Showing newest posts with label Literature. Show older posts

Sharing a poem of a fellow Bangladeshi blogger:

Translation:

Writing
- Jerome D'Costa

I want to write.
I will write.
I will definitely write.

But I can't write.
I just cannot write.
I cannot write at all.

Via: Bangladesh Canada And Beyond

The World Digital Library has been officially inaugurated today:

(It) has started small, with about 1,200 documents and their explanations from scholars in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian. But it is designed to accommodate an unlimited number of such texts, charts and illustrations from as many countries and libraries as want to contribute.

There is not much on Bangladesh now. But the Bengali readers may be interested in this:



Memoirs of the Revolution in Bengal, anno Dom. 1757 by William Watts

This work by William Watts (active 1737-58) is an account of the Battle of Plassey, which took place on June 23, 1757, near the village of Pâlāshir, some 150 kilometers north of Calcutta (present-day Kolkata). In this decisive encounter, the forces of the British East India Company, under Robert Clive, defeated Siraj Ud Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal. The British victory and the treaty with the Moghul Empire that ensued brought the province of Bengal and its great wealth under the control of the company, thereby establishing the basis for the expansion of British control in the rest of India. The French East India Company (La Compagnie des Indes Orientales) supported the nawab, and his defeat hastened the elimination of French influence in India. The “Meer Jaffeir” referred to in the title is Mir Jafar, one of Siraj-ud-Daulah's military commanders, who betrayed his leader and helped to cause the defeat. The British East India Company later selected Mir Jafar as its puppet ruler in Bengal.

You can read the 161 page pamphlet (published in 1760) online.

Earlier this year we heard that the stolen Nobel medal of Rabindranath Tagore may be smuggled in Bangladesh.

The latest is that more memorabilia of Tagore were stolen from the Tagore Memorial Museum in Bangladesh's Sirajganj district. Due to lack of resources the Department of Archaeology is unable to protect and display many other items at the museum.

Both Indian and Bangladeshi authorities should take measures to protect Tagore's memory.

(First published in Global Voices Online)

Sid of Serious Golmal writes a well informative article on the life of S M Sultan, the master painter of Bangladesh commemorating his 13th death anniversary. Sultan was born in Norail (in Kushtia in the southwest of Bangladesh) in 1923. Born to a mason, he was a natural talent and did not complete his study in the Calcutta College of Arts and Crafts. Later on he created a wave in the West when he visited USA and UK under a cultural exchange program and displayed his paintings. From 1953 to 1976 Sultan lived in virtual obscurity, living the life of a Vaishnava Sanyasi.

"Sultan’s paintings may be sold at Sotheby’s in London today but for the people of rural Norail, the guru entered folk legend more than half a century ago. They tell us that animals were drawn to him, that he could converse with them, that hundreds of his works are scattered all over the world in all manner of places, given away as gifts, that he cared not for fame or material wealth, choosing to travel from village to village, country to country, returning at last to his source.

He lived in three continents but never had a fixed abode, never attached prices to his work, never married. He wore his hair long, chose to live out his days in rural Bengal with his dogs, cats, rabbits, birds and snakes rather than the big international cities that beckoned when recognition of his genius came early in his life."

Kotha Chilo (Stories to tell) blog reviews the movie based on Monica Ali's award winning novel Brick Lane. The filming of Brick Lane caught much media attention because of protests of some members of Bangladeshi communities in UK and the unit had to change location of filming to avoid threats. But Monica Ali maintains that "the 'controversy' was whipped up in the media".

"Monica Ali's 2003 novel Brick Lane was feted for its ability to blend the personal and the political as it recounted the experiences of a young Bangladeshi woman's journey of self-discovery. It was illuminating about the hidden lives of Britain's Bangladeshi community and the growing racism abroad in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The respectable film version heavily compresses the novel into a less complex but still touching, small-scale tale of female empowerment that almost feels like a variation of Shirley Valentine."

Bangla Blogging platform Sachalayatan [bn] boasts of being more of an online writers community rather than collection of some conventional blogs. It has been promoting budding as well as established writers to post their literary works there. And adding more to the task it has already published a few literary E-books in PDF versions and more collaborative projects [bn] at hand. Now users can download their copy of the literature free, print it and read it at ease.

The first publications is a collection of poems of Sunil Saifullah, a notable young poet who prematurely ended his life in 1981. Some of his poems were only once published by the students union of his University (Jahangirnagar University) in 1982. But these few books went into oblivion in course of time and now he is barely known to people of Bangladesh. Bloggers of Sachalayatan first discussed about his works went to the University library to collect a copy of the book and recreate the Book. You can download the book from here [bn].

Some comments on the feat:

সৌরভ: জয় হোক এ উদ্যোগের। এ চেষ্টার মাধ্যমেই জন্ম জন্মান্তরে সজীব থাকুন আমাদের মাঝে কবি সুনীল সাইফুল্লাহ।
Sourav: Bravo to this initiative. With this work let poet Sunil Saifullah live among us for eternity.

