Salutations to you, conversational poet Shaheed Quaderi

If one were to ask, who was the most passionate conversationalist among Bengali poets, one of the first names that would come up is poet Shaheed Quaderi. At one time, Shaheed Quaderi himself was synonymous with adda (casual intellectual gatherings). It was said of him that he could strike up a conversation even with a lamppost. The poet himself said, “I am an immigrant addabaj (conversation enthusiast).” He would lead the adda himself. Where did the adda not take place—Beauty Boarding, Rex Restaurant, the home of novelist Rashid Karim, the home of poet Shamsur Rahman, the office of educationist Fazal Shahabuddin, office of the magazine Sandhani, and Purana Paltan—everywhere. Adda was held regularly.

The gatherings were graced by luminaries. Shamsur Rahman, Al Mahmud, Fazal Shahabuddin, Qaisul Huq, Akhteruzzaman Elias, Belal Chowdhury, Rafiq Azad, Nirmalendu Goon, Abdul Mannan Syed, Mahmudul Huq, Sikdar Aminul Huq. Sometimes Mofidul Huq would join, sometimes Abul Hasnat, Biplab Das, Muhammad Khusru and Rajib Ahsan Chowdhury, among others. And there would come groups of young men—Abid Azad, Shihab Sarkar, Iqbal Hasan, Mahbub Hasan, Hafizur Rahman.

After the poet’s death, a special interview was published in the literary journal Kaler Kheya. Recalling the adda, the poet said, “Mannan Syed was as much of a die-hard conversationalist as I was. I remember one evening—we turned up at Mannan’s house on Green Road, with Rafiq Azad and Iqbal. We found the whole house lit up—it was Mannan’s sister’s wedding. Rafiq said, ‘Ostad, but we can’t miss the adda. Let Mannan handle the wedding, we’ll have our adda as usual. All we need is a room.’ That night, despite his busyness, Mannan joined us in adda until late at night.”

Among post-partition Bengali poets, Shaheed Quaderi holds a prominent place. He was one of those who brought into Bengali poetry the sensibility of urban life and modernity. He was born on 14 August 1942 at Park Circus in Kolkata. His childhood was spent in that city. Recalling those days, the poet said: “Even after Partition we stayed in Kolkata. Suddenly, my father passed away there. One of my paternal aunts lived in Dhaka—she would cry bitterly for us. There were frequent Hindu-Muslim riots in Kolkata then. My aunt worried constantly about us. In 1952, we finally moved to Dhaka.”

The riots of Kolkata wounded the poet deeply. From that pain he wrote a poem: “A girl tucked a soft red rose in her bun / On Kolkata’s sharpened pavements stabbed by knives / I saw in childhood, near a manhole / Beneath the breast an open wound gaping / Exactly like that red rose / And so today this soft red rose you gave me / Pierces my heart like a sharp icy knife.”

He could never forget Kolkata. The poet once reminisced, “At that time Kolkata was a modern city. We spoke English like members of the Anglo-Bengali society, we watched cowboy films. Cake and pastry shops were run by Dutch, English, German and French. We ate Swiss ice cream. I could go on and on about Kolkata. Even an ordinary person in Kolkata was cultured, their love and attachment to literature and the arts immense. I’ll give you one example. One day I was returning home from school. I saw a man selling books on the pavement. I picked one up and read aloud, ‘Les Miserable’. At once the bookseller corrected me: ‘Khoka, the name of the book is La Miserable.’ That was Kolkata.”

What was it like to leave that beloved city of Kolkata behind? The poet said, “It was heartbreaking. When I landed in Dhaka from Kolkata on the Ispahani Oriental Airlines, I felt I had entered a dark alley from a land of light. I had never seen boats in Kolkata. To see boats at Dhaka’s Sadarghat was a wonder to me. I was ten years old then. On the first day, seeing a sailing boat on the Buriganga left me astonished. Amazing! Could I see boats like this all my life in Dhaka? Every afternoon I would go to Sadarghat just to watch the boats. Then I would sit at River View Café, drink tea and eat chocolate biscuits, and return home by evening. There was a park there called Coronation Park. I used to sit there with a cousin of mine. That cousin has passed away.”

The poet believed that the greatest mistake of his life was leaving the country suddenly in 1978. He thought for a writer, abandoning one’s motherland was akin to suicide. The waves created by the daily flow of events in one’s homeland are vital for a writer to remain connected with. “I made a huge mistake in my life.” From that sorrow he wrote: “No exile is desirable anymore / From jasmine, chameli, chrysanthemum or frangipani / To tulip, magnolia or chrysanthemum / From one’s own city to unknown pavements / From the peacock-blue sky of Asia / To the foggy West / No, no exile is desirable anymore.”

Among his many poems of love, one of his most famous lines comes from his poem where the exuberance of passion is expressed: “Fear not / I shall arrange it so that the army / Carrying bunches of roses on their shoulders / will march past / and salute / only you, beloved...”

His life in exile began in 1978. At the age of just 11, in 1953, he wrote his first poem Parikrama, published in Spondon, edited by Mohiuddin Ahmad. At 25, in 1967, his first poetry collection Uttaradhikar (Inheritance) was published. Then in 1974 came Tomake Abhibadan Priyatama (Salutations to You, Beloved), in 1978 Kothao Kono Krondon Nei (Nowhere is There Any Weeping), and in 2009, poems written in exile were published in Amar Chumbongulo Pouchhe Dao (Deliver My Kisses).

On 28 August 2016, at 8:20am local time, the poet passed away at the age of 74 while under treatment at North Shore University Hospital, New York. On his death anniversary, our unbounded respect remains.

Shahadat Hossen Towhid: Writer and journalist