The rebel poet goes cyber

An extraordinary, prolific and versatile poet, lyricist and writer, an undaunted unreserved authentic voice against bigotry, injustice and oppression, a passionate advocate of peace, freedom, harmony, love, compassion, humanism and beauty is Kazi Nazrul Islam, the Rebel Poet of Bengal.

The national poet of Bangladesh or more appropriately, a true World Poet, deserves to be known to the world outside, without being confined to the small Bangla-speaking community.

While every nation endeavours to promote their cultural excellence beyond the bounds of their own nation, we seem to be content with paying lip-service most of the time.

Dr Mohammad Omar Farooq, however, took the initiative and developed a website on Nazrul in English, www.nazrul.org. It's a useful resource-centre on Nazrul for the non-Bangla speaking, the expatriates and the second or third generation descendants.

The site has nine main sections that include Nazrul's life, his works, works on Nazrul, Nazrul issues and reflections of the poet and his visions.

The site also contains photos ranging from his childhood to his final resting-place near Dhaka University mosque and Nazrul's audio collection as well. The audio files are a selection of his Hamd, Naat, recitations and speeches.

There is an interesting collage of excerpts taken from Nazrul's poetry highlighting his own views and feelings explicitly in his own worlds together with poetic tributes and dedications to Nazrul by famous literary personalities, including Tagore, Premendra Mitra, Annada Shankar Roy and others.

This website is a non-profit volunteer effort, a labour of love by a person whose inspiration comes from 'bringing the rebel to the cyberspace'.

So the rebel poet now has a cyber home taking his message of liberation, universal brotherhood and of courage and dignity to all across the world.

Arif Ahmed is a freelance journalist.