Letter From New York
Shahid Quadri : Snapshots
Shaheed Quaderi by the Atlantic in Salem, Massachusetts, 1995.
* Tuesday Yesterday, I learned that Shamsur Rahman was seriously ill. Doctors had already pronounced him clinically dead. Almost immediately I thought of Shahid Quadri. I wanted to share the news with him. During the past two years, Shamsur Rahman has been a constant fixture in every conversation I have had with him. But Monday is his dialysis day. Three times a week he visits the local dialysis centre and spends several hours there to flush out toxic waste from his blood and tissues. Dialysis is a painful and tiring process, and I did not want to depress him further. I called him the next day. It was rather late at night. "Who told you? How bad is it? What's the latest? Why not send him abroad for better treatment?" He seemed almost out of breath. Even over the telephone, I could sense his anguish. Shamsur Rahman is some ten years older than Shahid bhai, but this difference has never been a barrier between the two. They have known each other for over fifty years. Shahid bhai, sometimes misunderstood even by his close friends, has always considered Shamsur Rahman to be one of the best -- perhaps the very best - among the living modern Bangla poets. The only other modern Bangla poet whose name lights up his face is Buddhodev Basu. We spoke on the telephone. I could not see his face, but could still sense the gathering clouds in his eyes. Besieged by memories, he let a floodgate open up: snapshots tossed and tumbled one after another. He recalled, in 1954 -- or was it 1955 ? -- when he was a student at Dhaka's St. Gregory's High School, he first met Shamsur Rahman. Only recently they had moved to Dhaka from Calcutta, where his father edited the daily Star of India newspaper. Poetry was already an obsession and he devoured everything that came along his way. One day a common friend told him about Shamsur Rahman, who was already a minor celebrity in Dhaka, thanks to Buddhodev's monthly Kobita magazine that had published several of his poems. Rahman bhai lived in old Dhaka's Ashek Mahmud Lane; Shahid bhai at Bangla Bazaar, only a stone's throw away. The friend promised to introduce him to Rahman bhai. They met -- without any mediation -- a few weeks later at Khan Majlish's bookshop in Sadarghat, considered rather chic at that time. Literary magazine Spondhon had published a poem by Shahid bhai. At Khan Majlish's, he was re-reading his own poem. A few minutes later, a young man, fair and bespectacled, entered. They eyed each other for a while. Shamsur Rahman, the fair and bespectacled youth, spoke first, "Are you Shahid Quadri?" That was the beginning. They chatted a while, later Shahid bhai invited him to old Dhaka's celebrated Riverview restaurant. He had in his pocket one silver rupee, a sumptuous amount no doubt. After tea, chocolate biscuit and some poetry, the two headed to Rahman bhai's home. There, Rahman bhai opened his poetry notebooks and read for two hours his unpublished poems. He even corrected printing errors in Shahid bhai's poem published in Spondhon. * Thursday Shahid bhai lives in a high-rise cooperative apartment complex in Queens, not far from my para. During week-ends, we often gather at his place, mostly to hear him talk but also to enjoy Nira bhabi's terrific samosa and ghugnidana. Today, around nine, my wife Ranu and I were the only guests. By 10:30 p.m., another six or seven people dropped in. Nira bhabi poured more tea from her electric teapot and brought out more ghugnidana from her microwave oven. We all settled down. Soon we returned to our conversation on Shamsur Rahman. The poet's death on 17 August had cast a deep shadow. In New York, an impromptu commemoration was organized where Shahid bhai spoke movingly. Despite Shahid bhai's strong defense, I still harboured some misgivings about Shamsur Rahman's poetry. To me, Shamsur Rahman's poetry, especially those written during his "Biddhosto Nilima" phase, reads almost like European poetry. His taxonomy, image and diction are very much European -- it sounds foreign and reads almost like those of Eliot, Yeats, Pound and Baudelaire. Remember the image of the Jew flying over the Paris sky? Where did that come from? Even, his famous "Bidrohi bornomala" reminds one of the cataloguing of imagery made famous by Paul Eluard in his "Liberte." In essence, I laid down the same line of argument that Mannan Syed had made forty years ago. Shahid bhai seemed to lose his patience. In older days, I have a feeling, he might have said "khamosh." Instead, like an old teacher dealing with an impertinent student, he said, "Listen, there is no poet -- none whatsoever-- who is not influenced by other poets, especially those who are great. Being influenced does not mean imitation." He recalled Eliot's famous essay, Tradition and Individual Talent. Shahid bhai seemed to remember every word of that essay. "You can't separate the progress of literature, especially of poetry, without finding a comparison in the historical sense," Shahid bhai said, using Eliot's essay as his