The inspirational Dr. Murshid

My first meeting with Dr. Khan Sarwar Murshid almost ended disastrously. I had applied for admission to the English department of the University of Dhaka in September 1969 and was appearing in the admission interview. He was on the other side of the table—Head of the department as well as Chair of the Admissions Committee—and by then quite formidable as far as his reputation was concerned. “Young man,” he told me, “You are an “O” level student. I am sure you won't mind being tested with a relatively difficult poem. Can you make sense of this one?” Though never the confident type, I had said rashly then, “Sir, I can try”. But though I did I couldn't make any sense of the poem. The seconds ticked on—endlessly! “Ah', he said not unkindly, “perhaps you should go to your second choice department—Economics?”  I was mortified, but something in his gentle manner told me he would give me a second chance. “Please sir”, I pleaded, “can I get another poem?' “All right, young man,” he said reassuringly, “try explaining this one”.  This time I succeeded, for as I later realized, Tennyson is far easier to interpret than Hardy! And so I got into the English department, ego dented, but thankful to Dr. Murshid for having thrown me a lifeline to what has become my permanent port of call in life.
Once inside the department, like all of its students, I was awe-struck by Dr. Murshid. Certainly, there was an aura about him. The stylish way he dressed, his confident gait, his unique inflected way of speaking English, and his soft-spoken but assured presence on departmental occasions made us all realize that our Head was someone special. And as the months went by in those heady pre-1971 days of protest and indignation at Pakistani machinations and admiration at Bengali spearheads of autonomy, we all began to be even more awe-struck by the stories circulating about his principled resistance to his equally famous and to us increasingly controversial predecessor Dr. Sajjad Hossein. As we came closer and closer to March 1971, we were full of admiration at Dr. Murshid's active participation in the six-point movement and his advocacy of all things Bengali and his opposition to attempts to thrust the oppressive and insidious ideology of Pakistan on us. To be sure, his lectures on Donne and metaphysical poetry often went above our head, but even though we didn't understand a lot of what he said in his classes, he sounded awfully impressive, and we listened in rapt silence.
There were other aspects of Dr. Murshid's personality that awed me. I was coming to know more and more about belles letters in our part of Pakistan and whenever the subject of English writing in the east of the country came up, so did New Values, the magazine he had edited. I had never seen a copy of the magazine— and still haven't!—but anyone who had would praise it to the skies. He was also present in Chayyanot events that I was beginning to attend regularly and other cultural occasions. Always a presence there and everywhere, he unfailingly dressed appropriately for each occasion, and forever seemed to be surrounded by his admirers.
Then—and subsequently—Dr. Murshid appeared exemplary to all of us interested in the life of the intellect. His proactive role in the Bangladeshi movement, his proximity to Bangobondhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the part he played in the liberation war, the voice of dissent that he became in the dark days of 1980s, made him one of the key figures asserting the importance of being a Bengali and secular against atavistic forces attempting to suppress us even in independent Bangladesh with autocratic, militaristic or reactionary designs. He was exemplary, too, in the way he spoke on public occasions and the ready wit and sophistication with which he conducted seminars and chaired public events. In short, the more I saw of him over the years, the more awe-struck I became at this invariably soft-spoken but self-assured personality.
Unfortunately for me, I had Dr. Murshid as my teacher only for a brief while after liberation. In 1972 he left Dhaka to become Vice-Chancellor of Rajshahi University and in 1975 he left the country to be Ambassador of Bangladesh to Poland. That year, while being briefed for his diplomatic posting in the foreign office, he used to come to the English department every day he could. He took a few classes with us then on Shakespeare and Yeats. But though these were infrequent appearances, he said enough in those classes to leave me with the impression that he was the type of teacher who taught because of an innate love of the profession and an intense involvement with literature. Much later, in the 1990s, when I had become Chair of the English department, I rediscovered how fond he was of teaching. His health had begun to let him down by this time but seemingly nothing would deter him from guest lecturing in the department. I remember, for example, an occasion when I was called from my office because he had fainted while taking a class. He recovered and was taken home. Next week, however, he was back to teaching, as if frail health would never prevent him from being part of the profession that he so loved.
I have no doubt that if someone set himself to the task, we would have a rich collection of anecdotes about Dr. Murshid's devotion to his work and commitment to his principles, either as a teacher, an oppositional intellectual, or as an administrator. In Rajshahi University's Vice-Chancellor's residence a few years ago, where I was waiting for the incumbent to begin the proceedings of a selection board, I heard a story about Dr. Murshid that I have no doubt is typical. My informant—then chair of the university's English department—recounted the time when left-leaning students had gheraoed the V.C.'s office, refusing to let Dr. Murshid go anywhere until their demands were met. “All right,” he had apparently said, “stay with me as long as you can but I will never budge from my position”. Early next morning he was still in his office, but the student-demonstrators were fast asleep. He woke them up, I am told, and said that he was off for his morning walk and would be back with them. In the end, I infer, they had to give up!
Indeed, Dr. Murshid was the kind of person around whom legends amass. Here is one anecdote that has the potential of becoming the stuff of legend. I had gone to his house to meet his daughter Tazeen Murshid, a good friend, and we talked and talked for almost ninety minutes. All this time I saw him sitting in his study, fully focused on the book that he was reading. When I left Tazeen that day, he was still glued to the book and his desk, unfazed by the conversation Tazeen and I had for one and a half hour!
As one would expect, Dr. Murshid had read omnivorously and was knowledgeable and erudite about all sorts of things. He was also an avid collector of art and a connoisseur of music and all things requiring a delicate sensibility. Talking with him was invariably interesting and one was bound to be the wiser for the experience.
It is unfortunate, therefore, that Dr. Murshid left so little of his written work which was once in circulation; almost nothing by him can be found in print at this time. This is no doubt the one failing of this remarkably learned and intellectually vibrant man. For even till the very end of his life, the years had not diminished his interest in the arts and culture or his appetite for reading and his conversational skills. One kept hoping that before he would leave us he would write his memoirs or give us accounts and insights into whatever fascinated him or author works on his involvement in the major movements that dotted the road to the emergence of Bangladesh. One kept hoping, too, that we would see a selection from New Values, for I knew personally that this was a project he wanted to undertake near the end of his life.
Now that he has passed away I still keep hoping that we will one day discover a half-written manuscript on his life and times one of these days. Who would not be interested in the stories he had to tell and the views he was able to glean from a rich and full life? His presence had been inspirational for all of us in Dhaka for a long, long time and his death undoubtedly left a void in our intellectual world. Only his colleagues and fellow travelers who accompanied him in the second half of the twentieth century will know the full extent of his contribution to our intellectual and political life and we look forward to their accounts of the varied and unique role he played in Bangladesh's history.  And as for us students, we can only grieve at the passing away of a mentor extraordinary and an exemplary academic who gave more than his scholarship to his nation.

Fakrul Alam, Professor, Department of English, Dhaka University, is a writer, critic and translator