An insulated literary voyage
Rifat Munim reminds readers of some notable men of letters
February 2011The latest issue of Kheya, a literary magazine with a fairly prolonged lifespan, was gathering dust on my shelf, being placed quietly underneath my recently bought English and a few Bengali titles. As one corner of it uneasily jutted out, I pulled it out from under the stack. Its cover, stripped of any glitz, is unadorned with a cluster of pale leaves and gives off gloomy light in the foreground of which is put a vertical portrait of the versatile author Abdul Mannan Syed. He died in 2010. Nearly half of the issue is dedicated to his life and works. As I kept browsing through the pages, I met writers and poets who are barely known to readers but seem to have taken up writing as a calling, as an end in itself. Having read their poems or essays, anyone would be impressed at the sight here of writers of rare literary and intellectual capacity. One would be aptly reminded of the reclusive Jibanananda Das, who would have remained largely unpublished if it were not for Buddhadev Bose and his magazine Kobita. Although much in common with Jibanananda in terms of distancing themselves from the hullabaloo of mainstream literature, their steady voyage through nearly three turbulent decades while clinging to an apparently pure, aesthetic standard of literature and that too as a group is precisely what sets them apart from numerous other literary or little magazines of the time. After finishing the last poem, I was wondering how I managed to slide the book virtually into oblivion. This was more so because I had read some of their poems and essays, especially those written by Kashinath Roy, Nurul Haq and Golam Faruq Khan. About three or four years ago, one of my departed friends insisted that I read a magazine called Nirantar. It was there that I first came across their works. Anyone may think I am emotionally enthused, but as far as my reading is concerned, I must say Nirantar is one of the few quality literary magazines I have ever seen in this part of Bengal. The same applies to Kheya too. Both of them contain essays, criticism, scholarly articles, poems, short stories and always some excellent translated works that are selected on the basis of originality and perfection, two standards that are so noticeably missing in many of the poems and essays published in newspaper-based literary supplements. The prose section of this issue of Kheya boils down to Mannan Syed who, it turns out, had been a mentor as well as a companion of the group in focus. But I have chosen to begin with others who mainly represent the group. As we all know, Mannan Syed has never been an unfamiliar name in literary circles despite all his seclusion. But let me ask you if you have ever heard of Pulak Hasan, who is the editor of this magazine and a gifted poet himself. Did you ever hear of Selim Sarwar, a poet and critic? Or consider Nurul Haq and Golam Faruq Khan for that matter. When it comes to literature in our country, the Department of English at Dhaka University takes a special place. The legacy had begun from Buddhadev Bose. Be it in Bengali or in English, you will have to name writers who belong to the faculty of this department. And all of them are quite familiar names. But did you know that Kashinath Roy also has taught English here and that too, for several decades? Did you know that his poems are so arresting that you will be transported to a world where all your mundane experiences are given a new life, a new meaning? My dear readers, I'm not a writer as such but I'm a reader who at least has kept himself in touch with mainstream literary supplements and magazines for the last ten years. Based on that experience, let me speak for you: no, you have never read or heard of any of the aforementioned names. Or even if you have, it did not take you long to forget them because of their extremely sporadic appearance. This is true of the group in general; and this is precisely why I have written this piece not to review the magazine but to introduce these writers and to let readers know of a world where dedication to creating literature is all that matters and the race for outstripping others in the media or at the book fair is all that does not count.
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