Unity of various sensibilities
Takir Hossain is gushing in his praise of new poetry
Love is a symbol of truth and beauty and gives us insights into blissful and spiritual life. Without love and affection, it is rather difficult to think about the existence of the soul in the body. Loving humankind and feeling empathy, delight and liberty are the four aspects of true love. Love is tranquil, quiet, honest, virtuous and based on conviction, esteem, confidence, support and truth. It does not have any room for jealousy, distrust, conceit, snobbery and unfairness. Love excuses all. Love happens when a wish is developed from an attraction, which leads to submission and then urges one to take the path to commitment. A deep attachment is felt for the person we love; we feel sensitive and are mesmerised by our love and thus seek devotion and regard. Love brings people together, as opposed to hate which separates people from one another. Love is refined and if allowed to flow naturally will smoothen the trail chosen after birth. Love makes life healthier and fuller. These comprise the essence of Murtaja Baseer's poetry. To express wonder and to feel exceptional sensibility are two kinds of emotional experience. He excels in uniting different sensibilities Murtaja Baseer is by nature a shy, lonesome, reclusive person. He is very innovative and original in thought in his poetry. He has sharpened our perception, surveillance and exploration. Reading his poetry is like going on an emotional exploration. His poetry obsesses our mind and soul. One is quite clear about the fact that he is a modernist in the complete sense of the meaning. His style is unquestionably unique, individualised, expressive and easily explicable. In his poems, one feels the presence of a lonely soul, an underlying sorrow, a feeling of emptiness and an emotional expression of a disconsolate heart. It is common sight of his works that the six Bengali seasons are Baseer's favourite theme and his poetry is eminently suffused by our sundry seasons. The shorn trees, harvested stubble, receding sunlight, shadowed fields, glow of sunset, rain, hilly lands, cloudy sky, chilly winds, a variety of birds, wild flowers and various nature's ingredients have adorned in his poetry. He is a poet of silence and mystery. Since the inception of his writing poetry, he has carefully kept himself removed from any disquiet and unsteadiness. Murtaja Baseer is dreamy and given to voyages of poetic fantasy. Besides being a visionary, the poet has regularly tried to express his personal feelings and observations in romanticism. In the work under review, there are altogether 72 poems that can give the readers a completely different taste and understanding of poetry as he appears with quite a new style in many senses. Going through his poems, one must feel a world fluctuating amidst a variety of immense emotions and strong expressions. Readers will here come by an opportunity to enjoy a romantic's view of the many different areas of life. Obviously, the poet is an enthusiastic observer and wants to experience his surrounding ambience. Most of the poems are a rich blend of theme and technique, the richness enhanced by the poet's skill in using myriad pictorial imagery, similes and metaphors. All of them are serious in mood and deep and reflective in an exposition of aesthetic feelings. One rather thinks these poems will be appreciated for their soothing nuance of language as well. Readers will take to the book for its cheerfully mind-boggling and amazing turns of phrase and terminology. Murtaja Baseer, a distinguished artist, has made a great contribution to the enrichment of our art. Baseer is a multi-dimensional person. His creativity itself has also manifested itself in various arenas of the literary world. He wrote the short story and screenplay of the Urdu film Karwan in 1963. He worked as a screenplay writer, art director and chief assistant director in the Bangla film Nadi-o-Nari in 1964 and art director of the Urdu film Kaise Kahoon in 1965. Baseer published a collection of short stories, Kancher Pakhir Gaan, in 1969. This was followed by a collection of poems, Trasarenu, in 1976, Tomakei Sudhu in 1979 and Esho Phire Anasua in 1985. Ultramarine is one of his Bengali novels published in 1979 and he has a collection of selected works, Murtaja Baseer: Murta-o-Bimutra in 2001. His work "Mudra o Shila Lipir Aloke Banglar Hafsi Sultan O Tothkalin Samaj" was published in 2004. Takir Hossain, a journalist, is a regular reviewer of books.
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