The New Nation - Internet Edition

Mohammad Shahidul Islam

Bangladesh's veteran poet Al Mahmud's 72nd birthday was celebrated on 11th July. He was born in a business family in 1936, in Kasba, Brahamanbaria. The night was full of showers when he came down on earth to colour Bengali poetry. He came to Dhaka for his livelihood when he was 21 years old. He started his writing career at his prime life. From 1954, his poetry began to be published in the literary supplements of Dhaka and Kolkata. Very soon he became popular with the lovers of poetry equally in Dhaka and Kolkata. He regularly wrote in Chotuskon, Choturanga, Moyukh and Krittibash. In "kobita" edited by Buddhadeva Basu, his several poems raised uproar amid the contemporary literary giants. In Dhaka he started writing regularly in Shikandar Abu Jafar's Shamokal.

Pastoral lives, rivers, villages, shoals centered lives, man and woman's love affairs and their biophysical urges are dominant in his poetry as subjects and objects. He provoked the core of poetic appeal through wielding so common words collected from local dialects that stood as a new style in Dhaka and Kolkata. A critique has evaluated him as an individual genius of poetry in the subjects of nature and rural community other than Jibonananda Das and Jashimuddin. In that exact time of his enormous recognition as a mastermind poet, his famous Lok Lokantor and Kaler Kalosh were published and for these two great works, he won Bangla Academy Award in 1968.

Freedom fighter Al Mahmud directly took part in the 1971 Liberation War. After independence he ran a daily named Ganakantha. For supporting democracy and communism through raising upheaval among freedom fighters, he was arrested and imprisoned. The government during his imprisonment banned and shut down the daily.

In 1975 after his release from jail, he joined the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy as Assistant Director of Research and Publication. In 1993 he retired from the academy as Director. Al Mahmud has published more than 50 books of poetry, short story, novel, articles and other forms of works. He also edited and ran a number of journals, magazines and dailies.

Al Mahmud's name will shine in the Bengali literature for his masterpiece Shonali Kabin. This is a landmark in the Bengali poetry. The book was first published in 1973. It drew much attention of all intellectual writers of home and abroad. After its publication, eminent thinker Sibnarayan Roy commented: "Al Mahmud has an extraordinary gift for telescopic discrete levels of experience; in his poems I find a marvelous fusion and wit which reminds me occasionally of Bishnu Dey. The complete secularism of his approach is also striking, more so,..he was born and brought up in a very conservative Muslim religious family; it is not a secularism forced by some ideology, but present naturally and ubiquitously in his metaphors, images and themes". Mahmud's other famous works include Mayabi Porda Dule Otho, Arobbo Rojonir Rajhash, Bokhtiyarer Ghora, Pankourir Rakta, Nodir Bhitorer Nodi, Pakhir Kache, Fooler Kache and Kobir Attobishshash etc.Al Mahmud?s poetic genius has been evaluated, recognized and honoured with many awards like Ekushe Padak, Philips Literary Award, Agrani Bank Children Award, Alakta Literary Award and Sufi Motaher Hossain Literary Gold Medal and many more.

Al Mahmud is fond of traveling and reading books. He has visited India, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Iran, UK, USA, Canada, France, etc. His poetic genius has been recognised and honoured with many awards like Ekushey Padak, Philips Literary Award, Agrani Bank Children Award, Alakta Literary Award, Sufi Motahar Hossain Literary Gold Award and many more.

He has five sons and three daughters. His wife Sayeda Nadira Begum is a major source of inspiration for the poet.