Jasim Uddin (1st Jan 1903-13th March, 1976) is popularly known as ‘Polli Kobi’ (poet of village-folks) in Bangladesh because his poems and songs are mainly based on the periphery of Bangladeshi villages with its landscapes, solemn folk tradition, culture and heritage belonging simple characters. Jasim Uddin was well educated, well versed and well urbanised and his research-oriented village based folk-motif with its powerful humanistic appeals, especially in lyrics, earned him universal acclamation in his lifetime.
Jasim Uddin was a very popular poet of Bangladesh. His literary works including poems are adorable because of its rhetoric Bengali colloquy, images of Bengali village-folk and its sorrow and happiness, simple anguish toned up in joys and tears of life. For he has depicted sorrows and joys of simple village-folk of Bangladesh narrating them, as if, in their own dialect, custom and culture that one could at ease find the magic of his intimate emotion reflects the very heart of those village-folk who crowded in his literary works whether in prose or poems.
In 1939, Ms. E. M. Milford while introducing her ‘The Field of the Embroidered Quilt’ of Jasim Uddin’s ‘Naksi Kanthar Math’ writes, ‘The verse of .Jasim Uddin varies between the dancing metre of genuine folk poetry, the terse unit of proverbs and prosy passage of story-telling and description.’
Jasim Uddin while depicting the characters of village-folks is conscious about their country sentiments as far as practicable, intimacy of which seems to have been very popular theme.” (Doyens of Bangla literature : Golam Mostafa and .Jasim Uddin, by M.Mizanur Rahman, page, 51-54 of Bangladesh Quarterly, December, 1999 issue)
Modernism in Jasim Uddin’s poems is outstandingly adorned aphorisms along with lives, its paraphernalia and neatly textured colloquial Bengali words of the villagers of remote villages of Bangladesh. Jasim Uddin himself exceptionally creates these themes superceding all other Bengali poets of his age. His poems appear reflecting picturesque of village ambience and its simple people very candidly. Therein lies innumerable small rivers, canals, marshland, ponds fallen and barren dry riverbeds along with outlying green corps land, jungles, brambles, flora and fauna, birds of different species, rural peoples of different professions that include farmers, roadside barbers, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, fishermen, weavers, cowherds, village quacks, foretellers like palmists and astrologers, wandering gypsies (Bede and Bederi), village touts, cruel and niggard middlemen, usurers, villains, landlords and their nefarious henchmen, agents, notorious musclemen who used to occupy char-lands forcibly for their influential masters, extortionists, fanatics, zealots, bigots, Purut (Hindu priest), Mollah, money-lenders, bloodsuckers of the poor villagers and various other indigenous characters. Everywhere the poet has his compassionate humanistic approach towards drawing pictures of sorrowful or harrowing tales of those affected suffering people.
While forwarding E. M. Milford’s translation of Jasim Uddin’s ‘Nakhshi Kanthar Math’ i.e. ‘Embroidered Quilt’, Verrier Elwin quipped the poet’s own words with meaningful appreciation-
What may we know the secret sorrow
Of the shepherd in the field?
In vain we search in our joy and our pain
The secret of his to yield.
Only the stifling breeze is blowing;
All is empty, all is space.
‘Precious Shaju, tell the true,
The weeping of the mother bereaved
Will surely shake God’s throne.
Here pastoral theme works but in certain disappointment the most villagefolk believes what is destined by providence has no remedy.
At his early age, then studying in college, Jasim Uddin composed a long celebrated poem, ‘Kobor’ (The Grave). It was included in the Entrance Bengali textbook while the poet was a student of Calcutta University.
Let us have the taste of that appealing poem, full of pathos, ‘Kobor’ from the translation of poet’s daughter Hasna Jasim Uddin Moudud-
(Here the grandfather is narrating the whole episode of life-story to his grandson about the demised grand mother and other close relations.)
