<i>Kali O Kolom Asharh 1416</i> - June 2009
The present government's incompetence in terms of power supply is not only causing untold miseries during a sweltering heat wave to an electorate that trusted it to govern, and govern well, but is also ruining my writing of Kali O Kolom reviews. Since I happen to live in an ordinary neighbourhood without montri mohadois nearby on whose uninterrupted power grids I could have a free ride, I am victim to savage load shedding. The power disruptions have frayed my temper to the point where the joy in carrying out my otherwise pleasurable monthly task has vanished. So if this particular review seems somewhat disorganized, I beg the indulgence of readers. I confess that even though I was delighted at the election result I'm now radically revising my opinion. A plague, I feel like spewing, on both political houses - Capulet and Montague! In the letters to the editor section regular letter writer Ms Ashrifa Khan Nova laments the bad days that have fallen on 'Bangla bhasha and Shongskriti' with reference to a previous article by Anupam Shaha on the topic. She blames this condition on English. I used to be of that opinion myself, but am revising my position here too. It seems to me now to be too simplistic an explanation for the decline, with English being a handy scapegoat for a loss that otherwise well-intentioned Bangla-language proponents cannot, or will not, examine objectively. Due consideration should be given to our failed educational system and policies, which keep reproducing modes of illiteracy, or a particular kind of literacy, that promotes and popularizes in turn an 'illiterate' Bangla. Illiteracy is not the product of English. It is the product of failed national education policies. The slide is aided by an aggressive Hindization of traditional Bangla culture - yet none of the Bangla-language worthies ever speak out against Hindi television soaps and movies. I should also mention here that I sent my two sons to English-medium schools - just like other such proponents whose children also attend English-medium schools. Or if they can afford it, send them abroad for higher study where they learn not just English but also a whole culture that their fathers decry so vehemently in Dhaka drawing rooms and television talk shows. My two sons display a disheartening lack of interest in Bangla. This disinterest cannot be attributed solely to the charms of English - it may be that what we know to be Bangla is either inherently losing some inner vitality, or it's changing to an extent where the older ones among us no longer recognize it as the language we learnt and spoke in our childhood and youth. The cause is also not helped by those Bangla writers putting out rubbish in the guise of 'literature'. Youth drifts away; and the drift is unstoppable given our current standards of education, the pull of modernity, and our occasional hypocrisy. Language and culture must adapt, or die. So is the 'decline' in Bangla bhasha and shongskriti that the Old Guard bemoans (including I at times) an adaptation to a changing world, or truly a decline in standards? Whatever the answer may turn out to be, in this context one must acknowledge that Kali O Kolom's endeavour to publish a reputed Bangla literary journal is one that should be continually supported. In principle, it is fighting the good fight. Given the above long introduction I'll concentrate my review on a few pieces only. Among the short stories, 'Charandashi' by Harishankar Jaldash is enjoyable. It is a story about a fishing community, which is a rarity these days where tales are set in urban landscapes and depict the travails of the city's petit-bourgeoisie. Though the story hinges on a clichéd plot device (mistaken lover, wrong paternity), yet the passage of time in a fishing village, the lives led by the sea's edge, the portrait of the father with his four sons are drawn in a convincing manner. 'Shahid Quadri'r Wasteland' is the first bad piece I have encountered by the otherwise redoubtable Prothom Alo columnist and occasional Kali O Kolom contributor Hasan Ferdous. He has labored mightily to organically connect Eliot's 'The Wasteland' to Shahid Quadri's famous poem 'Brishti Brishti,' yet all that effort cannot conceal the fact that his central thesis stands on thin ground. Hasan's methodology is to furiously pile one descriptive detail on top of another - a method by which any fool with a modicum of academic training can force connections between the works of tens of Bengali poets and Eliot's classic; a hundred of Shamsur Rahman's poems can be tied to the urban desiderata of 'The Wasteland.' Hasan's motive - to boost efforts currently underway to 'rehabilitate' Shahid Quadri's standing among readers who have forgotten a fine poet due to his long self-exile - is honorable, but the practice is wrong. Such attempts will eventually backfire. There are two fine in-memoriams to Krishna Chattapadhaya, the celebrated exponent of the songs of Atul Prasad and Dwijendra Lal. I myself was introduced to her songs by my late elder sister, and remain especially fond of her Dwijendra Lal renditions. One of the in-memoriams, 'Taharay Bhulibo Bolo Kaymnay' by Milia Ibrahim, written in a very personal vein, was moving to the point of bringing me to tears, and novel in terms of form, with the narrative being divided into episodic segments. Professor Kabir Chowdhury has done a long-overdue and fine translation into Bangla of Orhan Pamuk's celebrated 'My Father's Suitcase'. In the art review section Zahid Mustafa gives good coverage of artist Kazi Salahuddin's show titled 'Nagar Ananda' held recently at Bengal Gallery. I myself went to see the exhibition, and was glad to see the emergence of a fresh, individual talent. The cover art Boshonter Porbotay Teen Bondhu is a 2005 acrylic work by artist Kanak Champa Chakma, with her distinctive use of colour and themes, which draws on the folk tales and plain lives of the paharis of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. She graduated from Dhaka University's Charukala Institute in 1986, and stayed on a fellowship in 1993-94 at Pennsylvania University.
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