The burden of a name - a book review

Syed Shamsul Haq is unquestionably a pre-eminent intellectual personality in Bangladesh. He is a writer, playwright, poet and critic all rolled into one. He has won numerous awards for his writing at home and abroad, including the Bangla Academy Award and Ekushe Padak, two of the most prestigious accolades in Bangladesh. His writing career has earned him the honorific “ambidextrous writer”, meaning someone who can work with both his hands. Haq has been one of the most prolific writers of recent times in the field of literature for more than fifty years now. A number of his plays and novels have been translated in many different languages.The Blue Sting is a novella by Syed Shamsul Haq and translated by Kabir Chowdhury, a scholar of repute and translator. The slim book has a heavy message to convey. It is about a man named Kazi Nazrul Islam, a name that gets the Pakistani army into believing that the owner of the name is the famous Bengali poet Kazi Nazrul Islam. The whole novella is about Nazrul Islam's ordeal in an interrogation cell of a jail. The writer aptly shows the feeling of an innocent man as he is taken in by the soldiers. It is about how he tries to explain that his similarity with the rebel poet Kazi Nazrul Islam and himself ends in their names and the fact they are both originally from Burdwan. But his explanation does not satisfy his tormentors. They persist in torturing him with all their hideous methods, hoping that he will somehow reveal his identity. They keep him without food and water and finally treat him with water therapy. As they do not get any results, their anger rises and they beat him to a pulp and leave him unconscious. Finally they bury him alive. A significant aspect of the book is that the cruelty of the Pakistani army is dealt with remarkable dexterity. The other, of course, is the irony of the protagonist being the namesake of a reputed poet. Readers are liable to be shocked by the vivid descriptions of the atrocities committed by Pakistan's soldiers. The tale also shows how helpless one might feel in the kind of situation Nazrul is in. It is also noteworthy that the army has no knowledge about the famous poet and his whereabouts. This bit of information could be vital for Kazi Nazrul Islam's fate as he bears that famous name. The protagonist's predicament also provides glimpses of the situation in Dhaka during the War of Liberation. People having no connection with politics also become active during that period and attend the public rally where Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman delivers his stirring address. And they witness the birth of a new nation that has long been manipulated by foreign forces. The narrative is in tune with the realistic. The easy language of the questioners and the detainee make the book a comfortable read. It is quite enjoyable other than the fact that the description of the punishment meted out to the protagonist can make the reader feeling rather disturbed. The author dexterously portrays the psychology, the state of mind of the protagonist. But, as in most translated Bengali works, some English phrases sound unusual. The book has been segmented into eleven short chapters and can easily be a page-turner. It is one of Syed Haq's most well-known works and so it is commendable that Professor Kabir Chowdhury took it up for translation. The book is dedicated to Ruby Rahman and to the memory of her late husband Nurul Islam.

Jackie Kabir is a teacher and critic