সুমন রহমান: বাংলা সাহিত্যে এরকম সারপ্রাইজ আরো কিছু আছে। আমার মনে সচলায়তনের ই-বুক প্রকল্প দিয়ে সেসবের সুরাহা আমরা করতে পারবো।
Suman Rahman: There are more such surprises in the Bangla literature. I think we will able to sort them out with the Sachalayatan E-Book project.

Another recent Bangla E-Book publication “Fele Asha Chelebela” is a 109 page collection of childhood memoirs of twenty one bloggers which portrays the true picture of the lives of Bangladeshi youths, society, their upbringings etc. Its popularity prompted the bloggers to decide to publish it in future as a printed book with more collections of writings. You can download it from here [bn].

You never know some day these collaborative Bangla E-books with the help of New Media will be able to really change the scenario of literature of the country.

And last but not the least please do read the recent writings of the female bloggers of the Nari Joibon project to know about Bangladesh from their view. Nari Jibon is a not-for-profit organization in Bangladesh who is providing education to poor and under-privileged women making them self reliant through different short term education and skill development programs. It has brought these female voices to Blogging with the help of a Rising Voices micro-grant.

An untamed daredevil spy of Bangladesh Counter Intelligence. On secret missions he travels the globe. Varied is his life. Mysterious and strange are his movements. His heart, a beautiful mix of gentle and tough. Single. He attracts, but refuses to get snared. Wherever he encounters injustice, oppression, and wrong, he fights back. Every step he takes is shadowed by danger, fear, and the risk of death. Come, let us acquaint ourselves with this daring, always hip young man. In a flash, he will lift us out of the monotony of a mundane life to an awesome world of our dreams. You are invited. Thank you.

The are the opening lines of Masud Rana, the spy fiction from Bangladesh written by Qazi Anwar Husain and published by his Sheba Prokashoni. Since 1968 Masud Rana, or agent MR-9 is thrilling Bangladeshis in cheap newsprint paperbacks. In my teens I was mesmerized with Rana thrillers and used to devise ways to buy/collect and read them without being seen by elders. Rana has a womanizing character like Bond and thus the paperbacks were deemed unsuitable for teens.

It has been long since I last read a Masud Rana series (the latest was no. 371). Mahmud Rahman does this excellent review in the Daily Star. It was interesting to know that Masud Rana is still like the old days but has become a bit conservative with his erotic style. Probably the mindset of the writer has been changed due to changes in society.

You can get Masud Rana thrillers anywhere in the world from Boi Mela, one of the largest online Bangla Book Stores. Boi Mela website is the official web presence for Seba Prokashoni books. Most of the books that had been published by Seba Prokashoni in the past 4-5 years has Boi Mela's name printed in them as their web reseller.

Taslima's latest visit to Kolkata is creating much controversy. Take this and this for instance. She is always in the news.

Despite the clerics latest fatwa "a prize of 20000 Indian Rupee($440) for the person who smears tar on her face", she is valiant as ever.

Read the latest interview where she asserts:

I am not scared of anyone. I will write and publish my books. Why should people accept such a decision in a free state. It is for them to decide what is obscene. There cannot be a jury.

True indeed.

The title above is the motto of Bishwa Sahitya Kendro (world literature center), a pioneer institution of Bangladesh. It is a benevolent trust, which was set up by Abdullah Abu Sayeed, a professor and a TV anchor almost 25 years ago. The BSK since it's beginning has come up with programs to increase the habit of reading among the people, where only 10% read seriously. Newspaper readers are not considered serious readers as they only collect political and other insignificant news.

Among the programs there is the national edification program. Under this, an area of the country where there are two-three schools and two colleges, a branch of the Kendra is being opened. There are 500 branches so far. These institutions bring young men & women and inspire them to run a program of reading 175 Books (chosen fitting the psyche of each student) in a stipulated time. In the last 20 years about 200,000 students have been incorporated in this program. By June 2004, an additional 100,000 students will come under this project. The library at the main office has 400,000 books and every year it is used by 10,000 readers. The BSK has a publication program and so far 3000 books have been published.

However the program that caught the most attention is the mobile library. The idea is to cover all places in the city and give chance to the juveniles and the old to get the books without having to travel all the way to the library. Centered on the mobile libraries, small area wise reading groups have mushroomed and these will serve the mission of enlightenment in the grass-root level. Now the mobile library also has service that provides dispatch riders known as 'Tirandaj (archer)' who go to old people who are unable to come to the mobile vans.

Mobile library project in brief:

Consists of Eight vehicles: 5 in Dhaka, and 1 each in Rajshahi & Khulna.

Already around 18000 members & over 4000 volunteers.

Big vans usually contains 17,000 books, medium vans 11,000 & small vans 5000.

Plans to set up three vans for each of the 64 districts in the country.

It is remarkable that this whole initiative is supported by donation of individuals and institution. There is no significant government contribution. And the will of one man could create an institute of this magnitude which itself apart from being extra-ordinary, can be replicated in other countries where reading habit is diminishing.

Had there been enough enlightened people around the world, fundamentalism and anarchy would not have been spread. To bring enlightenment among many is an uphill task but BSK's programs are surely the proven ones, which can be implemented with small fund and among a large population. I am proud to be a member of the BSK Library for 10 years. I have to renew the membership and start reading seriously again.

