A r i f  A h m e d

Unabridged draft version of the 'Daily star' article ,  Go: Bottom

Kazi Nazrul Islam said, "Even though I was born in this country (Bengal), in this society, I belong to the world." Yes, that  he most certainly does.

An extraordinarily prolific versatile poet, lyricist and writer, an undaunted unreserved authentic voice against bigotry, injustice and oppression, a passionate advocate of peace, freedom, harmony, love, compassion, humanism and beauty, Kazi Nazrul Islam -- the Rebel Poet of Bengal, the national poet of Bangladesh, and more appropriately a true World Poet, deserves to be known to the world outside the Bangla-speaking part of the world.

Every nation wants and endeavors to promote their literary, artistic, cultural heroes outside the boundaries of their language or culture. Bangladeshis also want the same, but while others put enormous sustained honest effort in innumerable ways and multifarious formats, both individually and collectively, privately and institutionally, to achieve their goal, we seem to be content with paying lip-service most of the time. This is true also in the case of Kazi Nazrul Islam... except for a few rare exceptions.

Among those exceptions, Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq's pioneering dedicated website on Nazrul in English, the very first of its kind, comes to the fore in terms of unselfish effort and initiative by one man, the strength of his obvious love in this  stupendous labour of love (coming from a professor of economics and finance); in terms of substance, depth-breadth-variety and quality of the content.

In today's world the Internet is the most expedient medium ( especially for those who can hardly afford the other ones ) for disseminating ideas and information, for publicizing or promoting culture and cultural creations and icons, making them directly and easily available and accessible to people from all over the world connected to the net. Hence, there is no lack of dedicated sites on cultural or literary personalties and on their works, created by both individual and collective initiative. It's no novelty. 

Yet, regrettably, it looks like a novelty if we take a look at the Desi effort.

Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq seems to be determined to dispel this justified yet unwanted sense of novelty, and turn his site: www.nazrul.org into a showcase and a useful frequented resource-center on Nazrul for the non-Bangla speaking world, for the expats and the second or third generation descendants of Bangali migrants around the world, and even for the natives of the Bangla-speaking part of the world ! 

The goals of this website, as described by its creator in the homepage, are : 

‘1.To better introduce Nazrul to the world, 

2.To gather as much material as possible, particularly in English, and make it available online, 

3. To present Nazrul in his FULL-spectrum....[ This is probably the most distinctive aspect of my approach and perspective in building this website ] .’ 

The site itself is divided in 9 main sections: 

1. Nazrul's Life: Features chronology of his life, a good collection of enlightening anecdotes from his life, family life, his heritage/legacy,  and a number of Nazrul's writings reflecting his personal struggles. 

2. Nazrul's Works: Features English translations of many of his poetry, novels (excerpts), articles and excerpts of articles, letters, etc. Audio files of his songs, Hamd, Naat, recitations and speeches. Poetry (lyrics) selection in Bangla; Nazrul's translations of selected Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat of  Hafiz and selected works of Rumi, etc.

A list of his works is also included.                                                           Go: Top | Bottom

3.Works on Nazrul: Features a good number of top-notch in-depth essays/articles in English on Nazrul's works by reputed authors and experts, including some by the site's creator himself. Poetic tributes & dedications to Nazrul by famous literary personalities, including Tagore, Premendra Mitra, Onnodasankar Roy and others. 

4. Nazrul Issues: Covers various Nazrul related issues, news and events. 

5. Reflections on Nazrul: Contains reflections and reminiscences on and dedications to Nazrul by other prominent literary personalities. 

6. Nazrul in his own words: An interesting collage of excerpts taken from Nazrul's poetry highlighting his own views, ideas and feelings explicitly in his own words. 

7. Nazrul's Vision: A collation of a broad-spectrum of excerpts of visionary nature translated from Nazrul's writings. 

8. Nazrul Album: Photos ranging from his childhood to his final resting place near Dhaka University mosque; portraits and memorabilia. 

