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Contents
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Page No.
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Preface
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Foreword
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vii
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This country has produced remarkable personalities in every walk
of life since the earliest times. Our history is crowded with names of
outstanding persons who have made notable contribution in art, literature,
politics, science or other fields. Some are household names.
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I. Birth and Early Life
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1
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The nineteenth century was drawing to a close. India had already
experienced the first stirrings of political awakening. Bengal, in a few
years' time, was to be engulfed by a movement which, though immediately
aiming at annulment of the partition imposed on the province by the British
government in 1905, spontaneously projected itself into a sustained struggle
for national freedom.
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II. The Poet-Rebel Arrives
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6
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Havildar Kazi Nazrul Islam, as he had come to be called, soon
emerged as a prolific writer. Poems, songs, ballads, stories and essays of
the belles-lettres type poured from his pen in rapid succession. Moslem
Bharat, a monthly first published by Muslim writers in April, 1920, was at
this time the chief vehicle of publication of Nazrul's writings though he
wrote for several other journals as well.
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III. In the Fray
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24
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Contemporary writers have noticed in their recollections the
tremendous enthusiasm with which Nazrul Islam's political writings used to be
received. This was particularly true of his articles in Dhumketu. Every week,
on the day of publication of the paper, hundreds of people waited at street
corners for the hawkers to come and there was a scramble for copies.
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IV. Seeking the Beautiful
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30
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Sindhu Hindol, a book of poems by Nazrul Islam, begins with a
poem in three parts addressed to the sea. The poet calls these parts Waves.
Waves indeed they are in delineation of the rolling sorrow which meets the
poet's eye in the surging waters.
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V. In Tune with Life
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36
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Rabindranath Tagore invited Nazrul Islam to stay at Santiniketan
to teach songs to students there and himself learn music from Dinenfranath
Tagore, the poet's nephew, who set up the notations to Tagore's songs. Tagore
did not like that Nazrul, being the creative artist that he was, should be
pre-occupied with politics.
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VI. The Swan song
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44
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Thus passed the thirties. Grim destiny was already laying hands
on him. Yet he did once more burst forth in an output of poems which had lain
somewhat in abeyance during the period that he roamed freely in the world of
melody.
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VII. The Poet of the People
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49
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Nazrul Islam does not seem to have been the kind of poet that
needs seclusion for the flowering of his genius. He must have had many
private moments with himself. He must have, for many a while, withdrawn into
nature. But he never gave the impression of needing complete retirement for
the perfection of his literary work.
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VIII. The Poet in the Future
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54
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Even as he is not alive, Nazrul Islam's day is done. That tragic
fact makes it possible to look upon him somewhat in retrospect and to try to
determine his place in the future. Now when the country is free, Nazrul is
looked upon as the abiding messenger of revolt for political and social
freedom.
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Translation of some Poems
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59
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THE REBEL
Say, courageous one-
Say, high I hold my head!
The Himalayas look up at mine and humbly bow their peaks.
Say, I pierce through the great sky of the universe,
I reach above the moon, the sun, the planets and the stars,
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Select Works of and on Kazi Nazrul Islam
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99
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POEMS
Agniveena (1922)
Dolan Champa (1923)
Bisher Bansi (1924)
Bhangar Gan (1924)
Chhayanat (1924)
Puber Hawa (1925)
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