Memories of an erudite man
Mahbub Husain Khan appreciates a work on a noted scholar
A fortunate concatenation of circumstances has enabled this reviewer to know about and meet some of the most famous literary and intellectual personalities of Bangladesh and West Bengal since the 1950s. Among them is Syed Mujtaba Ali. And because of this chain of circumstances and blessed by good fortune, I was able to attend the wedding ceremony, in 1951, of Syed Mujtaba Ali with Rabiah Aly, who was my mother's friend and classmate. And then, only last week, quite by happenstance, I came across Golam Mostaquim, who presented me with his book on Syed Mujtaba Ali (first published in 1995). This memoir of Syed Mujtaba Ali by a 'civil savant' is an unlikely delight. Mostaquim is now a senior officer in the Bangladesh administration, but I have known him for long, as he hails from my ancestral home, the sub-divisional town of Manikganj, now a district headquarters. Though the word 'bureaucrat' has a markedly negative overtone in this day and age, and, in our country, intelligent and essential civil servants are often denigrated as 'bureaucrats', Mostaquim has proved, with this book, and through his many published research papers and newspaper columns, that he is really a 'savant' in the literary field and in his 'bureaucratic' career. This is a magisterial account of Syed Mujtaba Ali's life and times, particularly in the period April to December 1971, when Mostaquim had crossed over to West Bengal as a freedom fighter. This memoir combines a deep respect for the principal character's ethical probity and resourceful intellect, with a far from inevitably complimentary eye for the telling details of Mujtaba Ali's personal habits and deportment. Mostaquim manifests a rich dramatic talent and a precise ear for conversational rhythms in his recapitulation of his meetings with Mujtaba Ali at the time of his stay at his flat in Kolkata, and then till Ali's death in 1974. His orchestration of the discussions and debates lies at the heart of this remarkable memoir. A little daunted by Mujtaba Ali's brusque rebuff at their first meeting on April 28, 1971, at Ali's Patwar Bagan Lane flat, Mostaquim was nevertheless encouraged by friends of Ali, including Abu Sayeed Ayub and Shubhash Mukopadhaya, to persevere. And just over a week later, he waited, with some apologies, upon Mujtaba Ali. Mujtaba Ali is, for all his erudition, and also idiosyncrasies, a unique and intermittently profound voice. Mostaquim should be congratulated for bringing an extraordinary yet sometimes difficult person supremely alive in his book. In the descriptions of his own life, his own sensations and memories, and his journeys to distant places, Mujtaba Ali is at his most mesmerising; his feel for surroundings is as observant, articulate and convincing as his ability to describe and elucidate his reactions to these places and personalities. This provides Mostaquim with an opportunity to provide more of 'a national than a personal history', which centres around Mujtaba Ali, but brings into sharp detail other literary and intellectual personalities of India, Bangladesh and Europe. This reviewer feels that Mostaquim has acted in a manner similar to that of James Boswell waiting upon Samuel Johnson. And by so doing given us both Mujtaba Ali as an individual and the dimensions of the personalities with whom Mujtaba Ali spent the most profitable and pleasurable years of his life. One looks forward to Mostaquim's next book, which as one is given to understand will be published late in 2008.
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