo (Stories of good times and bad times) is a collection of thirteen stories where readers will find Islam at the heights of postmodern experimentation. However, he invariably uses his own experiences to make his stories lively and playful. Thereupon, the stories have a direct link with our everyday happiness and grief. Islam has introduced multifarious subject matters before his readers through his latest collection. Therefore, the tales of this volume are of different tastes. We go through a lot of good and bad times in our lifetime. Happiness and grief situate side by side in our life. Stories stem from these good as well as bad times. However, we generally do not keep in mind all the moments of life but those which compel us to recollect particular moments. In Bela Obelar Galpo, Syed Islam has tried to capture those moments in the light of his experiences.
The second story in the book is Brishtir Din which shows two girls, Sutapa and Kona, being from two different places. They go through the various troublesome phases of their life but never surrender to the situations. Syed Islam shows us how two girls reach a satisfactory level at one stage of life through overcoming a plenty of unexpected and cruel forces of society. Again, in a part of the story, we observe that Sutapa has a deep feeling for her own community and country and, on the other hand, Kona too has intense love for school
children whom she once taught but was compelled to leave them in order to get rid of a crisis. Their feelings indicate a common love for their roots. In a word, this story informs us how Sutapa and Kona, by changing themselves, change the lives of the other characters who encounter them. In the end, the tales of two girls merge into one.
Since the author has taken his characters from different walks of life, the lives of four terrorists are portrayed in one of his stories titled Char Santrashi (Four Terrorists). The storyteller tells us how four terrorists, namely Badi, Alfaz, Mati and Sumon, lead a nomadic life by adopting every possible destructive ways. Dhanu Miah, who is a smuggler, deals in drugs with the help of those four top terrorists. Dhanu Miah does not even hesitate to trade his first wife for the sake of smuggling. Dhanu Miah's second wife Farhana loves a man named Limon Miah. She always has an image of Limon Miah before her, especially when Dhanu tries to have sex with her; she dreams that Limon is having sex with her. Farhana always tries to find the alternatives to lead her life
but the four terrorists together with Dhanu Miah never attempt to seek any alternative way to come back to normal life. Finally, the four terrorists face death due to excessive drinking. So, to know what happens next to the lives of Dhanu Miah and Farzana, readers must go thorough the story in curiosity. The dramatic ending of the story will surely distinguish Syed Islam from his contemporary story writers.
If we summarize the story Uddhar we gather that in childhood Nazim, owner of Nehal Group of Industries, lost his younger brother, Nehal, whom he loved most. Nehal was only 12. The waves of the sea submerged him. But still now Nazim looks after his lost brother. One day while going to Cox's Bazar, his car collides with a truck but due to the hard brake of the truck driver, Nazim along with his driver survives. Afterwards, with the help of a police officer, they ride in a bus where Nazim hears from a girl that she is also looking for her brother, who has been kidnapped. Now she is going to rescue him to get information about his present stay from a source. To hear the story, Nazim phones his son, Nafis, informing him that Nehal has been traced and he has to be rescued. Nazim replaces Nehal with the girl's lost brother.
Again, coming across the story Nei, we observe that Syed Manzoorul Islam has related the same tale from three separate viewpoints, purporting to show how different characters feel someone's absence differently. The story Sodh is about an intelligent girl, Urmi, who takes revenge on her opponents by applying some tricky ways. Hakim Ismail, father of Urmi, demonstrates some magical happenings with the assistance of his daughter to drive away his foes from the village. Coming across a lot of deceptive action, readers will find the characters of the tale devoid even of an iota of honesty. At the end of the story, we view how technology is being used negatively for deception, delusion and perversion.
Shikar, which can be termed as a story of mystery, is the story of a banker describing juxtaposing his past and
present time and in this way he is excavating his past memories. At his workplace, he encounters a girl, Monira, who is a new employee at his bank. She informs him that she is from DuriAngur lane, an area of old Dhaka city. Hearing the name of the lane he trembles with fear because he used to go to a house of that lane for the purpose of tuition when he was a student of Jagannath. To teach a lady, almost double his age, he faces a lot of unexpected, indecent and dubious kind of activities performed by the lady. For instance, one day the lady, by force, kisses him at the time of teaching. Let me stop summarizing the story here because I desire to leave some mysterious happenings for readers to face.
Most of the stories of Bela Obelar Galpo deal with such themes as shattered dreams of individuals, crisis of existence, mismatch between beliefs and practices, predicament of urban life, individual psychological issues, chronological degradation of moral sense. In the case of a number of stories in Bela Obelar Galpo it is assumed that the story teller is telling two tales simultaneously within a story. In fact, the tales told by Syed Islam are very graphical. Furthermore, Syed Manzoorul Islam, as in his previous collections, has ably exposed the conscious and subconscious aspects of the human mind through the portrayal of the characters of this collection. His sense of humour is so intense that even while narrating a serious matter, he can infuse humour into it without disturbing the harmony of the tale. And with his characteristic humorous presentation, he takes readers into grotesque realities. Since the diction he employs in the stories is fat-free and facile, he can easily invite readers to be part of his discourse. Needless to say, his stories bear vivid signs of his scholarship in literary as well as cultural theories.
Syed Manzoorul Islam, as an innate storyteller, demonstrates the power of his storytelling.
TUSAR TALUKDER IS A FREELANCE WRITER
AND TRANSLATOR. E-MAIL:
TUSAR.TALUKDER@GMAIL.COM