BOTOL BHOOT [1948-2012] - tribute to HUMAYUN AHMED
cover story
A pall of gloom descended over the country last week, when on July 19, 2012 Bangladesh time, this ailing prodigy lost his battle to the ruthless onslaught of the dreaded disease cancer while undergoing treatment in the United States just like his fictitious character Tuni from his drama serial Eishob Din Raatri.
In his book “Botol Bhoot” (Spirit of the Bottle, Genie in a Bottle), the captivating story surrounds around a homeopathy vial, rumoured to contain a ghost which fulfils desires, and is bestowed upon a group of carefree boys by an eccentric old bearded man who sports the looks of Rabindranath Tagore and most importantly the author dubs him as Rabi Babu. The story enters its most fantastically intriguing point when the genie from the bottle is believed to help that group of kids to fulfil their dreams of winning football matches, avoid exams by making their teacher sick and even stop the forced-wedding of an elder sister. And after every victory, Rabi Babu would recite freshly written poems to these children which sound amazingly similar to that of Tagore’s but the broods kept quiet, fearing that their little bottle of joy would be snatched away by the Wizard of Vial if behaved otherwise.
Now, that was Ahmed’s way of interpreting and recreating Tagore in his own comical way and very few word craft-men are able to generate creativity of this magnitude which would intrigue little children with mystic smiles.
We wish, just like his novel Botol Bhoot, Ahmed’s essence and spirit could be preserved in a vial and anytime we are in need of urgent humour, witty sarcasm or opinions on patriotic endeavours, we would seek guidance from the ‘spirit-ed bottle’.
He had magical capability of storytelling and a way of fascinating his readers to enter in to a realm of fictional euphoria no matter what age group they belong to. Be it his early juvenile novel “Botol Bhoot” or the more recent “Leelaboti” or “Matal Hawa” amongst his 300 novels, dramas and short stories, he maintained few great recipes – simplicity and universal themes, avoiding thesaurus-gained complicated words and ambiguous Bangla literature. And this managed to produce Drop Dead Delicious books right from the early 70’s and a whole generation of Bangladeshi readers, especially Bengali Muslims, who would only read fictions of West Bengal or the conservative ones deep in to religious books at that time…craving for humour and diving into rumour…suddenly realized that contemporary Bangla literature is an Art and Humayun Ahmed is the wizard. Not only the contents but the title names of his novels and dramas are immensely ingenious like “Agun er Poroshmoni”, “Shonkhonil Karagar”, “Bohubrihi”, “Ayomoy”, “Kothau Keu Nei” and more…his appeal lies in the absence of pretence.
Humayun Ahmed’s words percolated through the layers of Bangladesh’s many different societies, gaining popularity at every stratum, from the urban areas to the rural backwaters and across the generations. This is unusual because modern Bangladeshi literature is a field that hasn’t crossed over to appeal to the masses during the early 70’s, but at the time when Ahmed took his pen, his words and phrases travelled the length and breadth of the newly liberated country, and brought music, be of joy or agony, to the people.
Not only were his lines full of humour, fables, real-life scenarios, middle-class sentiments, allegories but he also managed to be a voice of the nation and almost two to three generations by writing editorials and opinions on Bangla newspapers when evil struck the state. His writings inspired us to be informed and involved citizens and the best thing about him was that he strived to be the most organic. He was the only writer who was successful in unifying the country’s citizens, especially youth, to achieve one cohesive goal and was also triumphant in lifting a whole nation from intellectual bankruptcy during the post-Liberation War era.
One of India's top authors and an icon of West Bengal, Sunil Gangopadhyay portrayed Humayun Ahmed as ''The most popular writer in Bengali language for a century''. Not just Gangopadhyay, Ahmed’s contemporaries and intellectuals all over Bangladesh said his death is an irrecoverable loss. And these statements are epitome of rightness as Ahmed became mildly controversial at times, but never did he disrepute any religions and he had his own tactful ways of proving perceptions, moreover, his writing standard was constant.
He was legendary and somewhat notorious as well with rumours of rogue behaviour, not being an appropriate husband and a father, during the last decade of his life and was also widely criticized for divorcing his wife Gultekin Ahmed, who’s name was dedicated in the beginning of most of his novels as an inspirational figure, so to marry the best friend of his second daughter.
