Dowel Biswas

Last evening, that engagement unfolded with both reverence and vitality at “Aloker Ei Jhorna-Dharay” (The Eternal Illumination), a collaborative tribute by the Embassy of Sweden in Dhaka and HSBC Bangladesh.

At Chhayanaut’s Ramesh Chandra Dutta Memorial Hall on Sunday, nostalgia met reverence as artists, activists, and admirers gathered to celebrate the birth centenary of filmmaker Ritwik Kumar Ghatak and his twin sister, singer Protiti Devi.

The Ministry of Cultural Affairs has turned this remembrance into a national homage — a three-day festival from October 17 to 19 at Lalon’s resting ground in Cheuriya. There will be music, discourse, and a fair that carries the rhythm of his spirit.

The awards’ focus on technical categories is an act of cultural intervention, asking audiences and peers alike to reconsider who counts in the making of art.

The exhibition presents a rare visual chronicle of one of Bangladesh’s greatest treasures, Sultan, spanning from his reclusive days in his village home in Machimdia, Narail, to his later years. Photographs, letters—many never previously seen—allow viewers to step quietly into the private world of a man who preferred to live through his paintings, labour, imagination, and solitude.

That night in December 1921, while his comrade Muzaffar Ahmed slept, Nazrul scribbled furiously. By the morning, the air was charged with something new. “Bolo Bir, Chiro Unnoto Momo Sheer…” (“I am the Rebel Eternal, / I raise my head beyond this world, / High, ever erect and alone!”) he declared. It was not merely the birth of a poem but of a cultural rupture. Critics would later see in “Bidrohi” a break from the ‘Rabindric’ serenity that had long defined Bengal’s literary landscape—a new current of words forged in fire, laced with the clang of rebellion.

For decades, his works stood sentinel across the landscape of this country—quiet but powerful witnesses to our struggles, our resilience, and our history. “Sangsaptak”, perhaps his most defining piece, looms outside Jahangirnagar University’s central library like a frozen cry.

The artiste, whose lyrics and guitar immortalised the volatile, uncertain moments of the July Uprising through songs such as “Bhoy Banglay,” “Jonotar Beyadobi,” “Bhoy Banglay Bhoy,” “Ei Meye Shon,” “Rani Maa,” and “O Neta Bhai,” offered this correspondent a deeply personal glimpse into her creative process during a time when life seemed hollow and rebellion offered meaning.