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| নির্বাচিত পোস্ট | লগইন | রেজিস্ট্রেশন করুন | রিফ্রেস |
In writing this piece, I feel a little bit anxious thinking about the stance that our older generation of scholars, poets, and educationists has adopted. To name a few,Prof. Dr. Serajul Islam Sir, Prof. Dr. Anisuzzaman, Prof. Mohit ul Alame are worth mentioning. Like eminent American critic Harold Bloom, I am suffering from ‘an anxiety of influence’. In addition, the common crowd of the youth has sided with this deceased writer; I am continually struggling to talk against the current. Still, I have developed an urge to talk about Humayun Ahmed and his works.
First of all, I shall pay my earnest homage to his deceased soul of our writer Humayun Ahmed (May it rest in heaven!). He is no more with us. As a human being I feel sad because he is not breathing the same air that I’m breathing.
I came in contact with Humayun in my intermediate first year in 1996. A book of Himu series perhaps (I forgot the name) came to my hand. I devoured it with pleasure at one sitting. Language is simple and lucid with no complexity. You just read, enjoy and laugh. You get the entertainment. I continued till I finished about 50 of his books. I became a very enthusiastic fan of Humayun Ahmed. He came to a book fair at Muslim hall in Chittagong(may be in 1997/98). I rushed to see him. Such was my interest in him. Meantime, I got admitted into the English department of the Chittagong University. Still, I had been obsessed with Humayun. At this time, I developed an indifference or rather an aversion to our great classics: Rabindranath, Bankimchandra, Manik Bandhapadday, Bivutivhushion or the great modern poet Jibananda Das. I believe now that there might be a connection between my reading light literature of Humayun and my growing aversion to serious and high literature.
At one stage of my maturity, Humayun seemed to me dull and monotonous. I became disillusioned with him. But, a miracle happened, when his first book Nondito Noroke came to my hand with real pleasure and joy. The book was a piece of pearl and thought-provoking; for the first time, I discovered in him a novelty, art, and a rare simplicity blended with depth. I read the book several times. My interest has not yet finished. I feel like reading it again and again. I say what he achieved in Nondito Noroke failed to do so in hundreds of books like Himu or Mishir Ali in his latter career.
If Humayun shares a portion of artistic talent, it should be traced in books like Nondito Noroke, Aguner Parashmoni,and Shonkhanil Karagar and some of his films(especially Aguner Parashmoniand, Srabon Megher Din). In his Srabon Megher Din with his usual witty manner, he presented a tragedy that touched every audience and the music of this movie being unique, tuned and sung by Bari Siddiqui and Shubir Nandi will be reverberating us for many years. But, for all this, I am not blind to Humayun. If I call him our ‘cultural legend’, that really denigrates him. He should be given place in our literary culture what he deserves, not more nor less.
One night, after Humayun’s demise, I was watching a talk show on a certain TV channel convened by Munni Saha, the guest being another popular writer Imdadul Haque Milon. Their conversation was very trendy, light and shallow, obviously designed to please Humayun’s lots of mourning fans. They talked of a lot of subjects, including the demised author’s eccentric behaviour, his sense of wit, most notably his luxurious life and his extra-terrestrial sense of cooked fish. Munni Saha went to such an extent that she asked Milon whether there was any other author across Bangladesh who became as rich by selling books as Humayun. Is the ‘popularity’ only touchstone to the excellence in art and literature? This exuberant praise was almost intolerable! William Shakespeare in English literature was a popular playwright and artist. Even he was called the most successful businessman in the theatre company (so a good money maker, indeed). This great English writer is not finished here. He, with his extraordinary power of craftsmanship, was able to blend art with entertainment. As a result, his common and public audience was delighted; at the same time, the writer did not disappoint the critics and wise readers as well. In contrast, our popular writer Humayun was an entertainer whose charisma is finished there. With some reservation, it can be said that he could not extend himself as an artist. That is the unfortunate part of his literary life. He died- we lamented- the media clamoured for a few days. But, I mourned for another reason: as a writer he might embrace a second death (I’m sorry to say like that; my apology to Humayun’s family and fans. This is no personal attack; it’s a critical comment. I have no personal clash with A
Humayun’s literary career, started with Nandito Noroke(In Blessed Heaven) was pretty well. I was totally taken by his little-sized amazing book. The language was simple and the ‘pathos’ was predominant. With his debut work, he exhibited a strong sense of arrival on the literary scene. He also manifested distinctiveness in handling a complex theme. Still, I remember the flap on which Dr. Ahmad Sharif prophesied a would-be- genius writer. I wonder Mr. Sharif would have been shocked to see Humayun’s decadence of literary taste in the latter part of his career.
