Syed Mujtoba Ali...one hundred years

Born in Sylhet in 1904, he had his early education at a government school in the district. In 1921, he went to Shantiniketan and was among the first students of Visva-Bharati. So began a most peripatetic life. After leaving Shantiniketan, he studied in Aligarh, and then took up a teaching assignment in Kabul at the age of 23. Later, he went to Germany and received his doctorate from University of Bonn. From there he joined the Al Azhar University of Cairo. At the invitation of the Gaekwad of Baroda, he taught as a Professor for eight years in the then undivided India. Soon after that, he began to write a popular column for Anandabazar Patrika in Koltata under the pseudonym 'Satyapir'. He joined the Ministry of Education in New Delhi and began writing about his travels in Desh in 1948.

Dr. Ali then spent time working in East Bengal, which by then had become the eastern province of the new state of Pakistan. While serving as Principal of Bogra College, he wrote about the need for a separate state language for Bengalis. In a moment of prescience, he observed that if "Urdu is forced upon the people, they will revolt one day, and eventually secede from West Pakistan. If we leave our mother tongue for fear of being attacked, one day we'll have to leave our homeland for fear of our lives" (my translation). That was in 1949 -- three years before the Language Movement began in 1952.

In the early 'fifties, he joined Akashvani (Indian radio) as station director and served at Patna, Cuttack, Kolkata and Delhi stations. However, he left that position to go back to Santiniketan and resume his literary pursuits. Incidentally, Dr. Syed Mujtoba Ali wrote at least 28 books in Bangla and has one publication in English. At Visva-Bharati he was appointed Professor of Islamic History and Culture. He also taught German there. Dr. Ali was awarded the Narsinghadas Prize in 1949 and the Ananda Puraskar in 1961. Independent Bangladesh is yet to offer any formal recognition for his contribution to Bangla literature.

Syed Mujtoba Ali refused to acknowledge the Pakistani state and wrote from Kolkata, which made it increasingly difficult for him to visit his family in East Pakistan. After independence, he was finally able to make his home in Dhanmondi until he passed away on February 11, 1974.

And so to today.

While many readers are too young to have followed Dr. Ali during his hey day in the 1950s and 1960s, I had the good fortune of becoming familiar with his work through family stories and at school. I took it for granted that bookworms would come across his work one way or another. Then I had my first conversation about Dr. Ali with my husband, who is Bangladeshi but grew up in England. He had never heard of him.

"But, how could you not have heard of Syed Mujtoba Ali?" I charged. "Don't you know that he could speak 15 languages and was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Bonn in 1932?" My words tumbled out before I could think about what I was saying.

I spent my early school days in the tranquil surroundings of Agrani Girls' School, Dhaka, where excerpts of Mujtoba Ali's writings in our Bangla textbooks were as inevitable as the existence of our Bangla classes. I remember each year, as soon as I got my new texts, I would eagerly flip through the pages for interesting stories and that is how I became an ardent reader of Dr. Ali. As I write today from New York, I am not aware whether excerpts entitled Roshgolla, Nil Noder Deshe are still included in the Bangla textbooks. I hope so. Those writings had a great deal of influence in shaping my young mind.

In New York, I had a copy of Syed Mujtoba Ali's Deshe Bideshe with me and that was all. We made a trip to Jackson Heights where there are a few Bangla bookshops. I was planning to give my husband a crash course in real Bangla literature by going through the shelves of Ananya, Abashar and Muktadhara, only to discover that just one of those bookstores stocked books by Mujtoba Ali. His work was heavily outnumbered by the light-reading novellas that contemporary Bangla writers seem to produce every few months. I did however find a copy of Shabnam and saw that there were two more copies of that book left on the shelves. A few weeks later, my cousin came to visit and I gave my copy to her. I went back to the bookshop the following weekend and, yes, both copies of Shabnam were still on the shelf just as I had left them.

Introducing Syed Mujtoba Ali to my husband has been rewarding and he has slowly begun to appreciate the writer's wit, his erudition and his command of languages. For example, we both agree that the proud Afghani character 'Abdur Rahman' is a wonderful creation and, in some ways, as memorable as P.G. Woodhouse's 'Jeeves'.

More recently, I have been able to bring a few more of my favourite Mujtoba Ali books from Dhaka and have rediscovered his marvelous dexterity with the Bangla language. Rereading one of his books I discovered his use of two different spellings for the Bangla term "badhu" in the same sentence and it dawned on me that one spelling refers to the word 'wife' while the other refers to the word 'lover'. It was a pleasant surprise. Then, I recalled my moment of joy a few years back, as I watched a television programme on whirling dervishes of Turkey. Their trance-like state during the spinning suddenly reminded me of Dr. Ali's often-used phrase in describing the action of busybodies. It was "Turki Nachon", he would say -- Turkish dance. Bangla is a beautiful language and much credit goes to Mujtoba Ali for testing its expressive limits.

Syed Mujtoba Ali's breathtaking use of Bangla, Farsi, Arabic, French and other languages, his use of metaphor and skilful insertion of verse has few, if any, comparisons amongst Bangla writers. Dr. Ali's writings crossed the imposed borders of caste, geography, language and religion. He never shied away from referring to Hindu folklore that is at the core of Bangla culture, or to European cultural practices, idioms and humour, as he deemed necessary for his craft. He was just as passionate in referring to Tagore as Gurudev as Tagore was in referring to his favourite student as Situ.

He wrote essentially as a creative person with no ulterior motives. Present day writers who are caught by affectation or the trappings of an affiliation could learn a thing or two about Syed Mujtoba Ali's humanity. Mujtoba Ali was very much at ease with who he was: a Muslim, culturally gregarious, someone who enjoyed life, who loved to read and to travel, who spent hours in adda, capable of disarming intimacy -- his writings show all these aspects of a human being. For instance, his writings refer to his love for his mother, wife and two sons.

Dr. Ali now seems to live in the hearts of only older generation of devoted readers. I find few people in their 20s or even 30s that have bothered to read his books, in some cases it's simply because they are not aware of his works. In my experience, the only visible acknowledgment that Dr. Ali received was a half-hearted attempt at a portrait at the National Museum in Shahbag. About two years ago, I wrote a piece for The Daily Star on him. I can repeat myself as nothing has changed:

"Syed Mujtoba Ali never went after cheap popularity; and perhaps that's why he is yet to be given the recognition he so highly deserves. His open-minded [ways] endeared him to his well wishers, friends and strangers from various countries. I understand that people have done Ph.D.s on Dr. Ali, but he hardly got any formal recognition for his contribution to Bengali literature."

Samarendra Sen Gupta, in a recent piece in a Bangla daily, also laments the fact that there has been very little analysis done on Dr. Ali's work. Golam Mostakim, another ardent fan has followed up on Dr. Ali's work and also wrote a book entitled Syed Mujtaba Ali Prasanga (1995).

After all that is said and done, Bangla literature was highly enriched by the works of Dr. Ali and he deserves wider recognition. Every year, on the eve of his death anniversary, a few members of his extended family and fans would write a scattering of articles in newspapers. We would really like to see broader efforts taken to popularise his work. It would be a shame if the next generation of Bangladeshis at home and abroad miss out on this star of Bangla literature.

Dr. Sarwat Chowdhury is an environmental policy consultant based in New York. Syed Mujtoba Ali was her mother's uncle.