Selim Al Deen: A marvellous wordsmith

Let us begin the discussion on the wordsmith with a remark by a renowned novelist who in an interview once said, “Already, countless books have been written in the world. The whole world is now submerged in books. Even if we were to read a masterpiece every single day, we would not be able to finish all the masterpieces that have been written. In such a situation, if you wish to add another book to that mountain of books, I think you too must write a masterpiece. Otherwise, you must step forward to save the trees that are cut down to make paper.”

Selim Al Deen did not read this interview of that novelist. Because he passed away almost nine years before the interview was published in The New York Times Sunday Book Review. Even without reading it, he knew very well that over the past several centuries, the subjects upon which poets, storytellers, and playwrights have written poems, stories, novels, or plays—these very subjects had already been written about long ago by Vyasa, Homer, Valmiki, or Ferdowsi. They left the marks of their genius in their works of literature. All human sensibilities, perceptions, feelings, joys, sorrows, consciousness, grief, heat, lament—they embedded within their verses and narratives. Later writers too created literature on diverse subjects in diverse forms and languages. Selim Al Deen knew that in order to make himself distinct as a writer amidst this vast body of literature, he must write on subjects untouched by his predecessors. He must write in techniques not applied by them before. Otherwise, under the name of literary creation, it would only be repetition, only destruction of trees.

That is why, from “Keramatmangal” written in 1986 to “Chaka”, “Hargaj”, “Jaibati Konnyar Mon”, “Hathhodai”, “Prachya”, “Nimajjan”, “Bonopangshul”, “Swornoboal”, “Dhaboman”, and “Putra”, Selim Al Deen, in the truest sense, wrote masterpieces one after another. Readers or audiences may call these masterpieces plays, fiction, word-dramas or word-poems. There is no objection to such naming, and Selim Al Deen’s readers, audiences and every art connoisseur of the country will admit that. Because he believed that every art originates from the same source-point. Even if, emerging from that point, it branches into many streams, it is possible to unify those many streams into one through a skilful artistic unity—and he indeed showed this in his works. He named this artistic method the “theory of dual-dialectics.”

In an interview given to “Anand Alo” fortnightly, he said: “At first, when writing plays, I did not think much about form and structure. I simply wrote what came to mind. While writing Kirtankhola, I thought—why can a play not attain the depth of poetry? Why should it not have the expanse of a novel? To me, the linear European play began to feel tasteless. The European structure of dialogue after dialogue felt monotonous. The European theatre, burdened by subordination, seemed unacceptable to me. At that very moment, the timeless writers of my motherland appeared before me—sometimes Mukundaram, sometimes Shah Muhammad Sagir, sometimes Alaol or Sankardev of Assam. I sought to view the play as a complete literary work in the twin bond of poetry and novel. Later I expressed this as a theory of dual-dialectics. Dual-dialectics is essentially such an art in which there is the harmony of verse, the dynamism of the novel, and the sweetness of melody.”

It is worth noting that from the names he mentioned as timeless writers of his motherland, one can understand his geographical perception of motherland. From Mukundaram of Bardhaman (West Bengal) to Alaol of the Arakan royal court, he travelled to Sankardev of Assam. That is, he considered Greater Bengal or Undivided Bengal as his motherland. And in the pursuit of the ancient art traditions practised by the people of his motherland, he took a vow. His vow did not fail. In his hands emerged the golden harvest of art. For this reason, he was given the title “root-seeking playwright.” Much has already been said about his root-seeking, by many people over the years; there is nothing new to add. Rather, it can be said how his works became masterpieces.

The first of the main conditions for a work of literature to become a masterpiece is subject. Selim Al Deen was extremely conscious in selecting subjects. The subjects upon which art had already been created did not attract him. Reading his works mentioned above, it becomes clear that his predecessors or contemporaries had not written on such subjects. It was precisely because they had not written on them that these subjects attracted him.

Each of his works of literature has an exceptional, innovative, distinct, even unfamiliar subject. At the end of reading, the overwhelmed reader feels—such extraordinary creation could be made from such a subject! For instance, in the word-drama “Chaka”, the spiritual bond of two cart drivers with an unclaimed corpse, and ultimately the performance of its funeral rites by them—this heart-warming scene of the humanity of the marginalised contains in its depths the background of a mass uprising, the fall of a dictator, and the triumph of democracy. In that uprising, countless young men embraced death. Many of their names and addresses could not be found, so they were not even properly buried. By government order, two cart drivers carry away one such unclaimed corpse. The way Selim Al Deen artistically expanded imagination upon real context in “Chaka”, no contemporary writer had done. That is, they had not written on this subject. Precisely for that reason, it attracted him.

