Death of a poet
A stone I died and rose again a plant;
A plant I died and rose an animal;
I died an animal and was born a man.
Why should I fear? What have I lost by death?
Many of you perhaps know these verses by the 13th century mystic poet, the one and only Mawlana Jalal Uddin Rumi. His poetry or philosophy I could easily have copied and pasted from online or other sources, but that won't be necessary.
My intention here is something different. I have a story to tell about this four-line poem. Believe it or not, my story has no link with mysticism, Persian literature or Sufi poetry. It's about a teenage boy of Narayanganj -- the boy who was found dead in the Shitalakkhya. It was in March 2013.
Rings a bell? Yes, he is Tanvir Mahmood Taqi. You now know him. You have seen his photos – with big, round, curious eyes – in newspapers.
Soon after the recovery of his body, a notebook from his study became public. It contained some English and Bengali poems, essays, some mathematical equations and theories of physics. A Facebook page called "Santras Nirmul Taqi Mancha" published some of his Bengali poems unedited, later to be republished by an activist magazine called "Rasta".
Following is one of his poems, without any translation:
Here Taqi, not yet beyond his teen, sings of eternal change and rebirth: from a stone to a plant; from a plant to an animal and finally to a human being.
It was as if Dylan Thomas reflecting on the theme of regeneration:
This bread I break was once the oat,
This wine upon a foreign tree
Plunged in its fruit;
Man in the day or wine at night
Laid the crops low, broke the grape's joy.
And our young poet Taqi vigorously asks – why fear death? As if death was a celebration, a thing to be happy about. It's amazingly similar to Rumi's declaration: Why should I fear? What have I lost by death?
The little boy didn't fear death but he had to face it, a little too early, at 17.
I was part of the activist magazine, Rasta, but because of my little knowledge about poetry I didn't know that Rumi had a poem on the same theme. There was no question of my being curious about the source or the inspiration of Taqi's poem.
I was just speechless. Reading those poems, I became his fan. I didn't find Rumi's poem "The Stone I Died" until a well-wisher and patron of our magazine told me about it.
Did Taqi ever read Rumi? I didn't know but his father says he did. He had a passion for Sufism as well as classical and folk music.
But why am I asking this? Does it matter? To me or to you? It's been two years since his killing but we've yet to see anyone brought to justice.
Perhaps, it doesn't matter altogether. Death of a young poet is nothing that can move this society. More poems will be written by more poets who would be born and dead. And we will forget Taqi, who could have become our Dylan Thomas or Rumi.
Let's bring an end to this article. But let's have a few more lines from Taqi:
In his poem, called Prottaborton (Return), Taqi sought to "die a man another time". He died a man, but at the hands of something other than man.
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