He did face a lot of criticism due to the usage of simplistic languages and personal choices in life among others. Resentment towards him for his personal life also stemmed from the familiarity his readers developed from his books about his family life. We felt like we all knew his family, read about his love for his wife, growing up of his daughters and the minute details of their personal joy and sorrows from books like “Joshua Brikhher Desh-e”. Hence, readers felt betrayed by his jolting personal decisions.
Despite the ups and downs in his life, the quality of his work did not slip and novels turned drama like Leelaboti is one of the biggest testaments. This novel explains the joy of birth, giving birth, parenthood and a strong Bangladeshi family bond, high on the spiritually rich collective Bengali psyche.
While watching a lot of his old dramas on BTV, we saw how he emphasized and depicted the Mama (maternal uncle) characters and somehow inspired us to fall in love and respect them more than ever. This Mama figure was a lot of times played by theatre and media personality Aly Zaker. It needs to be mentioned that it was Humayun’s scripts which gave maximum prominence to the well-known faces of today: worth mentioning Zaker, Asaduzzaman Noor, Abdul Kader, Dolly Johur, his wife Shawon, Challenger and more.
Therefore, we as a nation should respect the writer Humayun and be inspired by his literary part and try to reach for the stars.
Bangladeshis knew how beautiful it is when there is a full moon on the horizon, but with
Humayun Ahmed’s eyes, we learnt to see the magical transformation of the moonlight as the sparkling silver light splashed onto this earth and into our souls. Humayun Ahmed - the name never represented only one person to any literate Bangladeshi. It meant Himu, Misir Ali, Rupa, Jori, Kutu Mia, Shubhro, Noboni and numerous other characters who came to life through his penmanship, incorporating so many emotions with Rabrindrashongeet or Hason Raja or Lalon’s songs. It will always mean reminiscence of emotions from his magical words to generations of Bangladeshis who grew up during the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
As a people Bangladeshis love their monsoon but he taught two/three generations how divine it feels to drench our fervour to this liquid sunshine. It was not only hundreds of his literary creations but also his drama serials like “Eishob Din Raatri”, “Kothao Keu Nei” “Nokkhotrer Raat” among many others which generations of families together sat and devoured to soothe their culture hungry souls.
He neither used obscure words or sentence formations in his books as it was readily
understandable even to the wide eyed 7 year old who just got introduced to the amazing world of Bengali literature. Bangladeshis from 7 year to 70 year olds immersed themselves in his belletristic creations of books, movies and drama serials. People got on the roads in protest when his fictitious characters, Baker Bhai was about to be hanged in his television serial, “Kothao Keu Nei” and also when Tuni died of cancer while undergoing treatment in a foreign country in “Eishob Din Raatri”. It was amazing as the urban cities nearly came to a halt to mourn Baker Bhai’s or Tuni’s death on television. We too have our notebook from that time with sadness and smudged ink writings from our tears as we plead helplessly to the Almighty not to kill our beloved Baker Bhai or Tuni. It’s true, adulation for him was insane!
Many critiques and patrons of Bangla literature admonished his work as less profound or habitude of unwarranted simplistic language. What all of these intellectuals failed to catch is the notion that he spoke pure Bangladeshi language, reaching out, nudging and caressing all the esoteric emotions which people did not even know existed within them in so many ways!
Comparing Humayun Ahmed’s work with other Bengali wordsmiths actually is rather daft. It is like comparing Lalon Shah’s music and poetry with Beethoven’s. Beethoven is a maestro in his own regard and so is Lalon to our part of the world. You cannot simply put artists on pedestals whilst reviewing their art. Humayun Ahmed had reached within the aura of any Bangladeshi nationals who read his books, in ways others would not understand unless fathoming nuances of Bangladesh’s voicing and intensity.
Humayun Ahmed is our unrivalled word wizard and will linger on amidst our everyday emotions, monsoon rains; yellow Panjabis and anytime our world will get flooded by the luminescent silver moon light. He is the crescent prince of Bangladeshi literary world and his legacy will live on through his books, movies and drama serials.
Someone once said, "Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is the talent which dies with the soul". Humayun Ahmed's death is indeed a great loss to Bengal for years to come.
*This article was first published in The Independent’s Weekend Magazine Friday July 27 2012 - http://www.theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=39&date=2012-07-27
Storyteller, novelist, film director, academic – Humayun Ahmed was so many things to so many people but, above all, he was a great human being– emotional, entertaining, enterprising having a great sense of humour. Faizul Khan Tanim and Fariyah Nazneen Premaa goes beyond the usual retrospectives to explain why he is the most successful writer of contemporary Bangla literature.