The title is actually a name of a book, which is a compilation of the gaffes in the usage of English that we came across every day in Bangladesh. Well I have not read it yet, but reading its review prompted me to write something about the usage of English in Bangladesh. Actually Bangladesh, as a part of Indian subcontinent was ruled by the British for a couple of centuries. The tentative beginnings of English language acquisition in Bengal date from the 1630s, when the first English factories started being set up. Though today English is no longer the official language as it was during the British Raj, it is the most important foreign or second language in Bangladesh. It is taught at most educational institutions as a subject and is a compulsory paper in almost all public examinations.

During the British Raj, English was deemed as the language of the elites. The native govt. employees had to learn English with proper pronunciations to prove their competency. But as English was spread among the common people; first the pronunciations got a scent of the subcontinent. And then some people started to speak a language, which had many local flavors and words in it and they got away with the proper use of grammars. That is known to everybody as 'Railway English'. Now many people, especially in India has developed a totally unique accent of English, which is recognized by others.

The standard of English nationally in Bangladesh is not high and English is still an urban, elite language. In rural areas where the common people are mostly farmers or day laborers, the use of English is very less. And the standard is really poor. But day-by-day it is improving, as literacy rate of Bangladesh is moving up.

Now coming back to the title, in Bangladesh generally Bangla is widely used. The car registration plates carry Bangla numbers and hoardings, signs too. But people try to add an elite flavor in signs, billboards, headlines etc by placing an English translation beside that. That's where it all starts to go wrong. In many places the literal translation keeps the local meaning but totally loses the English one e.g. the TV serial Baba (A sentimental journey), or the film title Shundori (And she was beautiful).

You will find a lot of shops in the country with names like '007 Attitude', 'Crystal & Sports', 'City Foreign Furniture', 'TIT Enterprise', 'virgin I'les', 'Book SHIT' and 'Happy Today Food Court'.

There are funnier news headlines like 'Lara in bed with suspected chicken pox' which will leave the readers with lots of speculations.

There are plenty of these things, which are compiled by Reena Abraham & Laura Bonapace in the Book "Lost in translation". But the price (Tk. 500) is a bit on the higher side and not many people would be able to purchase it. I have seen that in Bangladesh, many good books are priced excessively mainly because there are not many copies published. The lack of readers prompt the publishers resort to a higher price. And higher price keeps away many potential readers. This vicious cycle is actually harming the publishing industry prompting many copycats.

Since long I was planning to buy 'Brick Lane' by Monica Ali but its shelf price (UK edition) is Tk. 800 (GBP 10) was a bit expensive for me. That day I bought it for 160 from a vendor in the street. Can you believe it? It's the same. But looks as a paperback type. I have learnt that some local publishers have resorted to pirating books just to be able to sustain themselves. And if I get the same at cheap rate I won't mind from where it has been coming. But it is unethical. But for the publishers, copyright is their right to copy.

I am reading now a collection of columns & editorials of a notable journalist & writer Mr. Syed Shamsul Haque. Since he writes in Bangla, I thought I could share some of his writings with you by translating them into English. I am not a writer and English is not my first language. so pardon me if there are mistakes in the post.

2:

There is a pen in every writers heart, or as if his heart is the pen, which writes on without ceasing. By 'heart' we mean an organ in the left side of our chest. Its primary job is to pump purified blood to the whole body. Science says that blood is the carrier of our inheritance; blood is the root and blueprint of our existence. The existence of the pen, which I feel inside my heart, is really a pen inside my blood, or as if blood is the pen. Blood speaks. What blood speaks cannot be untrue or false. When I was young, my father used to tell me 'Why can't you feel it inside your blood?' I did not know what he meant then and he could not make me understand either. But now I know there are many things in the world which cannot be made understood. Many things wait for our own experience. We learn many things from real experience. Now I know our root and the blueprint is in our blood. What I feel inside that blood is the real truth.

48:

Two persons are standing in front; both have a cycle each in their hands. There are only the cycles separating them. The front wheels, handles of his & her cycle are neck-a-neck, though they are not touching themselves. There are trees, greenery, red leaves evident from the nearby hill slopes. I was in a bus with other passengers. I discovered them during a lazy browse outside the window. I could not see the boy's face from this angle. But the girl was in my front with a worried face, and eyes filled with tears. She just stopped after a long argument but her tears did not. The cigarette stick is burning lazily in the boy's hand waiting for a puff. My bus drove on. I lost the sight of them.

I saw that face of the Chinese girl in a lazy afternoon in Beijing. But I can still remember her face like I saw it yesterday. One brush inside my mind still tries to sketch her face again & again. I sometimes ponder, what was the girl saying? What happened to her that day? Why there were tears in her eyes. Was that boy the cause, or was he merely a sympathetic friend?

I don't know what I would do with that face; that afternoon, those tears. The writers are very selfish. They want to try out each of their experience to be used in their writing. But there was something else in the tearful face of that girl in Beijing. I knew from that very moment that I would not use that face in any of my writing. That face would only keep me aware and awake, will keep me company.