<i>Kali O Kolom </i> Srabon 1415--July 2008
This issue of Kali O Kolom continues to demonstrate the literary journal's inherent vitality and variety. A most interesting piece is the essay titled PurboBongo Progoti Lekhak O Shilpi Shangha penned by Mohammed Nazrul Islam. It takes the reader on an emphatic tour of radical politics and cultural activities that formed the locus of oppositional politics in the then East Pakistan against the West Pakistani regimes during the 1940s and '50s. The cast of characters is vivid, ranging from Dhirendranath Dutta (the man who first raised the issue of language and linguistic rights in the Pakistan parliament) to Khan Shamsur Rahman (an ex-CSP bureaucrat who wore a red tie to a leftist meeting in Swadarghat near the Baptist Mission Church in Old Dhaka) to Hasan Hafizur Rahman (the poet-activist who brought out the famous Ekushey collection of poems, and was later posted to the Bangladesh mission in Moscow), with the settings ranging from Kolkata to Chittagong to Dhaka, and the language both spirited and nostalgic, evoking a period of our history about which we remain sadly under-informed today. The art section is specially strong in this issue, with, among other pieces, Borhanuddin Khan Jahangir and Mansur Ali writing on the veteran artist Shafiuddin Ahmed, poet Robiul Hosain explicating on artist and cartoonist Sisir Bhattacharya's much-discussed recent art show, and coverage of the exhibition of the works of new artists at the Shilpakala Academy (18 May to 6 June) by Zahid Mustafa. An article on Simone de Beauvoir however is ordinary and descriptive, as is the somewhat strained writing on fictionalized history by Sagar Chowdhury, a subject given traction by the overhyped 'Hitler diaries.' There is an interview of Amitav Ghosh which does not reveal anything new to readers of his English books, though that may not hold true of readers of Bengali prose. There are three short stories ('Reporter' by Shaymol Mojumdar and 'Thaida' by Dilara Hashim are notable) while for the first time there's also been published a micro-fiction, i.e., a very short, short story. Two articles on a couple of Bangladeshi writers make for particularly good reading: the lead piece by Sarkar Abdul Mannan on the recently deceased Shahidul Zahir, and a discussion on Hasan Azizul Haq's collection of short stories Bidhobadayr Kotha O Onannanyo Golpo, which apparently was written some time back and has only recently been published. There is a very good review by Shamsuzzaman Khan of Papri Rahman's striking novel on Jamdani weavers Boyan, where the reviewer expertly discusses the Dhaka regional dialect in which the novel has been written (pointing out the very unfamiliar words that readers would not know, for example, the word 'tolok' which means tobacco leaf when it is too strong--in fact, anything too overtly spicy, temperamental or powerful is referred to as 'tolok'). The cover art is 'Phul' by Rashid Chowdhury (1932-1986).
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