9. Audio Collection: 35 songs, 17 Haamd/Naat/Gazals, 40 poetry recitations, speeches given by Nazrul,  Shayma songs, Hamd/Naat written in languages other than Bangla, etc.  

This substantial website is a non-profit volunteer effort, a labour of love of an associate professor of Economics and Finance at Upper Iowa University, Fayette, Iowa, USA.

Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq writes about the inspiration behind this initiative of his, the challenges he faced and the approach he took, in his article "Bringing the Rebel to the Cyberspace" :                                                                                         Go: Top | Bottom

"In 1999 within a span of six months I had two major car accidents, which landed me in bed for some time... I was trying to find a meaningful distraction to keep me preoccupied. Quite by coincident, a close friend of mine helped me learn the basics of FrontPage to build websites. Soon, I found my distraction – actually, I got addicted.

While choosing a website project besides my personal one, I found a special one. Lying in bed, I was looking for some strength – inner strength. I thought I had plenty. But I realized I could use some more. Intellectual realization is one thing, living it is different. While casually turning pages of whatever I had of Nazrul, I came across a poem "Nittyo Probol Hou". It was so inspirational for me that it turned out to be among those poems that I ended up translating (if you can excuse my poor translation).

             Inside and outside, equally -

             always be stronger, ever!

             The more bad times approach,

             be firm and don't yield. Never!

             The more you fear defeat,

             just be that much more brave!

             Let your sword-grip not loosen

             at the thought of dark grave.  

There is just so much invigorating energy in just these two stanzas. I searched on the net for more information about Nazrul, as I had very little on Nazrul in my personal collection. There were only scattered few pages of information buried under many Bangladeshi or Indian personal web pages. Some of them were so casual....There was no site dedicated to this great human being. Thus was conceived the Kazi Nazrul Islam Page (http://www.nazrul.org/), dedicated to the life and works of the so-called Rebel Poet....                                                                                                    Go: Top | Bottom

However, there was a bigger challenge prior to this writing when I undertook the project of Nazrul Page. Nazrul was so versatile, and surrounding him is so much confusion. There are so many people who are eager to claim him as their own flag bearer and there are so many more who are equally ready to disclaim and disown him. The fact of the matter is that my knowledge was pretty much based on "impressions" I derived from Nazrul's book consisting his own selections, Shonchita, and from the popular, street-level Nazrul that we are familiar with through his hamd, naat, patriotic and romantic songs. Some Muslims whose tear start flowing at some of the hamd/naat of Nazrul face a rude awakening when they learn about Shayma Sangeet, hymns in Hindu tradition. The leftists and the rightists, the Indians and the Pakistanis claimed and disclaimed him conveniently. The same was the case with the secularists and the religionists. The tug of war never ended and probably never will.                                                                                     Go: Top | Bottom

I committed to myself that I would try to understand Nazrul as he would have liked us to, which should shed some light on why so many people have so much contradictory thought and perception surrounding Nazrul. First, I wanted to avoid being judgmental or partisan in regard to him....Second, I wanted to learn and understand Nazrul comprehensively, not based on merely selective works to our liking or limiting ourselves to one or two popular works of Nazrul....Third, in formulating any thought about him and in communicating, I decided to depend on his own words. Fourth, I wanted to take into consideration the unfolding of his life as many or most of us go through many transitions, including dips and swings, in our lives.

Thus, my presentation on Nazrul here is based on what I have gathered under those premises....Given the limitation of space, readers should treat this as a guide for further studying or learning about Nazrul."...

"Since 1999, the Rebel poet has a cyber home.... Nazrul was a messenger of liberating the human spirit, of universal brotherhood, of courage and dignity, of peace and harmony, of unity and cooperation, of what is right and just, of what is true and beautiful, of love and compassion, of non-dogmatism and non-fanaticism."

Just as Kazi Nazrul deserves to be known to the outside world, so does this website on him, for the same reasons. Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq's effort genuinely deserves  recognition, encouragement, support and patronage . 

Kudos to Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq ! 

Visit: WWW.NAZRUL.ORG  today.

------------------------------------------------                                                                          June, 2003.     Go: Top