Anik Mahmud
Farrukh Ahmad (1918-1974) poet, author of juvenile literature. He was a poet of renaissance. He was born on 10 June, 1918 at Majhail village of Sreepur upazila of Magura district. His father Khan Sahib Syed Hatem Ali was a Police Inspector. Farrukh Ahmad Matriculated from Khulna Zila School in 1937 and did his IA from Ripon College, Kolkata in 1939. Then he enrolled at Scottish Church College to study BA (Hons) in Philosophy and English Literature, but was unable to complete his studies.
Farrukh Ahmad served in the office of the IG Prisons for a few years and in the Civil Supply Department in Kolkata. From 1945, he began editing the monthly Mohammadi. After partition in 1947 he came to Dhaka and joined the Dhaka Centre of Radio Pakistan as a staff artiste. Here he directed the popular weekly programme for children, named Khelaghar.
As a student, Farrukh Ahmad had been attracted to the radical humanism of Manabendra Nath Roy and had participated in the leftist politics.
From the forties, he became committed to Islamic ideals. He supported the Language Movement in 1952.
Farrukh Ahmad became famous for ‘Lash’, a poem written on the 1944 famine. Farrukh Ahmad’s poems are inspired by Islamic ideals. They explore the glory of Muslim culture and call for a Muslim awakening. His poems reflect the Arab and Persian legacy in Bengal and are replete with Arabic and Persian words.
He also wrote satirical poems and sonnets. Among his poetical works are Satsagorer Majhi (1944), Sirazam Munira (1952), Naufel O Hatem (1961), Muhurter Kobita (1963), Hatemtayi (1966), Habida Morur Kahini (1981), etc. His works for children include Pakhir Basa (1965), Horofer Chhora (1970), Chhorar Asor (1970) etc.
In recognition of his literary contribution he was awarded the Bangla Academy Award (1960), President’s Award for Pride of Performance (1961), Adamjee Prize (1966), UNESCO Prize (1966), Ekushey Padak (posthumously, 1977) and Svadhinota Puroskar (posthumously, 1980).
He died in Dhaka on 19 October 1974. n
The Dead-Body
Farrukh Ahmad
On one side at the corner of the broad street
Where dust had no place on black shining pitch
Lies a dead body flat on earth;
The evening crowd never took notice of that.
I know, it’s human carcass now flat on earth,
Emaciated with heat and hunger dead and still;
Well-dressed men and women like fiends pass by
?Stone houses like deadly prisons,
The painted harlots have opened their brothels
With welcome smile and speech;
This five and half feet skeleton gives evidence
Against the plunderers of this earth for domination,
And digging ultimate grave for man.
Dead humanity lies on the road along with the dead.
The sky has disappeared behind the arrogant’s vaults and domes,
His belly over bulging everyday;
And here they are dying flat on earth.
This devilish inhuman bestial greed of the plunderers
Has destroyed the eternal human soul
And man’s legitimate right,
Snatches away the morsel of the hungry mouth;
Builds pleasure-houses with human bones;
Its witness now lies dead on earth.
This ever bulging barbaric civilization, this bestiality,
This cruelest curse of the century
Is now poisoning the day and the night-sky.
What’s this civilization that makes a mockery of man’s eternal self?
What devil now throws man into death-trap and laughs?
What Azazil (Satan) to-day kicks man’s dead-body?
What evil spirit soaked in blood and wine now laughs?
The skies are resounding with man’s helpless cries.
What instinct’s captive are they now?
What Satan throws rubbish and mud on rose-petals?
Who covers the sky’s colourful vault with his poisonous desire?
What woman walks hand-in-hand with her sex-partner?
Of what civilization?
What hand cuts the throat of the child without remorse?
Of what civilization?
Who stabs the bosom to play his dance-tune?
Whose wine cup glows with the blood of workers?
Of what civilization?
Man surrendered to you long-ago,
You take revenge of that now.
You the devilish materialistic civilization!
You easily drink children’s blood with a smile,
Without any regret you torture the raped woman’s body,
You climb without effort the ladder of the people
And then cast it on the roadside drain.
You spent-up inert civilization!
Whose slave are you?
Or, what set of beasts serve you!
What lowly stage of man!
After whose torture this serenity; this mud-house : burial alive,
It now lies flat on earth.
Those well-dressed people, who are slaves of this material civilization,
Whose torture makes this earth and sky wail,
Do not mark what bad smell of excrement engulfs
Their whole existence and has now brought them to the level of beasts.
Dogs and bitches
Now deceive one another in what sort of adultery
And bring bastards for what dead civilization!
The gesture of the meeting-place of the legs
Leads their women towards death,
The tyrant males walk with intense greed in their hearts
Far below in the abyss of death discarding human course.
The panic of their exploitation has engulfed
The abode of tranquility Where on earth lies the emaciated carcass.
O you materialistic civilization!
You pot-bellied exploiting society ?slave of dead civilization,
Now take people’s curse;
And when the time comes throughout the world,
We will kick your chained loin
And drag you to the gate of hell;
Now you bear the curse of the tortured and dying earth :
Be ruined
And go to hell.
Translated by Abdur Rashid Khan