“Here lies your grandmother’s grave/ Under the pomegranate tree; / For thirty years my tears have kept it /Wet and green, / I brought her home a little girl / With a golden face; / How she cried when her /Doll playing days were over. / I wondered who spread all this gold / In my yard. / In the golden lights of morning / Her face printed on my mind, / I hurried towards the field. / I would look back on many a pretence, / How my bhabishab would tease me at that. / Like this I lost myself in her tears and laughter. / I did not know how quickly / My life mingled with hers. / Before leaving her father’s house, / She toughed my feet and said, / “Don’t forget to see me at Uzantoli village.”/ I sold watermelons in the market / And bought a string of beads, / Some tobacco and tooth powder. / Hiding these carefully. / I ran to my father-in-law’s house. / Don’t laugh my boy. I wish you could see / How happy she was when I arrived with string of beads. / She moved the jewel to her nose and said, / “How I waited and cried for you to come soon.” / If she felt so much pain in parting from me then / How can she remain asleep in the darkness of a grave? / Fold your hands my child, come, let us pray, / May their souls rest in peace. / Here lies your father, and here your mother. / Are you crying, my darling? My heart breaks. /One spring day your father said to me, / “Father, I am not feeling well today.” / I spread the mat on the floor and asked him to sleep. / Had I known then that sleep would be his last / As I carried him draped in white, / you asked, “Where are you taking my father?” / I had no words to answer your question. / All the languages of this world went away crying. / Your mother clasped his plough and cried day and night./ The leaves would shed themselves in grief; / The wind in April swighed over the hollow ground; / Travelers passing by would shed a tear for her; / Under their footsteps dry leaves cried in pain. / In the shade two working bulls sat idle; / Your mother held their necks tight / And cried in sorrow and in loneliness. / Perhaps tears of the forlorn girl/found their way to the dark land of graves; / Soon to her lost mate she was joined. / At the time of parting she called you for the last time, “Goodbye, my darling, my jewel, my precious son. / It breaks my heart that you have no one to call mother.”
With tears rolling down she gave you her last blessings. / She called me and said, “Across my grave / Place my husband’s turban softly.”/ That turban has rotted and mixed in the dirt / But the pain in my heart knows no waste. / The two are sleeping together under this tree; / The branches came down in love / Glowworms stay up to light their nights / And the cricket sings them to sleep. / Fold your hands and pray, Oh! Merciful God / Please grant Heaven for my parents.
Here lies your sister’s grave. She was like a little fairy. / 1 gave her in marriage to a Kazi family / Thinking of their good name. / They did not show her any love. / If they did not beat her with hands, / They hurt her with words. / She sent message after message, “Ask my grandfather / To take me back to my father’s village for a few days.” / Her cruel father-in-law didn’t easily let her go. After many a request I brought her home one winter. / That pretty face was no more full of laughter. / Two black eyes like ponds filled with water; / She sat by her parents’ graves. / Who knew that death had planted its seeds in her as well? / She caught a fever and did not recover. / Here I have had her down, look, my grandson, softly. / No one loved her in life. / Now wild black grasses have covered the grave. / Ghughu birds cry, “Uhu Uhu” in her absence. / Join your hands and pray, Merciful God, / Please grant Heaven for my beloved sister. / Here lies your youngest aunt, seven years old. / She came to us like a rainbow from the gates of Heaven. / Who knew how much pain she bore losing her mother young? / In her innocent face 1 would see the face of your grandmother.
Then I held her in my arms and cried. / Our tears washed the red sunset pale. / One day 1 went to the market leaving her behind. / On returning I found her lying by the roadside, / Her face and round arms were unchanged; / The snake had bitten my dear one. / With my own hands 1 buried my golden statue. / My grandson, hold me, my bosom breaks. / Come closer to this grave, closer, my child. / Come softly, do not speak, lest we wake her up. / Dig slowly till we find under the hard earth. / How my heaven on earth sleeps in peace!
In the distant forest the sunset deepens / And great is my desire to hug the earth close to me. / From the Mosque 1 hear the sound of the Azan. / How far till my last day? / Fold your hands and pray, Oh! God, Grant Heaven to all death-stricken souls.”
From all works of Jasim Uddin we find folk-values along with inherent traditional folk-heritage. Verrier Elwin remarked, “I do not know whether ‘The field of the Embroidered Quilt’ can be classed as folk-poetry, but it is obviously poetry about the folk … Jasim Uddin’s villagers rejoice and suffer, desire and are desired, hate and despair from the very depths of their souls; there is nothing trivial about them, nothing superficial; they are real…”
Ms. E. M. Milford also commented about villages of Bangladesh as saying, “The villages of East Bengal (now Bangladesh) have had a vigour and vitality of their own. Folk art and craft and dance have flourished there. Both Jasim Uddin, the poet and Jamini Roy, the artist have found inspiration from them. The rivers and canals of East Bengal have reared the manly people accustomed to swimming, and boating, and fishing. On the other hand, there is an emotional strain in Bangalis, which is the sufferings of extreme poverty, and a tragic history has developed in them. They are tender and imaginative given to tears and laughter, their stories end with tears unlimited.”
As a matter of fact, after the Second World War (1939-1945), the overall condition of the then Bengal became miserable when famine was broken out. The hungry and jobless village-folk became desperate. They left their hearth and home for towns and cities in search of food and shelter. They started struggling and seeking subsistence for mere existence. There was no more golden Bangla there with self-sufficiency of food for the common poor folk of the villages. Most of the people of Bengal died of hunger. It was not because of scarcity of food but the poor village folk had no money to buy food and other amenities of life for survival. The distressing picture of village life can be had in Jasim Uddin’s poem-
” … Asmanither barir dhare padma-pookur vore
Benger chhana, shcola-pana kil-bil-bil kore;
Malariar mosok setha bish gulichhey joley,
Sei jolete ranna khaoa Asmanither chole.
