From the Titas to the Buriganga. The boy is restless, his heart untamed. He walks the village paths, listens to birdcalls, breathes the smell of mud. Into this boy’s heart the folk tales of the countryside are woven; folk myth runs in his blood. His father loves music; from his grandfather he heard the jari songs. This is how a young boy’s inner world takes shape. Then came the days of storm. The land is partitioned. The language movement begins. Slogans everywhere. The teenage Mahmud joins the processions. The police come looking for him. He leaves home.
So begins a wandering life. But there is poetry in his pocket and words in his chest. This man is Bangladesh’s singular poet — Al Mahmud.
Time passes. The poet’s imagination spreads its wings. And so one day he sets foot at Sadarghat, the gateway to southern Dhaka. The breeze off the Buriganga brushes his body. In his hand, a broken suitcase. Not a coin in his pocket. But his eyes are full of dreams.
When his first footprints fell at Sadarghat, it was the 1950s of the last century — the year 1954. Dhaka was then an unfamiliar city. The city frightens him. He is not afraid. Instead he roams its alleyways.
Journalism
At last he finds shelter in a newspaper office. Food is scarce. But he goes on writing poetry without pause. The Dhaka of those days was a salon of literature — the soul of Beauty Boarding. The young Mahmud goes there. Spectacles on his eyes. Poetry on his lips. He strings his verse from rural words. The poets are startled. The editors are enchanted.
In a poet’s chest, the fire of words; in his hand, a versatile pen. His life in journalism begins with writing for the weekly Kafela. At the same time he works as a proofreader at the daily Millat. Later he becomes editor of Kafela, then a proofreader at Ittefaq, and soon after its sub-editor. In between he joins the Chattogram publishing house Boighar for a while. Through the 1960s he moves through the newspaper world. In 1969 he again becomes assistant editor of Ittefaq. In the final stretch of his life he becomes assistant editor of the daily Sangram, while also editing the daily Karnaphuli, published from Chattogram. From proofreader to the chief editor’s chair — such was his uncompromising, aesthetic life in journalism.
Art and literature
Slowly the poet is illuminated by a vast body of work. He enriches life across many forms — short stories, poetry, novels, essays, children’s literature, autobiography, interviews, journalism. He wrote more than 12 poetry collections, including Lok Lokantor, Kaler Kolosh and Sonali Kabin. He has around six story collections, including Pankouri’r Rokto, Saptarshi and Priyo Panchami. He wrote about 12 novels, including Upomohadesh, Kabiler Bon and Kobi O Kolahol. Nor does it end there — he wrote four autobiographies, among them Jebhabe Bere Uthi and Bichurno Aynay Kobir Mukh. He also has more than 10 books for children, including Pakhir Kache Phuler Kache, Moynamotir Necklace and Batasher Nupur.
Interviews
In giving interviews, Al Mahmud may hold a record in Bengali literature. Over nearly four decades he gave countless interviews. Sardar Abdur Rahman compiled a book of 60 of them. No other poet or writer in Bengali literature is known to have given so many. He also wrote columns, essays and travelogues in various publications.
Poetry collections
His first collection, Lok Lokantor, was published in 1963. It was like a new note in Bengali literature — a turning point for Bengali poetry. Lok Lokantor is not urban poetry. It is a song of the soil, a tale of river and woman, the outpouring of the poet’s life.
“My consciousness is like a white, true bird, / perched on a sandalwood branch in a green forest; … / from world to world I stand still and listen / to the wounded poet’s song, to poetry’s coming victory.”
In Al Mahmud’s poetry, nature and the human mind become one. Consciousness, in his imagination, is not abstract. It is a mysterious bird. The sandalwood branch, the green forest, the scent of vine and pollen — these are echoes of the poet’s soul. This enchantment of nature gives him a taste of freedom. Family, society, religion, settlement, people — all hold him constrained. Once the bird of consciousness spreads its wings, nature opens up: a mysterious inner world where only the beautiful dwells. Through a hundred adversities, art triumphs. This poem is its proclamation.
Here the wounded poet means the creator who bears pain, but from whose voice beauty is born. Standing in the silence of the forest, the poet hears the call of the beautiful. And so this poem is a picture of nature; it is the awakening of the soul, the wonder of beauty — an exquisite, aesthetic tale of poetry.
Crossing the deep reading of nature and the enchanted borders of the inner world, the poet turns his gaze toward eternity. Carrying the soul’s awakening and the aesthetics of Lok Lokantor, in 1966 he composed the remarkable collection Kaler Kolosh.
