Vignettes that have validity
Shamsad Mortuza relishes reading tales of gentle folk
When Bhawdroloks are around Commoners Beware!
Faheem Hasan Shahed
Globe Library Pvt. Limited
Distributed by Pathak Somabesh (Shahbag) & Friend's Book Corner (Nilkhet)
I didn't want to lose friends,' the eminent littérateur Hayat Mamud was telling a packed audience the other day. He was making a candid confession as to why he had never reviewed any book. Mamud was addressing a reception held in honour of two of his friends and former colleagues at Jahangirnagar University. It is difficult to review books written by authors who are known to you. But then again, there are books that give you an itch to respond. Faheem Hasan Shahed's When Bhawdroloks are around Commoners Beware! is one such book.
When Faheem bhai signed me a copy of his book comprising 26 of his articles that he had published in different newspapers and internet blogs over the years, I was pleasantly surprised by his brisk observation and crisp prose. I know Faheem bhai in a professional capacity, always neatly clad in the manner of the proverbial English professors of the colonial era (well, at least he never wears his summer jackets in winter or vice versa). The semi-corporate environment of a private university makes the dress part of the decorum, I guess! (Un)fortunately for us we do not have to worry about formal dress code in our non-AC classrooms of public universities. The point I am trying to make is that Faheem Shahed's professional attachment with a premier private university allows him to rub shoulders with the class we normally characterise as bhawdroloks. His attire confirms his niche in such a category, as is commonly believed. While leafing through the book, I was rather on my guard: I wasn't sure whether to 'Beware' as a commoner or be around the class on the other side of the fence. Frankly, I was amazed by Faheem's insight into the gentry-class from the perspective of what he characterized as the Commoners.
Now, any sociologist would find this binary of Bhawdrolok and Commoner problematic. But Faheem's observation is not academic. He has made an informed definition of bhawdrolok, as perceived by a city-bus driver. Faheem recounts how a driver was verbally abused by his passengers as he stopped the bus at an undesignated stop to let down a schoolgirl who was running late for her exam. The good gesture of the 'commoner' was attacked by those who looked and were dressed up as 'bhawdrolok'. While the driver showed empathy, the passengers on the bus fell short of it. This anecdote prompts Faheem to probe into the so-called class called bhawdrolok, and ascertain its essentials of: money or education?
As an educator who grew up in an academic milieu, Faheem's bias is predictable. Throughout the book, he sees the dearth of education. One cannot be 'bhawdro' without education. He recalls the influence of his good teachersProf. Noman, Prof. Abdullah Abu Sayeed, Prof. Syed Manzoorul Islam, Dr. Zafar Iqbal and many othersthat has given him the necessary impetus to equip his own students with the necessary paraphernalia to brace for today's world. He is also motivated by the negative energy of his bad teachers, whose dull, drab lecture notes used to send students reeling; because he felt this is the type of pedagogy that gives teaching a bad name. In short, Faheem is aware of his own role as a teacher. No wonder, he is disturbed by the way a generation is losing touch with its culture by mimicking the west or imbuing in fashion or video games. He feels encouraged when he sees Non-Resident Bangladeshis holding high opinions about the possible changes of the country. Conversely, he feels saddened by rich kids who are fast becoming party animals under the nose of their ever-busy parents.
In one of his pieces, he writes about the day when he asked his students to write on 'the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen'. One of the students completed the sentence by writing, 'the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen is the happy conjugal life of my parents.' I am simply touched by the way Faheem connects the parental warmth needed for the right education of a child. The philosophy is pretty basic: charity begins at home. But it has withstood the test of time, and finds currency in Faheem's illustration.
There is a softer side in Faheem that longs for connectivity with nature. He is all too aware of his limitation, symbolically presented through the viewing of unrestricted rain shower through the window panes of his room with controlled temperature. He hails the fact of how technology has made it easier to share instant emotion or gestures. He recalls how one sms (he could have added facebook too) from an unknown sender made his day, by asking him to relish the rain. His appreciation of such human gesture in a technological age gives a human face to our concrete relationships.
One of the highlights of the book is the indiscriminate use of Bangla in his English. Faheem's research on nativization has probably led him to bring Bangla into English writing. I am neither an expert to comment on the linguistic and semantic dimensions of such usage nor a purist to protest such a mixture. I did feel the mixture came naturally, and as a Bengali reader I did not find the code-switching problematic.
I do feel Faheem's book is an excellent reflector of our urban life, in which the class issue is redefined from a personal position. Faheem does not expect everyone to cater to his conviction. He has actually written a book that bhawdroloks will not like to miss.
Dr. Shamsad Mortuza teaches English literature at Jahangirnagar University .
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