Bangladesh

Lal Shalu, Kando Nadi Kando and Chander Amaabsya, these three novels and some outstanding stories have Syed Waliullah occupying a great place in the literature of unbroken Bengal. Syed Waliullah was born in 1922 in Sholashahar, Chittagong, undivided Bengal, and died in Paris in October 1971. At that time the liberation war of Bangladesh was going on. Syed Waliullah was short-lived, but his writing life span was not short. 25 years. In March 1945, at the age of 23, his first story book, Nayanchara, was published in Calcutta. The first novel 'Lal Shalu' was published in 1949 from Dhaka.
Waliullah was not exactly a storyteller. His journey was deep in the minds of the people. It can be said that he was the real successor of Jagadish Gupta, Manik Banerjee. His story was a brilliant source of the flow of consciousness. But the issue was our country, time, soil. Lal Shalu or Kando Nadi Kando, these two novels are the best examples of this. He felt East Bengal with his heart, he drew the words of that feeling. Poor poor Nirupaya was the character of his stories and novels. Time has come to Waliullah's story and novel about his impact.
The story of Nayanchara, published in 1945, has a background of Manvantar of 1350. The famine of 1350 devastated the village and the town. Here a hungry family came to town. The black streets of that city, the blind night, the starry sky, the people on the banks of a river called Mayurakshi have taken refuge. The man thinks the black road is a river of darkness. He sleeps, sleepless nights. The constant illusion inside him. I remember the ebb and flow of the river, fishing boats, fish, money, food inside the river. That village, that river, that life has left so his dreams and illusions. We have read stories about the Manvantar of 1350, the lack of rice cloth. Manik Bandyopadhyay, Achintya Sengupta and other writers. Waliullah's story, the story of a young writer of 22-23 years, was a completely different kind of food shortage.
Bhuto, Bhutani, Amu came to town for rice. But the city is big cruel. The people of the city do not have eyes. Blind With blind eyes they put fake eyes. They are poor, hungry people who do not see those eyes. The people of the city are violent, there is enmity in their eyes, but there is no enmity in the eyes of the dogs of the city, Amur thinks so. The village was the opposite. In the city, hungry people share food with dogs. The stars of the sky under which they lived in the village of Nayanchara are cruel here. Those stars are the ones who see people lying on the road like this. What a horrible way the city is portrayed in Nayanchara's story. Brick country, flooded with hot sun, unbearable all day.
I got rice in the langarkhana a few days ago, then burning with hunger. Such is the response from inside a house as Amu walks through the city’s brutal rejection. The bride is standing with food. Amu let me get clothes. He did not have this experience in the city. He was so surprised that he asked if his wife's house was in Nayanchara. Ah, that bride looks at Amur in surprise. Amu knows the city can't do that. The city is cruel, blind. But Nayanchara is the opposite. That's the story. Writing deepens and enters the heart.
Every story of Syed Waliullah expects the immersion of the reader. He didn't just write the story. The story is a little, maybe nothing, a little an accompaniment, a moment, a flow of thought is the subject of his story. But no story is out of this country, period, life. ‘The Tale of a Basil Tree’ is a memorable story about partition and communalism. I'm talking about another story, 'Rent'. Carrying a jug of molasses in a rented boat. If the moneylender gives you a jug of molasses, the two boatmen will leave the boat. They came to the market to buy molasses. But the moneylender's words are the essence. He doesn't come with molasses anymore. The boatman came with two empty boats, he will return with the empty boat. That never happens. Never again. The family is waiting for them on the river. They will return with the boat full. There is an orphan boy in the boat with them. He works hard. Gets to eat instead.
Inside, an old man on his way to death came up in the boat. Getting up, lying on the deck inside the boat, groaning. He will die. He wants everyone in his family to see this amazing event in his life. Be in front of them. The boat will go that way. On the way, he was dropped off at his village. When he is about to die, what else to say to the boatmen. Saying no, he got up and lay down on the deck. The two sailors saw it, could not say anything. They have to sit for molasses. Will the moneylender not come? If they had not had to wait for a jug of molasses, they might have dropped the old man off alive in his village. But it did not happen. They are sitting on the boat. The old man is going to die lying on the deck.
The orphan boy lies down at the feet of the dying old man. Two sailors sit on top. The old man woke up for a little while to die. He kicked the boy. The boy does not wake up. His sleep is deep. The old man may think that everything is death. That night, the wooden deck, the boy. All dead ghosts. The old man had a son. He was bitten by a snake. The boy at his feet is like that boy. The boy is asleep. Why not sleep is death.
Waliullah is the author of the author. What spread in his writing. Death is not like life. Life has everything, death has nothing. There is no feeling. So the old man, who is drowning in death, kicks the boy hard. Wakes her up. The old man wants to call him. Can't She knows this boy is not hers. No matter why she's alive, she doesn't have a son. He calls it death all around. What sentimental sentences are involved in the layers of this story. There is no such thing as night. Death on the other side of the day.
Before the old man died, the boy was called Bapjan. But he realized that this was not his son. Then he closed his eyes like forever. He died. The dead body slept on the deck. One of the sailors comes to sleep next to him, while the other wakes up. Then another fell asleep next to the dead.
In the end, as the moneylender did not come, they took the dead man instead of the jug of molasses. He came to the village at night and tied the boat. News with those who were at the river bank. The people of the old man's family came crying. They took the body and went inside the village. The sailors leave the boat. Two sailors sit on either side of the rented boat. The boy went to sleep on the deck, instead of the day before. The water of the river overflows. This story is the story of Bangladesh. That river, the rented boat, the man lying in the boat knowing he would die ... we don't know all this. And not even this writing.
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