ABOUT MYSELF
I was born on October 23, 1929, in Dhaka, in a middle class family. I started writing almost accidentally, while a student in the University of Dhaka. That was 1948.
Why do I write?
What makes me write?
The answer to the question that readily comes to my mind is: I write because I can’t help doing so, even at this age when I am past seventy. The family I grew up in was quite a large one. None of the members of this family ever thought of doing any creative writing. I was the single exception, and I did so without any premeditation. None of my elders ever asked me to do any writing outside my school work. And this includes my parents and my teachers. Rather, I faced some opposition, when I wrote something on my own. Far from any encouragement, all I got from my father was total disapproval. However, I refused to be disheartened and kept up my spirit.
While I was in class seven, an one-year-old sister of mine, Nahar, died after a brief, but fatal attack of smallpox. I loved my little sister too much. Whenever I picked her up or took her to the fields, I tried to please her by putting my pencil into her hands. Two or three days after her death, I wrote a small prose piece on her. Just felt a sudden urge to write. That expression of a very personal feeling made me write my original piece. I cannot claim any literary merit for it. After this a few years rolled by. Prose or verse, nothing came out from my pen during the period, apart from classroom tasks.
A few days after I had stepped into the grounds of Dhaka University, it was a noon darkened by monsoon clouds. I just managed to write a poem: an act of pure impulse. No preparation, no forethought preceded it. The weather must have produced a feeling of dejection. Any particular reason for this cling? I do not think so. I just wanted some relief from the gloom that had engulfed my mind. There is a feeling of joy once your thoughts take shape in words. Once the shape assumes body beautiful, a writer finds himself fulfilled.
When I started writing, there was no thought whatever that it would do any good to my country or my people, that it would change men for the better or that it would be a force for social change. I was, however, not indifferent towards finding a readership. Had it been so, I might as well have put my papers tinder the pillow or the mattress. True, at the time I am deeply grossed in writing, adding lines upon lines, I am forgetful of my readers. Once I have finished, I look for readers. I even look r appreciation. I believe this is true of all writers. Those who profess complete indifference about this must be hiding their true feeling.
However, to come back to the question of why I write, what takes me write, I must mention one thing. Whatever I have experienced, 1 wish to share with others. My experience is derived from two sources – my reading of books, and my living of my own life. My writings are the result of my endeavour to articulate experience. The value of the experience of life outweighs that reading but the latter has its own claim to be counted. As life is a great teacher, likewise the world of books is a house of liberal teacher with a capacious mind. Here we can and do pick up lessons both necessary and useful for us. Our outlook on life is transformed. Creative literature teaches us how to be seekers of truth. Behind a person’s work as a writer are the two urges : the urge for self-expression, and the urge to pursue truth that allows no rest to the pursuer.
To pursue truth! The words are easier said than done. One can have a vision of truth only through discovering one’s true self. To attain this, one needs to traverse many levels of consciousness. Many of us never come to see truth after long wanderings. A few do. The crucifier did not wait a moment to see truth as he lifted Jesus on to crucifixion. A writer’s journey is as arduous as a Saint’s in this life-long pursuit of truth.
For some, literary work is a higher form of life’s playfulness. But this is no common play. This is a play involving a deeper and higher level of intellect. Literature is not a part-time endeavour. It needs total commitment. Literature claims self-sacrifice, total dedication, and unremitted labour.
One who would commit himself to literature will have two resources to draw on – ideas and words. There can be no communication without the aid of words, of language. It is possible to convey some feelings with the help of gestures but to communicate one’s thoughts, however simple they may be, one needs sharp, crystal-clear, meaningful words. There is no other way.
I had an understanding of this simple truth when I first took to writing. Each and every word has its own colour, its own tone. The sentence that 1 compose with words, my experience tells me, presents me a picture, makes music for my ears. With words as my support, I, at times take a walk along mountain paths, at times on moonlit nights, close to a woodland, and fix my eyes on the soulful eyes of a deer. At times 1 become the lone inhabitant of an island, at times I fly on my wings in the air, but stay away from the sun lest my wings melt away. At other times, I see myself among miners deep underground. Some words can change me into such a rare traveller that 1 meet the mermaids and come across a peerless beauty in a hanging garden. in I rind myself as one in a crowd of hungry beggars, holding to my breast a sick child. waiting for a pittance by wav of alms, myself no better than a skeleton.
I have said earlier that for a writer to be able to write, his one at resource is the depth of his experience. For a poet, his true love, as Reiner Maria Rilke said, is his childhood. A can always pick up some gems from there. An elderly poet m d wider field of experience since he has already left his adolescence and youth behind. Now in my seventies, I should consider myself an old man. Many things have happened in my personal life. I have met many people, I have found many friends among them, have been fortunate in respect of the warmth and kindness of many that have come my way. Many of them I have I met, even though I know I have their love and their warm feeling towards me.
In my life I have seen bloody riots, seen the ugly face of communalism, famine, loss of dear ones, partition of my country, floods and cyclones, language movement, mass uprising, the brute arrogance of military rulers, the unique non-cooperation movement under the leadership of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, genocide, the resistance of the Bengalese, the War of Liberation, the birth of Bangladesh, the inhuman killing of August ’75, the black phases of army rule, peoples’ uprising, victory of democracy: all crowding my memory.
In my experience, alongside events very personal to me, many ore, national and international events have accumulated and think these, quite naturally and logically, have cast their shadow n my work in different phases of my poetic life. My life and my creative work have always been closely linked with each other and I have always regarded my writing as art, never a propaganda piece, have always kept in mind that no creative work can eschew the quality of art. At the end, I would go back to what I started with. Even today, I feel the urge of communion with others. Let ray thoughts reach many others, let my very own words get their approval, this is my fondest desire. Whatever my other faults, I am free from the hauteur that belittle the rest of my fellow beings. One word more, I am still in the pursuit of truth. I am literally besieged with many ailments, I have sleepless nights waiting for a few lines of verse. Sometimes the environment becomes much too hostile for me, my fingers get stiff, still I manage to sit before my writing table. Because write must, no respite from this business of writing.
I am a humble practitioner of Bengali poetry who has been lavishly rewarded by the poetry-lovers of the land and bestowed with many literary prizes. I have received Bangla Academy Prize as well as State Awards, like Ekushey Padak and Independence Award. I received Honorary D. Litt degrees from Rabindra Bharati University, Shantiniketan, and Jadavpur University of Kolkata, as well as North Bengal University of West Bengal. So far I have written about 60-65 books of poems, three books of literary essays, one memoir for young readers, four books of rhymes and five novels and short story collections.