BOTOL BHOOT [1948-2012]
A pall of gloom descended over the country last week, when on July 19, 2012 Bangladesh time, this ailing prodigy lost his battle to the ruthless onslaught of the dreaded disease cancer while undergoing treatment in the United States just like his fictitious character Tuni from his drama serial Eishob Din Raatri.
In his book “Botol Bhoot” (Spirit of the Bottle, Genie in a Bottle), the captivating story surrounds around a homeopathy vial, rumoured to contain a ghost which fulfils desires, and is bestowed upon a group of carefree boys by an eccentric old bearded man who sports the looks of Rabindranath Tagore and most importantly the author dubs him as Rabi Babu. The story enters its most fantastically intriguing point when the genie from the bottle is believed to help that group of kids to fulfil their dreams of winning football matches, avoid exams by making their teacher sick and even stop the forced-wedding of an elder sister. And after every victory, Rabi Babu would recite freshly written poems to these children which sound amazingly similar to that of Tagore’s but the broods kept quiet, fearing that their little bottle of joy would be snatched away by the Wizard of Vial if behaved otherwise.
Now, that was Ahmed’s way of interpreting and recreating Tagore in his own comical way and very few word craft-men are able to generate creativity of this magnitude which would intrigue little children with mystic smiles.
We wish, just like his novel Botol Bhoot, Ahmed’s essence and spirit could be preserved in a vial and anytime we are in need of urgent humour, witty sarcasm or opinions on patriotic endeavours, we would seek guidance from the ‘spirit-ed bottle’.
He had magical capability of storytelling and a way of fascinating his readers to enter in to a realm of fictional euphoria no matter what age group they belong to. Be it his early juvenile novel “Botol Bhoot” or the more recent “Leelaboti” or “Matal Hawa” amongst his 300 novels, dramas and short stories, he maintained few great recipes – simplicity and universal themes, avoiding thesaurus-gained complicated words and ambiguous Bangla literature. And this managed to produce Drop Dead Delicious books right from the early 70’s and a whole generation of Bangladeshi readers, especially Bengali Muslims, who would only read fictions of West Bengal or the conservative ones deep in to religious books at that time…craving for humour and diving into rumour…suddenly realized that contemporary Bangla literature is an Art and Humayun Ahmed is the wizard. Not only the contents but the title names of his novels and dramas are immensely ingenious like “Agun er Poroshmoni”, “Shonkhonil Karagar”, “Bohubrihi”, “Ayomoy”, “Kothau Keu Nei” and more…his appeal lies in the absence of pretence.
Humayun Ahmed’s words percolated through the layers of Bangladesh’s many different societies, gaining popularity at every stratum, from the urban areas to the rural backwaters and across the generations. This is unusual because modern Bangladeshi literature is a field that hasn’t crossed over to appeal to the masses during the early 70’s, but at the time when Ahmed took his pen, his words and phrases travelled the length and breadth of the newly liberated country, and brought music, be of joy or agony, to the people.
Not only were his lines full of humour, fables, real-life scenarios, middle-class sentiments, allegories but he also managed to be a voice of the nation and almost two to three generations by writing editorials and opinions on Bangla newspapers when evil struck the state. His writings inspired us to be informed and involved citizens and the best thing about him was that he strived to be the most organic. He was the only writer who was successful in unifying the country’s citizens, especially youth, to achieve one cohesive goal and was also triumphant in lifting a whole nation from intellectual bankruptcy during the post-Liberation War era.
One of India's top authors and an icon of West Bengal, Sunil Gangopadhyay portrayed Humayun Ahmed as ''The most popular writer in Bengali language for a century''. Not just Gangopadhyay, Ahmed’s contemporaries and intellectuals all over Bangladesh said his death is an irrecoverable loss. And these statements are epitome of rightness as Ahmed became mildly controversial at times, but never did he disrepute any religions and he had his own tactful ways of proving perceptions, moreover, his writing standard was constant.
He was legendary and somewhat notorious as well with rumours of rogue behaviour, not being an appropriate husband and a father, during the last decade of his life and was also widely criticized for divorcing his wife Gultekin Ahmed, who’s name was dedicated in the beginning of most of his novels as an inspirational figure, so to marry the best friend of his second daughter.
