A lyricist & revolutionary
By Khushwant Singh

EVERY time I go to Calcutta and take the broad two-way highway from the airport to the city and back, I promise myself to find out more about Qazi Nazrul Islam after whom it is named. I know he was a very popular writer of songs, a revolutionary — the first Indian poet to be jailed by the British for writing a poem demanding complete independence — and that a stroke deprived him of his voice and impaired his mind. After Bangladesh was established, he was taken to Dhaka where he died in 1976.

I read a few of Qazi’s poems translated into English: patriotic poems and those on love. I found the first exhortative, the second maudlin in the Urdu tradition of the eternal, unrequited love of the bulbul for the rose. Translated poetry can never do justice to the original. Bangladeshi poet Shamsul Haq put it very neatly: "It is like kissing a girl’s photograph instead of her lips."

My desire to know more about Qazi Nazrul Islam was partially fulfilled when my friend Gitesh Sharma who edits Jansansar in Calcutta gave me his newly published booklet Vidrohi Kavi: Nazrul Islam, edited by Prashant Chandra and published by the Swatantrata Andolan Yaadgaar Samiti of New Delhi. It is in Hindi. I have difficulty in reading Hindi.

He lost his father when he was only nine. Within a year of his father’s death, his mother took on a second husband, leaving him alone to fend for himself. He never forgave his mother for deserting him and refused to see her throughout his life.

Dukhoo Mian was not interested in looking after the dargah or leading prayers as an Imam. He was a born poet. He also had a passion for playing the flute. He took on menial jobs to fill his belly and spent most of his time composing folk songs and dramas, and enacting them in villages. Within a few years, he became a household name in the Bengal countryside. While his contemporaries like Rabindranath Tagore and Sarat Chandra Chatterjee wrote for the elite bhadralog, Nazrul addressed himself to tillers of the soil, fishermen, workers in factories and offices.

Nazrul never made much money. He worked as a domestic servant and as a baker’s assistant. For a while he joined the Army: he believed every freedom fighter must know how to wield arms. Although he held Mahatma Gandhi in great respect, he did not subscribe to non-violence.

It was during his army service that his first short story — Awara Kee Kahani — (Life of a Vagabond) appeared in print in 1919. It was followed by other stories and songs.

It was in Nazrul’s blood to be a vagabond. After having agreed to marry Syeda Khatoon, he fled the scene of the nikah without consummating the marriage. Poor Syeda Khatoon awaited for Nazrul for 15 years before she took on a second husband. In 1924, he got acquainted with the Sen-Gupta family and married Indrakumar’s widowed aunt Girivala Devi’s daughter Pramila. She bore him two children, both of whom died in infancy. Their name were Krishna Mohammed and Arindam Khalid. Pramila died in 1962.

Nazrul’s fame as a writer, poet and journalist spread in Bengal. His articles appeared in Navyug, Dhoomketu and Langal. His best known poem is entitled Vidrohi. In Dhoomketu he spelt out his views: "First and foremost complete independence for India — to achieve this aim we have to have a revolution to change the existing order of government and social norms."

Nazrul Islam attended sessions of the Indian National Congress where national leaders, including Gandhi and Nehru, heard him recite his fiery poems. He spent a year in jail but his spirit remained undaunted. Gurudev Tagore aptly summed up Nazrul’s poetry in a sentence: "He uses a sword to shave his beard."

Nazrul was not a Marxist but a socialist; he was not an agnostic but respected all religions. He stood for complete equality for women. He wrote:"O women, tear away your veil, break the chains that bind you; Throw away your burqa, throw away all the ornaments that enslave you".

He did many programmes for All India Radio. On July 10,1942, while presenting a children’s programme from Calcutta station, he suffered a stroke which deprived him of his power of speech. For the remaining 34 years of his life, Nazrul could only write out what he had to say. Since he had strongly opposed Pakistan, there was no question of his moving to East Pakistan when Bengal was partitioned in August 1947. It was after Bangladesh was liberated that at the specific request of its first Prime Minister Mujibur Rehman, Nazrul Islam shifted from Calcutta to Dhaka. He was a very sick man: he lost his voice, his mind also suffered deterioration. On August 22, 1976, he died in a Dhaka hospital, acclaimed both in Bangladesh and West Bengal and immortalised by having Calcutta’s main highway named after him.

Nairs of Kerala

There is something in the climate of Kerala which divides and sub-divides people into castes and sub-castes and sub-sub-castes, each proudly conscious of its privileged position in society. Hindus, Muslims or Christians, they have their sub-divisions, their different places of worship, favourite deities, special mantras, superstitions and fears. Their diet beside the ubiquitous idli-dosa-sambhar and coconut chutney,also differ. Only in Kerala you come across Hindus who eat beef and bury their dead instead of cremating them. As an inquisitive outsider who has known many Keralites, what I found common among their different sections is that their men are handsome but wily, their women full-bosomed and forthcoming; they wear the whitest of white kurtas and mundvs, have pearly-white teeth and often curly jet-black hair. They smear their bodies with aromatic oils and have a fetish for bathing at least twice a day. Generally I found all Keralites very likeable: of the many I knew only two I found more cunning than able. They were also the biggest liars I met in my life. I will not name them.

I have been on the lookout for a readable book on what-you-need-to-know about Kerala. I found one: Madhavan Kutty’s The Village Before Time (IndiaInk). It is largely about the author’s own community, the Nairs. Others like Christians and Muslims barely appear in it and the lesser castes like EdzaVas and Thiyas (toddy-tappers) are kept at a respectful distance. However, caste, and class distinctions don’t prevent their men or women from having Sambardhams (liaisons). It is neither a guide book nor a sociological study but a family saga going down three generations ending in diaspora of the family — some go off to Dubai, some to Delhi, others to neighbouring states. Little remains of the once close-knit Paruthipully village, once ruled by the Nair clan.

Madhavan edited Mathrabhumi for many years before he migrated to Delhi with his wife and two children. He is a much respected journalist who knows everything about everyone worth knowing in the Capital.

He wrote this book in Malayalam and it was serialised by a TV channel. It has been translated by Gita Krishnankutty. It would have had a much wide readership if the translator (or publisher) had appended a glossary of Malayalam words which are very liberally sprinkled over the entire text, leaving the non-Malayali reader bewildered. To start with, non-Keralites have difficulty in pronouncing tongue-twisters which Malayalis relish e.g. Kilikkurissimangalam, Guruvayoorappan, Thandumthazhathil, Thengumthazhath Karthiyayani Amma. There are dozens of others of the same length.

Son-in-Law

A young lawyer appearing for the first time in court got into a fit of nervousness and could not utter a word. After a while the judge lost his patience and snapped, "You are still a child in law".

The lawyer found his tongue and stuttered, "yes your honour, you are my father-in-law.

(Contributed by Satyanand Joshi, Nawanshahr)

Black eye for the evil eye

Seen behind a truck in Moga:
"Buree nazar wale tere udd taan tittar
Gharon Pain Gaalan, Bahron Pain Chitter

You with evil eye, may your partridges fly off before they are shot

At home your relatives abuse you, outside shoe beatings be your lot.

(Contributed by Khushwant Singh, Moga)