Or take “Hargaj”, written in 1989 in the context of a devastating storm that caused massive destruction in the village of “Hargaj” in Manikganj. It places us face-to-face with such a natural catastrophe that we feel stricken while reading. Even at the end of the twentieth century, in the face of nature’s primordial destructive force, the insecurity and helplessness of the marginalised due to inequality, the loss of shelter without protection, the extreme suffering—this symbolic presentation of the poverty of numerous rural areas of Bangladesh like “Hargaj” delivers a jolt to the secure life of the urban elite. As there had been no significant literary creation in Bengali literature centring that devastating storm of “Hargaj”, Selim Al Deen chose that context.

On the other hand, after reading “Swornoboal”, the reader feels that to make such a consummate literary creation on a fish as subject is possible only for a truly gifted writer. The central character of this narrative is a gigantic, invincible, golden-hued fish in the Chirli stream—a golden catfish. Likkot Majhi, the elder of Nikari Para, told the tale of this fish. In the passion for hunting this fish, Jonm Majhi, grandfather of Tirman, and his father Kholisha Majhi, both lost their lives. At the age of sixty, Jonm Majhi once hooked the elusive fish at dawn in the Beula Bill estuary while sitting in his small boat. But together with that small boat, the fish dragged him deep into the Chirli stream. This obsession with the golden catfish flowed in his son Kholisha’s blood too. Yet he also failed to capture the fish. But even in failure, at the point of death, he dreamt that his son Tirman would succeed. Listening to his father’s stories, Tirman too became obsessed with the fish. Thus, leaving his dying father behind, ignoring his mother’s prohibitions, on a stormy night at the beginning of Bhadra, he set out with a great hook to capture the golden catfish. This narrative is also entirely different from the current stream of Bengali literature. No other novel or play in Bengali has been written on such a scale with a fish as the main character.

Thus, from reading each of Selim Al Deen’s works, we can clearly see how conscious and adept he was in choosing subjects.

The second condition for a literary work to become a masterpiece is structure. Gabriel García Márquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera” is a love story, and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s “Devdas” too is a love story. Or, Atin Bandyopadhyay’s “Nilkantha Pakhi’r Khonje” is a Partition novel, while Mahmudul Haque’s “Kalo Borof” too can be called a Partition novel. The subject is the same, but because of structure, we can distinguish them: this is Márquez, this is Sarat, this is Atin, this is Mahmudul.

Regarding the structure of Selim Al Deen’s fiction, word-drama, or word-poem, it has already been said that he created literature in the dual-dialectical form. But within this form there is another style, one entirely indigenous, stemming from the ancient and medieval art traditions of Greater Bengal. While reading “The poet remembering dead relatives,” or “The poet praising the fatherland and recalling other matters” chapters at the beginning of “Dhaboman”, or the “Praise of the Ancestors” chapter at the beginning of “Swornoboal”, the reader is reminded of Dwija Kanai, Dwijobangshi Das, Chandra Bati, and others—the timeless writers of his motherland as Selim Al Deen said. Where European literary theory speaks of the absence of the writer in the work, Selim Al Deen himself appears within his works. Not only does he introduce himself, he also introduces his dead relatives and his fatherland, as his timeless predecessors did. His form is the form of the eternal tales of Undivided Bengal. By incorporating the ancient and medieval forms of Bengal, he created a form entirely his own, one that cannot be assimilated into any other form. That is, he revolted against the contemporary literary tradition. That revolt gave him his unique brilliance.

The third condition for a literary work to become a masterpiece is language. That Selim Al Deen’s language does not match that of his predecessors, contemporaries, or successors, needs no saying. A gifted artist is never loyal to contemporary linguistic norms—nor was Selim Al Deen. In his works, he left no trace of conventional language patterns, but instead created his own linguistic mode. Reading his aforementioned word-dramas and fictions, we see how unparalleled he was in language-building.

The subject of style reminds me Jean-Paul Sartre’s words in an interview taken by Michel Contat and published in The American Book Review. Sartre said, “At present, many young people do not bother much about style. They think one should simply say whatever one wishes to say. To me, style—which does not exclude simplicity but rather the opposite—is saying three or four things together in one. Just as a simple sentence has a direct meaning, at the same time beneath that direct meaning lie other meanings. If one fails to bring forth this multiplicity of meanings in language, it is better not to go through the pain of writing at all.”