“How long, unwilling, do I hold open the thirsty eyes that drink the sight? / Everything grows weary, and nature too falls away into a far, bottomless dark. / What remains then, O blue sky, O veil? / Wearing my shroud like a shawl, how many days shall I be stirred, / for how many ages, how many epochs / shall I watch, as under the weight of watching the night sky bows like the shoulders of a bull?”
Through a single collection, the poet achieves a rare synthesis of Bengali poetry’s folk words, its rural fields, ghats, environment and nature, and urban life. Kaler Kolosh is a poetic voyage into the depths of time and life. The familiar world around, nature itself, seems to vanish into a bottomless dark. All the clamour of life grows faint. Every poem in this book is a perpetual struggle of time, a dream, a ceaseless search for identity. The poet utters his thoughts, gives them the form of art, then lights within his words the flame of feeling. Herein lies the artistic beauty, depth and lasting appeal of this collection.
After Kaler Kolosh, the poet’s voyage turns toward some greater fullness. This quest carries him to the roots and soil of Bengal, finding its ultimate expression in his collection Sonali Kabin.
It was 1973. His epic creation Sonali Kabin appeared — a perennial treasure of Bengali literature. He makes the folk tongue universal; he gives the fire of desire the form of art. He writes —
“Let our faith be the just distribution of the harvest, / in the mantra of deep solace sing the abolition of class; … / and then, if you would raise the matter of desire, O woman, / come behind the field and lay bare your youth …”
Al Mahmud’s Sonali Kabin is a timeless poem. In it are history and the smell of the soil. He gives rural love a divine form. Here the poet breaks the artifice of the city and returns, drawn by the roots. In exquisite words he strings desire and love. This poem is a proclamation of an eternal union — a union that is not the exchange of urban wealth or dowry. The poet’s marriage-bond is nature’s gift.
He wishes to make a woman his own in exchange for river, silt and grain. To the poet, love is no luxury but a struggle to survive. Hidden in the veil of a village bride is the thousand-year culture of Bengal. Against feudal exploitation, the poet is a rebel. Sonali Kabin is not a poem of love; it is a reflection of establishing human rights on the breast of the soil.
Short stories
Al Mahmud is the soul of Bengali poetry. Yet the same man is an enchanting writer of fiction. It was 1975. Political turmoil all around. In just such conditions he wrote the short-story book Pankouri’r Rokto (The Cormorant’s Blood). The book’s first story bears the same name.
Bengali literature has certain immortal stories — Akhtaruzzaman Elias’s Niruddesh Jatra, Shahed Ali’s Jibraeeler Danha, Alauddin Al Azad’s Brishti. Al Mahmud’s Pankouri’r Rokto is likewise an immortal story, a singular treasure.
The poet is newly married. In his mind, another kind of storm — a primal longing. Yet by fate’s irony, his wife is in the days of her monthly cycle. The intense desire for union is thwarted.
The poet looks toward the village marsh. There, a cormorant dives into the deep. The bird’s wet feathers, the rise and fall of its breast, stir something within. In his eyes, nature and woman merge. Suddenly a gunshot. The cormorant’s restlessness is torn apart. Red blood spatters into the clear water.
To the poet’s eyes that blood is no ordinary liquid. The cormorant’s blood and the hidden lifeblood of the woman he loves seem to merge at one confluence. The blood-soaked wing becomes, to him, the echo of her very being. In this story, rural emotion, its rebellion and its repression combine into a singular narrative. Bengali literature stands still to behold a pure, raw and aesthetic rebellion of feeling.
Novels
From the morning mist, the smell of soil, love and emotion, the poet returns to the realities of life. He writes the novel Upomohadesh about a harrowing situation of the war days of 1971 — full of blows and counter-blows, war, death and the uncertainty of life.
At the centre of this novel is a poet named Hamid Mir. His existence hangs between patriotism and the fear of death. He is joined by the daring freedom fighter Anis. There is Nandini. The horror of war, the death of her sister Seema, and utter insecurity make Nandini wholly dependent on the poet Hamid Mir. Over the long journey of turbulent war days, their emotional closeness turns into a deep love. Al Mahmud does not give this relationship a consummated form. Rather, he lays bare the heart’s dilemma, the moral sense, and the many-layered nature of relationships in the crisis of war.
The novel carries political complexity. On the battlefield itself, the ideological fractures among the various factions become clear. To some of them, the equations of politics loom larger than the freedom of the country. While the land is torn by the invader’s blows, some are busy proving their theoretical supremacy.