He did face a lot of criticism due to the usage of simplistic languages and personal choices in life among others. Resentment towards him for his personal life also stemmed from the familiarity his readers developed from his books about his family life. We felt like we all knew his family, read about his love for his wife, growing up of his daughters and the minute details of their personal joy and sorrows from books like “Joshua Brikhher Desh-e”. Hence, readers felt betrayed by his jolting personal decisions.
Despite the ups and downs in his life, the quality of his work did not slip and novels turned drama like Leelaboti is one of the biggest testaments. This novel explains the joy of birth, giving birth, parenthood and a strong Bangladeshi family bond, high on the spiritually rich collective Bengali psyche.
While watching a lot of his old dramas on BTV, we saw how he emphasized and depicted the Mama (maternal uncle) characters and somehow inspired us to fall in love and respect them more than ever. This Mama figure was a lot of times played by theatre and media personality Aly Zaker. It needs to be mentioned that it was Humayun’s scripts which gave maximum prominence to the well-known faces of today: worth mentioning Zaker, Asaduzzaman Noor, Abdul Kader, Dolly Johur, his wife Shawon, Challenger and more.
Therefore, we as a nation should respect the writer Humayun and be inspired by his literary part and try to reach for the stars.
Bangladeshis knew how beautiful it is when there is a full moon on the horizon, but with
Humayun Ahmed’s eyes, we learnt to see the magical transformation of the moonlight as the sparkling silver light splashed onto this earth and into our souls. Humayun Ahmed - the name never represented only one person to any literate Bangladeshi. It meant Himu, Misir Ali, Rupa, Jori, Kutu Mia, Shubhro, Noboni and numerous other characters who came to life through his penmanship, incorporating so many emotions with Rabrindrashongeet or Hason Raja or Lalon’s songs. It will always mean reminiscence of emotions from his magical words to generations of Bangladeshis who grew up during the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
As a people Bangladeshis love their monsoon but he taught two/three generations how divine it feels to drench our fervour to this liquid sunshine. It was not only hundreds of his literary creations but also his drama serials like “Eishob Din Raatri”, “Kothao Keu Nei” “Nokkhotrer Raat” among many others which generations of families together sat and devoured to soothe their culture hungry souls.
He neither used obscure words or sentence formations in his books as it was readily
understandable even to the wide eyed 7 year old who just got introduced to the amazing world of Bengali literature. Bangladeshis from 7 year to 70 year olds immersed themselves in his belletristic creations of books, movies and drama serials. People got on the roads in protest when his fictitious characters, Baker Bhai was about to be hanged in his television serial, “Kothao Keu Nei” and also when Tuni died of cancer while undergoing treatment in a foreign country in “Eishob Din Raatri”. It was amazing as the urban cities nearly came to a halt to mourn Baker Bhai’s or Tuni’s death on television. We too have our notebook from that time with sadness and smudged ink writings from our tears as we plead helplessly to the Almighty not to kill our beloved Baker Bhai or Tuni. It’s true, adulation for him was insane!
Many critiques and patrons of Bangla literature admonished his work as less profound or habitude of unwarranted simplistic language. What all of these intellectuals failed to catch is the notion that he spoke pure Bangladeshi language, reaching out, nudging and caressing all the esoteric emotions which people did not even know existed within them in so many ways!
Comparing Humayun Ahmed’s work with other Bengali wordsmiths actually is rather daft. It is like comparing Lalon Shah’s music and poetry with Beethoven’s. Beethoven is a maestro in his own regard and so is Lalon to our part of the world. You cannot simply put artists on pedestals whilst reviewing their art. Humayun Ahmed had reached within the aura of any Bangladeshi nationals who read his books, in ways others would not understand unless fathoming nuances of Bangladesh’s voicing and intensity.
Humayun Ahmed is our unrivalled word wizard and will linger on amidst our everyday emotions, monsoon rains; yellow Panjabis and anytime our world will get flooded by the luminescent silver moon light. He is the crescent prince of Bangladeshi literary world and his legacy will live on through his books, movies and drama serials.
Someone once said, "Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is the talent which dies with the soul". Humayun Ahmed's death is indeed a great loss to Bengal for years to come.
*This article was first published in The Independent’s Weekend Magazine Friday July 27 2012 - http://www.theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=39&date=2012-07-27
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