template. In fact, Eliot had argued that following tradition did not mean a blind or timid adherence of the past successes. Imitating past traditions -- in other words, older masters -- never lasts long. He wrote, we have seen many such simple currents lost in the sand. Instead, tradition is a matter of much wider significance. Then Shahid bhai upped the ante. "Not just poetry, but in every branch of the arts, you will see clear influence of people, one over another. Each tradition contains many streams and they flow in many layers. Every artist belongs to some tradition in the narrow, geographical and cultural sense. But in the broader aesthetic and historical sense, he borrows from other traditions. He draws not just inspiration but also food and nutrition for his own creative enrichment. Neither Tagore nor Jibanananda was immune to this. They too drew from foreign traditions, turned those into their own and enriched their creativity. Would you call them imitators, too?" I could sense his annoyance. But I wasn't ready to give up provoking Shahid bhai. Isn't it true that Shamsur Rahman's best poetic years were before 1970, I said. His poetry later became loud, bore a pamphleteer's mark and was aimed at a fawning adolescent audience. Granted, Shamsur Rahman, who underwent a dramatic transformation after 1970, did produce a whole body of literature reflective of his time, and of its hope and anger. But he also wrote a great number of bad poems. He chose to become politically active, something that made him almost an activist. Shouldn't activism be anathema to a modern poet, I quipped. Shahid bhai, his patience wearing thin, appeared a little listless. "Shamsur Rahman had written poems on many subjects. Politics is just one of those. He masterfully handled them all, including such themes as alienation and the crisis of identity. These are serious socio-political issues. Many of us could not even think of treating them convincingly. His poetry is sometimes imbued with a dark shadow, with a nihilistic mood, but if you read carefully, you can discover a profound belief in life and in the future. What you call activist poetry is actually his way of affirming life. If you call it politics, fine. But as far as I am concerned, I see in them a clear affirmation of life, and an urge not to give up. " Shahid bhai seemed to be just warming up, but Nira bhabi sent a signal, only a small hint but broad enough for us to realize that it was time for us to pack up. * Saturday Tonight we were at Jackson Heights, the heart of Bangla community in New York. It's a shoppers' paradise. Dozens of Bangla grocery stores and restaurants line up the two sides of a large block about the size of Dhaka's New Market. Shops remain open late, sometimes all night, and people starving for a chat in Bangla and a taste of deshi food drive in from near and far. One can chew a masala pan, buy the latest Shahrukh Khan video and watch a re-run of the last World Cup Cricket match between Bangladesh and India. We often call it, with unconcealed pride, "Bangla Town." We were invited to a high school graduation party. When we entered, the party was already in full swing. Girls, mostly in deshi clothes, were touting their latest acquisitions. Bangla music was blaring and finger food was laid out. To my pleasant surprise, Shahid Bhai and Nira bhabi were among the early guests. I sat next to him. "What is the latest? How is Hasnat (Abul Hasnat, Editor, Kali o Kolom) doing these days?" he asked. I updated him on the latest gossips. Last week, Mullika Sengupa and Subodh Sarker were at Jackson Heights, they met with some of us in Muktadhara, New York's popular Bangla bookstore. Subodh and Mullika, a husband-wife team, are famous poets from Calcutta. Shahid bhai appeared curious to know how the two were received. They were warmly applauded, I told him, but I personally did not find them particularly uplifting. Too loud for my aging ears. Mullika is crafty, more intent on building a poetic mood, but Subodh was more keen on messaging. I don't like poets who wear their politics on their sleeves. Shahid bhai shook his head gently, indicating his disapproval. Poetry can be political, nothing wrong with that, he said. "What is important is whether they validate themselves as poetry or not." Think of Eluard, Lorca and Neruda. They all wrote poems on political themes. Those poems are terrific on their own merit. It is only incidental that they happen to be political in nature. "I don't agree with those who want poets to be busy with themselves alone." The sphere of poetry is much wider, he said. What is this "sphere of poetry"? I asked him. Shahid bhai lightly tapped the dinner table. "All great poets aspire to relate themselves to their time and place in three layers. In the first layer, he explores his immediate space and time, his own private environment. In the next layer lie his country and the accompanying environment. And in the final layer rests the world and everything that comes with it." He paused for a moment, and then added, "No, not just the world, but the entire cosmos. Only a