Pet ti tahar dulche pile, nitui je jor tar
Boidyo deke osudh kore paisa nahi ar … ”
“The tank water of lily flowers is filled in
small frog fry, water hyacinth which is
contaminated by malarial germ-carrying
mosquitoes
by the side of Asmani’s hut.
And that polluted water is used
for cooking food and drinking of Asmani.
Her spleen-enlarged belly is swinging
and affected fever is frequent.
She calls on village quack free of fee
for she got no money.”
(Translated by M. Mizanur Rahman)
Jasim Uddin rebelled against ignorance, injustice, tyranny and social ills.
That is portrayed in his poem, ‘Ek paisar Bansi (A flute of one pice).’
Ei bansiti bajie tumi pheerbe jokhon ekla grihokone
Ei bansiti bajai jara tader kotha jage jeno tomar rongeen mone.
Ei bansiti bajai kara?
Ondho-goleer moddhye jara bhog korche bondho-kara
Oi dhulai dhoai bondho-kara,
Ei bansiti bajay sudhu tader chhelemeye
Tomar kotha bajbe nitui ei bansitir sur-sayore neye
Ei bansiti bajay jara sohorchara nogorchhara
Sovyotar ei alokhara chokh thakite ondho jara
Ogyanotar ondhokara jhanto-mriter moton jara
Ghumiye achhe deshtijora
Ei bansiti bajai soda tader chhelemeye
Tomar mukhe tader kotha jolbe nitui
Ei bansitir ognisikhay dheye
Jhorer rate nachbe tathoi bijli saper meye.
Tomar mukhe bajbey bansi
Ondhokarar dhumrorasi
Phuye phuye uthbe aloy jole
Otyachar tutbe kuthar, tutbe duar ogyanotar
Nag-nagini asbe chhutey bisher jalay jole
Lokkhojuger otyacharer sodh loite sokol myer
Tomar mukher bajbe bansi ognijaly jole …
–When you will turn back home playing this flute
You would remember them those who used to play this flute.
Who used to play this flute?
Those who are in the dark alleys suffering behind the bar;
That’s dust and smoke covered prison cell.
Now their children play this flute.
In this flute your talks will always sound in tunes.
Those play this flute are away from this town and city.
This is that Iightless civilisation where those who act blind
In spite of their bright eyes, remain in the darkness of ignorance
And appear like the living dead but sleepy throughout the country;
Their children play this flute always.
Their talks will be lighted always in this flute and flames of fire
Rush speedily like the storm dancing wild with snaky lightning girl.
You will play the flute and that continue blowing the smoke
And the light will be lit
The axe of tyranny will be broken
The darkness of ignorance will go
The venomous serpents with their vexed poison
Will rush to avenge the tyranny of million ages
Of all your mothers
And the flute of you will continue to play
Being lighted by the flaming fire.
(Translated by M.Mizanur Rahman)
After doing his B.A and M.A in Bengali language and literature between 1929 and 1931 from the Calcutta University, Jasim Uddin worked with Dr. Dinesh Chandra Sen as a collector of folk-literature and became one of the compilers of ‘Purbo Bongo Gitika’ (Ballads of East Bengal).
(tobe continued)
‘He collected more than 10,000 folk songs, some of which has been included in his song compilations Jari Gaan and Murshidi Gaan. He also wrote voluminously on the interpretation and philosophy of Bengali folklore.’
Jasim Uddin taught Bengali Language and Literature in the Dhaka University as a lecturer in 1938 and left it in 1944 and joined the Government service in the department of Information and broadcasting and served there as the deputy director until his retirement in 1962 but he never forgot his downtrodden countrymen, especially the backward rural folks. He continued writing poems, songs, stories, essays, novel, ballads dance drama and playwrights on different indigenous village-folks. He depicted the picture of tears and laughter, sorrows and happiness, miseries and anguish of them in most of his literary works.
After the Independence of the sub-continent British teachers left this country. However, A.G. Stock taught English in the Dhaka University. She appreciated Jasim Uddin very highly in her ‘Memoirs’ as saying; “He (Jasim . Uddin) is that rare phenomenon, a good poet where university education has not cut him off from the country tradition; illiterate villagers would accept his songs and ballads in the same spirit as those they learnt from their grandparents … ”
Though Jasin Uddin had colossal intimacy with those anti-Rabindra group of poets and litterateurs of the thirtieth in ‘Kollol Age’, he never took part in any such movement against anybody. Simply he got blessings from the poets and litterateurs like Abonindranath Tagore, Rabingranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam and worked silently in his own way.
