M Mizanur Rahman :
Jasim Uddin (1 January 1903- 13 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 which reflects the very heart of those village-folk who crowded in his literary works whether in prose or poems.
In 1939, E M Milford while introducing her The Field of the Embroidered Quilt of Jasim Uddin’s Nakshi 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 Bedeni), 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, so-called Purut, Mullah, 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 Nakshi 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 village folk 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 Kolkata 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 grandmother 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./I 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…” 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 villagefolk 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
Contd on page 7
Jasim Uddin (1 January 1903- 13 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 which reflects the very heart of those village-folk who crowded in his literary works whether in prose or poems.
In 1939, E M Milford while introducing her The Field of the Embroidered Quilt of Jasim Uddin’s Nakshi 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 Bedeni), 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, so-called Purut, Mullah, 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 Nakshi 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 village folk 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 Kolkata 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 grandmother 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./I 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…” 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 villagefolk 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
Contd on page 7