great poet is capable of expressing himself in all three layers, moving from a dot to become a circle." I hesitated a bit, not fully convinced that it was for a poet to take on such multiples roles. A poet is not a historian, neither is he a prophet. "Aren't you asking a little too much from a poet?" I asked. If a poet considers the world to be his domain and starts prescribing dos and don'ts, that could pretty much be the end of poetry as we have known. Shahid bhai reminded me of the history of poetry. "When I say a poet expresses himself in multiple layers, I only mean his effort to understand life in all its diversity and meanings. That's exactly what all great poets of the world have done. We recognize a poet as great only because he is capable of examining life and exploring its many meanings from various angles." I realized later that when he used the word 'poet', he actually meant artists. He agreed that a poet's task is not making tall statements. The moment he, the poet, takes on the role of a political advocate, he pretty much relinquishes his objectivity. Shahid bhai cited the example of Bishnu Dey. He was a Marxist poet, who recognized the dark side of life, but also celebrated its glories. Think of T.S. Eliot and his Wasteland, he said. Yes, the sense of boredom is the prevailing mood there. There is even a sense of horror. But doesn't he also invoke life's beauty and its grandeur, laying them out side by side? Like Eliot, a poet must explore life from inside and out, from its dark side and its bright, from what is exposed and what is not. Perhaps that was one weakness that Rabindranath suffered from. He rarely saw the dark side of life. I saw the host of the party approaching us. He folded his hands and smiled from ear to ear. "Shahid bhai, please, you have to say a few words. Your name has already been announced." I could see Shahid bhai's eyes darkening and his mood souring. The last thing he wanted was to rise up and give a speech on the great significance of high school graduation. * Sunday Mahbub Talukdar called me this morning. He is in town and would like to visit Shahid Quadri. I readily agreed to be his escort. I knew the two are very old friends and Shahid bhai would love to meet someone from his yesteryears. A life time had passed, but when the two met, it was as if only yesterday they had seen each other. After the initial exchange of greetings and pleasantries, Mahbub bhai asked him the most obvious question, "Shahid, how is that you don't write anymore?" I have heard this question asked many a times. The answer has always been the same: I have already said what I wanted to say. Why regurgitate? "If I could not say what I wanted to say in my three books, I won't be able to say it thirty more." He also has no undying love for his own body of work. "They are misdeeds of my youth, a result of my follies." Mahbub bhai fondly remembered the good old days spent in Dhaka. "Shahid was like an encyclopedia. He had read the latest books long before most of us knew their names. He could quote poets and philosophers, historians and politicians, as if he had a book of quotations hidden somewhere under his hand." I don't know about the years spent in Boston, but the last three years that I have seen him from close quarters have been quite trying. The news of the kidney failures in October 2002 was like a bolt from the blue. The only hope rested with finding a transplant. Darkness suddenly closed in. But life has its own way of finding a balance. He had met Nira sometime ago in New York. That chance meeting soon matured into love and then into marriage. Nira proposed, come, move in with me in New York. Shahid Quadri is now on a waiting list for kidney transplants. "How come you don't write any more, Shahid?" Mahbub bhai repeated his question. I don't hear his answer but know it all too well. When your weekly routine includes three days of kidney dialysis, poetry is perhaps the last thing on your mind. Yet, during the past years, he did write -- at least prepared the first drafts -- of quite a few poems. Some have been published, including one called "Bibbroto songlap" in Kali O Kolom two years ago. I could still detect the old Shahid Quadri in there -- his self-deprecation, dark sense of humor and austerity of words. When I first read it, I told him -- perhaps with mock sarcasm -- that it sounded like a feminist piece. Shahid bhai, never shy for words, looked sheepishly at his wife. Nira bhabi let out a peal of laughter. It was already way past midnight. Mahbub bhai stood up. He has to go to Brooklyn, on the other side of the city. It is at least a two-hour ride by late night subway. Nira bhabi, unprompted, came to his rescue. "Don't worry, I will drop you off." I looked at Shahid bhai. He nodded in approval, a pleasant smile warming his face. Mahbub bhai, a little embarrassed but obviously relieved, first looked at Nira bhabi and then at Shahid bhai. "Thank you," he said, tapping Shahid bhai on his shoulder. Ferdous Hasan is a writer-columnist who lives in New York.
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