In this novel Al Mahmud weaves a tale of dreams and ruin. Even amid the terror of war, love stays awake. In the end it is a song of humanity’s will to survive and to love — the tale of a human soul.
Like Upomohadesh, Kabiler Bon is also a novel of the war days, but a psychological one about love in wartime. Dhaka is then a volcano. All around, tension, fear, dread. Kabiler Bon is a singular record of this turbulent time. It is not merely a war story but a profound psychological narrative. Here Al Mahmud brings to life the inner anguish of a besieged city.
At the centre of the novel is Kabil, a humane and benevolent Bengali youth. Clinging to him like a shadow is his fatherless cousin Momena. On the other side is Roksana, a wealthy young woman of strong personality. Roksana’s cousin Andalib is a non-Bengali youth. The plot revolves around these four characters.
War sets them face to face. Between Kabil and Andalib runs a battle of ideals. One is a symbol of Bengali nationalism, the other of Pakistani ideology. Roksana is the bridge in this tug-of-war. Their bonds are not of blood. But the fierce uncertainty of 1971 has tied them into a single thread.
The boots of the Pakistani junta then sound on the city’s breast. Every day, people die. Relationships shift constantly. Even amid this horror, Al Mahmud weaves a deep web of enchantment. In every layer of the novel lies a profound burning. He presents an inexorable truth of history — that war does not only kill people; it also alters their geography. This geography is both of the map and of the heart. He has drawn the besieged psychology of 1971 with precision.
Al Mahmud thought of all readers, young and old. He gave words such an easy magic that they touched every heart. Beyond the bounds of age, he is singular; the appeal of his writing is universal. He has more than 10 works of children’s literature, including Pakhir Kache Phuler Kache, Moynamotir Necklace and Batasher Nupur. Pakhir Kache Phuler Kache is an immortal creation. In his rhymes children find rivers, flowers, birds and butterflies; he weaves words with moonlight. For children he wrote —
“High on the tall head of the coconut palm I suddenly see, dark, / a moon risen like a green coconut, cool and round. / I slip the latch open softly and cross out of the room; / the drowsy, vast city was trembling, trembling … / What else to do — I take the rhyme-book from my pocket / and to the birds, to the flowers, I speak my heart.”
A still night sky. The moon has risen at the tip of the coconut tree. The poet is alone. The familiar city is like an enchanted fairy-tale world, trembling. The minaret’s shadow is like a sentinel. Turning at the shrine-side, the hills beckon: “Come, come!” Touching the hills, the poet goes to the glittering court of the fireflies. And the water of the pond tells him: come, let us make poetry today. From his pocket the poet takes the rhyme-book and, in nature’s web of enchantment, speaks his heart to the flowers and the birds.
Controversy and solitude
Life does not run straight. Al Mahmud’s life, too, took a turn. In his later years he changed; spirituality entered his thought. Society split into two over him. Controversy would not leave his side. But he remained steadfast. He only went on writing. His eyes were going blind, but the inner eye stayed open. He would speak aloud; his devotees wrote it down. Standing at the door of death he uttered: “One morning you will see that I am no more.”
Birth
It was long ago. The day was 11 July, the year 1936. The village of Moral in Brahmanbaria. All around then, the waters of the monsoon. The river’s name is Titas. On the very lap of that river a child was born. His name, Mir Abdus Shukur Al Mahmud. His pet name, simply Mahmud.
Death
The poet has a singular poem titled Smritir Meghla Bhor (A Cloudy Morning of Memory), in which he prays for death on a Friday morning. In the longing for eternal farewell he strung words in the beauty of a deep surrender.
“One dawn, at the end of night, on a blessed Friday, / if the angel of death comes and bids me go, / in this unprepared, disordered house of light and dark, / whatever befalls, good or ill, I shall accept it — this is my Eid.”
It was 2019, the 15th of February. Winter’s end, spring all around. In a Dhaka hospital the poet Al Mahmud closed his eyes. He was then 82. The enchanted curtain swayed; the poet crossed to the other shore. But what an inexorable play of nature — the poet had wished for death on a Friday, and the day he died was a Friday. Perhaps it is nothing miraculous. But its beauty cannot be denied. Such is the philosophy of life of great poets.
Al Mahmud is gone today. His Titas water remains. The verses of Sonali Kabin remain. As long as the Bengali language lives, Al Mahmud will live. He is the poet of soil, people and nature — the enchanting chronicler.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report