Tranquility leads to creativity: Shamsur Rahman

Shamsur Rahman

Poet Shamsur Rahman turns 75 today. The Daily Star wishes the poet many happy returns of the day.

The poet recollects some fleeting memories of his life.

When he was a child, Ghoragari (horse carriage) was a common sight on the streets of Dhaka. He used to get mesmerised with the galloping sounds and bright colours of the carriages with big wheels. He would sit beside the kochowan (the carriage driver) whenever he had a chance to ride on it. Holding the harness of the horses tightly in one hand, he would wave the whip into the air with the other pretending to hit the horses. His one and only aim in life was then to become a kochowan when he would grow up.

Few years later, a tall date tree in the front yard of the house at Mahuttuli somehow made him change his aim of life and the man who gathered juice from that tree became his idol. He would try his best to dress up like him, even tuck a knife in his waist and make futile efforts to climb up the date tree. 'Unfortunately I could never become what I wanted to be in my childhood--neither a kochowan nor a khejur raswala,' he smiled.

Unfortunate for him but definitely fortunate for us, that his childhood fantasy never became a reality or else the country would have missed knowing this great poet, Shamsur Rahman.

The memories of the day when his muse visited him for the first time and he wrote his maiden verses are still fresh in his mind. 'I was about 16 or 17 years old then. It was midday and the sky was strewn with clouds, when I picked up my pen and wrote a poem titled 1949. It happened at the fag end of 1948,' the poet recalls.

Sculptor Hamidur Rahman, who happens to be the poet's friend, was the first reader to experience his creativity. 'It was Hamidur who insisted me to go to Sonar Bangla magazine office with that poem,' he says. 'With a pounding heart I entered the office, only to face a grave looking man sitting there. It was Prafullo Kishore Guho, brother of editor Nalini Kishore Guho. He took my poem and scrutinised it. I could hardly believe my ears when I heard him saying, "This will be published in the next issue."'

Hamidur Rahman treated the poet the day 1949 was published. 'River View café at Sadarghat was the place where we used to hang around,' Rahman reminisced.

His mother was extremely delighted to see the poem but his father's reaction was not very encouraging. 'I have seen enough like this. Does he have the talent to become a poet like Humayun Kabir?,' his father roared.

'There was always a certain distance between my father and me, perhaps because I was a little scared of him. I do not know how but something took me over on that particular day and I stood up and said, "If I ever become a poet, I would be much better than Humayun Kabir," Shamsur Rahman still recalls the words fondly.

His father's views changed when Shamsur Rahman achieved his first award Adamjee Award for Literature for his anthology of poems Roudra Karotite.

He somehow managed to remain quite regular in his attendance in school but developed the habit of missing classes when he entered university. 'I used to bunk classes and rove around when I was a student of English Department at Dhaka University. Not only did I skip lectures but I also used to miss exams,' the poet mused on the days of his youth.

He ended up with appearing for his BA (Pass) examinations abandoning BA (Hons) course at Dhaka University. Though he stood first in the first part of the MA in English, he never appeared for the second part. 'Of course, now it is no use regretting,' he continued heartily.

'Katcha Bazar' is a place that any man visits the highest throughout his life but Shamsur Rahman visited it only once in his whole life. 'We were living at Bangla Motor and I was a student of class six, when one day my mother gave me a dula (a small cane basket) and some money asking me to go to the market. I came back with some 'puti machh' (small fish) which were all rotten. My mother was very much annoyed though she did not take me to task but that was the end of my visiting the market,' the poet recollects the memories. He adds that his cooking skills also ended with cooking meat once in his lifetime in a picnic when 'no one dared to taste it,' he laughed.

Poets always enjoy solitude and Shamsur Rahman is no exception. 'Powerful emotions take over any poet in tranquillity. Then it becomes easier to translate the inner urge of creativity into literary pieces,' he says. However, we live in a beautiful social world and cannot always avoid people in a bid to enjoy solitude and the poet tries his best to compromise with it.