I would like to say, except some of his few pieces like Nandito Noroke, Aguner Parashmoni, Jothsna O Jananir Golpo, the bulk of his literary productions are trash mostly written to please young generation and help them abandon our great classics. It is often accredited to Humayun that he contributed to the rise of public readership. To me if he had written three or four novels, that would have been better because it is nauseate to see a young man or a girl to giggle all the time keeping Humayun at his lap and spoiling his litarary taste. I believe it is hardly possible for a reader to go through Tagore, Nazrul, Jibanananda and other serious writers after getting an orientation in Humayun’s liquid novels like Himu, Brishtibilash and Kobi etc.
After his death some prominent and scholarly personnel have expressed their deep condolence by writing some pieces. Among them Prof. Sirajul Islam Chowdhury sir, Prof. Mohit sir are prominent. Siraj sir’s one (collected from a website) is a little piece of memoir expressing sir’s sweet and amiable relationship with Humayun, his sense of wit, and their deep relation. Throughout his writing, it is peculiarly surprising that sir has mentioned only two movies made by Humayun: “Aguner Parashmoni” and “Amar Ache Jol”. Sir was invited to see the premier shows. Across the memoir, Siraj sir said nothing about Humayun’s works but to my utter riddle he commented at the end, “ He was like a real hero in the field of Bangla literature,drama and movies. I have full respect for Siraj sir; a scholar like him in Bangladesh is rare. I hope someday, he would kindly solve this riddle elaborately, because I think in commenting thus he suffered from, to some extent, his renowned objective outlook, and his sense of vision was blurred by his personal love for the writer. Without discussing anything on the writings by Humayun, sir declared him a literary ‘hero’ of our Bangla literature, that seemed to me a strongly biased and subjective declaration.
There is a tradition in our country in which a deceased writer commands extra favour than the ones living. If you attempt to publish a memoir recollecting the deceased and his contributions to our society, you will receive subjective, extravagant and coloured writings. My dear and honourable Mohit Sir’s writing(“Humayun Ahmed and Bangladesh”) unfortunately falls into this category. First of all, he seemed to be impressed by the active role of the media regarding Humayun Ahmed . But the media is not always reliable. Overnight they can give birth to an ‘author’ and they can virtually kill a genuine author. In this context, I would like to remind our sir of some great and authentic writers like Rashid Karim and Shahidul Zahir, who, to my knowledge, was not able(!) to cause such media stir and public rush. Is this the proof that their writings will go astray? At a place, sir has shockingly placed Humayun and Jibanananda side by side (though tactfully and indirectly). I did not expect this from my dear teacher! I am really shocked!! I think sir was too much docile in evaluating Humayun. In another place he said, “Honesty is the major pillar of his literature” (my translation). With my politeness, I would like to say, a huge number of writers were honest while writing, but they were buried in the ashes of history. I believe not in honesty nor in any other virtue, but creativity and genius. And, after all, what is the meaning of ‘honesty’ in the context of literature?
A Mr. Junaidul Haque’s piece “The Storytelling Magician” published on 2 Aug 2012 in the Daily Star showered our writer with hyperbolic and excessive compliments. No wonder and it’s not his fault. A culture of foolish worshipping has emerged and this writer is no exception to it. I want to present some selected words/terms/phrases from his for my readers.
1. ‘A cultural legend’
2. ‘popular literary figure’
3. ‘the master storyteller’
4. ‘most popular TV damatist’
5. ‘have surpassed all selling records’
6. ‘bestsellers’
7. ‘he wrote more than two hundred novels’( the author is boasting of )
The above list I have sorted out from Mr. Junaidul’s writing clearly indicates his personal fondness for superlatives and excesses. This is one of the poverty of our cultural as well as critical practices. He would have been sounded better and objective if he could have minimized these superlative compliments. How easily he could label Humayun as ‘the master storyteller’ and ‘cultural legend’! If Humayun were alive, would he love to be treated him in this exaggerated manner? I think Mr. juanaid and others uplifting Humayun so higher than he deserves, is really doing injustice to Humayun as an author. These kinds of critics are writing from the same platform from which Humayun manufactured books with his both hands.
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