Meanwhile his following Bengali anthologies came to light :
Rakhali(1927), Nakshi Kanthar Math (1929), Baluchar (1930), Dhankhet (1931), Sojonbadiar Ghat(1933), Hansu (1933), Rangila Naer Majhi (1935), which brought him a tremendous acclamation among the local critics, poets and litterateurs and he became famous overnight.
His later works are as follow-Padmapar (1950), Beder Meye (1951), Jader dekhechi (1951), Matir Kanna (1951), Matir Kanna (Sorrows of the Earth) has been translated into Russian. Modhumala (1951), Chole Musafir (1952) Pallibodhu (1957), Gramer Maya (1959), Suchoyany (1961),Thakur Barir Angina (1961), Bangaleer Hasir Golpo (Part-l & Part-II 1960 & 1964), Dalimkumar (1963), Boba Kahini (1964), Jibonkotha ( 1st Volume-1964), Jari Gan (1968), Ogo Puspodhonu (1968), Smritipot (1964), Holdey porir Deshe (1967), Je Deshe Manush boro (1968), Padma Nadir Deshe( 1969), Boutubanir phool (1970), Bhoyaboho sei dingulite (1962), Mursidi Gan (1977), Germaner Sohore Bondore (1975), Smaraner soroni bahi (1978), Asmanir Kobi Bhai(1986), etc.
His famous songs are blended with Bhatiali, Bhawaia, and Mursidi tonal notes-
Shojon badiar ghat, O amar sonar moyna pakhi, Amar gaolar har khule ney, Amar Har Kala Korlam re, Amaiy Bhasaiya ney, Amay eto rate, Kemon tomar mata pita, Nisithe jaio fulo bone, Nodir kul nai kinar nai, O bondhu rangila, Prano Sokhire Rongila nayer Majhi etc.
Beside all works, Jasim Uddin fought against the Pakistani marauders through his powerful pen at the fag end of his life. His noted poem on liberation war-
The Freedom Fighter
“I am a freedom fighter.
Nights and days awake with death at the back
and a huge formidable nails ahead.
We are advancing to protect honours
of our mothers and sisters … ” (1971)- Tr. by M. M. Rahman
Jasim Uddin is internationally known as a poet of the villagefolks of Bangladesh. He has a long research experience in it. His knowledge in this regard is deep-rooted and versatile. The folk tradition and rich folklore heritage in Bangladesh is well known throughout the world now. Professor Amiya Chakravarty (a famous poet of the thirtieth) wrote a letter to Jasim Uddin in this connection for introducing Robert Payne, a noted American litterateur and researcher, on December 4, 1973.
*State University College
New Paltz New York 12561
Department of Philosophy Faculty Town
Telephone (914) 257 -2696/2695
December 4, 1973
Poet Jasim Uddin
Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Dear and esteemed Jasimuddin
It is a long time now since we met but our memories- so clearly associated with Rabindranath and you will never fade. From time to time I have heard about you from mutual friends, particularly from Prof. Aminul Islam who told me about you and your creative work, when I visited Dacca last year for a few days, I missed you but I am looking forward to another visit.
This letter will introduce you to Mr. Robert Payne, the author of the great biography of Gandhiji who also published last year a deeply moving and graphic book on Bangladesh (called “Massacre”, interpretative book which has had deep international repercussions.) Mr. Payne is going to Dacca in a few days to write another book on Bangladesh, touching upon its spiritual courage and literary traditions. Above all, it will be a human document giving us an insight into the life of the people and their creative spirit. Mr. Payne will greatly appreciate meeting you; he has heard much about you from me and I feel that your counsel and suggestions will be most valuable to him. He is, if I may add, a noble personality and a profoundly gifted writer.
With my warm regards, your sincerely
(Kobir Ondormohol :Tirisher Kobither Potraboli (Inner apartment of the Poet :Letters of the Poets of thirties) collected and edited with introduction by Dr. Abul Ahsan Choudhury), page 71.
Short life-sketch
Jasin Uddin was awarded D. Litt from Rabindra Bharati University in 1969 in appreciation of his folksy flavor of Bengali literature. Moreover for his pride and performance he won President’s award in 1958. He won also Ekushey Padak in 1976. However he refused to accept Bangla Academy award in 1974 for the reason unknown. He was awarded Swadhinata Puroshkar in 1978 posthumously.
In each year in the month of January, Jasim Mela (fair) is observed commemorating the birthday of the poet in a befitting manner. The people from all walks of life, especially the village-folks that include folksingers who sing Baul, Jari-Sari, Mursidi, Bhatiali, Bhawaia songs and songs of Jasim Uddin join the Mela. Some of them also recite poems, stage dance drama (ballads) of the poet and some litterateurs discuss on the works of the poet analysing pros and cons of his folk literature that includes poems, songs, essays and biography of the poet remembering him with proper homage. Thus Polli-Kobi (a poet of village folks) Jasim Uddin remains ever at our heart in Bangladesh.