In Selim Al Deen’s works we find a profusion of polysemous sentences, where along with Sartre’s “direct meaning” lie hidden several other meanings. For instance, one sentence from “Hargaj” is: “If the storm is blind, then why did it not make a mistake with the cooking pot?” The sentence is simple, yet its interpretation is not fluid. Another meaning lies within it. In that devastating storm of “Hargaj”, even birds did not escape, countless perished. The rescue team from the city, upon arriving at the devastated village, found two dead sparrows lying flat inside a cooking pot. The sparrows could have fallen on the ground, or into a pond, or beneath a broken roof. Yet they were found in a cooking pot. How did the storm know this was a pot? The storm is blind. Its nature is to rush blindly without seeing, without distinguishing. Yet that blind storm placed the sparrows in a cooking pot! The reader wonders—is the storm truly blind? Or did Selim Al Deen, the animist, wish to portray even the storm as alive? That is, one sentence simultaneously contains both direct and indirect meanings. He did not explain that latent meaning, leaving it in the form of a question to the reader.

Similarly, in “Prachya”, one sentence is: “Which then will be separate from what?”—a question from Soiforchand. The sentence carries multiple meanings at once. Here, man and nature merge into unity. That is, man cannot be separated from non-human creatures. To destroy nature is not man’s victory. By annihilating non-human creatures, man invites his own annihilation. Man is not a solitary being, he cannot survive alone; he needs the sea, rivers, mountains, trees, moon, sun, and all non-human beings. If he tries to survive excluding these, his existence will be endangered. But man fails to realise this. Soiforchand did. He realised that man needs trees. He needs snakes too. For snakes are also earth-piercing and part of nature. It is impossible to preserve human existence by isolating nature. Man and nature are not separate from one another, but complementary. Hence Soiforchand’s anguished cry: “Which then will be separate from what?”

In “Swornoboal”, during “Hunting Episode–2,” Tirman, in meditative concentration while fishing at night in Beula Bill, sees the forefathers of Nikari Para, who still float boats in the Chirli stream hoping to catch the golden catfish. Across the river, even the dead Jonm Majhi has come that night to hunt. Tirman cannot understand who they are. He knew his grandfather Jonm, his uncle Obin, and his father Kholisha had lured him into the hunt. But who are these other fishermen, lined up in the deep night? He calls, “Hey, salaam! When did you come?” One of them replies, “For so long we’ve been sitting with rods cast. We vanish by day, return by night. Sitting, we’re sitting, son, sitting we are...”

Directly, it may seem to the reader that these are the ancestors of Nikari Para who have been sitting in hope of catching the golden catfish. But some readers may sense another meaning—that no, they are not from Nikari Para, but the ancient artists of art: Vyasa, Homer, Valmiki, Bhasa, Kalidasa, Ferdowsi. They too had sought to capture such an invincible art, as symbolised by the golden catfish. For the narrator hinted at this in the beginning, in the “Praise of the Ancestors” chapter:

“Ah, Ferdowsi, in a thousand years of wandering afar, suddenly you were startled to see at your feet the old, tattered blue flag of the Persian battlefield. From it, hearing the cries of bloodthirsty men and songs of dust, you reduced the emperors’ victory-odes to dust. Around your wine cup were your friends. You cast the joys of youth upon your hook into the immortal ocean of art. The gold you did not find, yet, O hunter of the golden catfish, this truth you grasped—that in your work were woven the paths of stars and planets. Long after, just a few more gathered the immortal signs of mortal man. Those hunters of the golden catfish stood against the accident of history. Some of them were Krittibas, some Tolstoy, some Alaol, and some named Madhusudan.”

Selim Al Deen’s literary language is polysemous and animated. Animated language speaks to the reader, walks alongside, runs with them. This language is not artificially made, but spontaneous—without hesitation, without doubt, without stiffness. This language is dynamic, vibrant, wild as an upstream current. This language desires to break conventional grammar. This language carries a wondrous intoxication, making the reader enraptured. In this animated language there is music—the sweetness of which Selim Al Deen himself spoke. The waves of that music stir the reader’s heart. At the same time, this language is inherently grave, powerfully individual. Its folds must be opened, discovered gradually. This language is like an oyster in the deep ocean, hiding a pearl inside. Or like a diamond deep within the earth. One must dig to bring it forth. Digging does not exhaust the reader, but rather excites them with discovery and fills them with joy of attainment.

The writer who can make his literary language simultaneously melodious, alive, and full of personality is a great writer. Such a one we call a craftsman of language, a craftsman of words. Selim Al Deen was such a skilful wordsmith, a rebel against conventional forms, who created literature out of words, in which he immersed us—and will continue to do so. On his birthday, we offer countless salutations to this marvellous wordsmith.

Swakrito Noman: Fiction writer