Why did he write? What made him write? The answer to the question that readily comes to mind is -- he wrote because he couldn't help doing so, even when he was past seventy. The family he grew up in was quite a large one. None of the members of his family ever thought of doing any creative writing. He was the single exception, and he wrote without any premeditation. None of his elders ever asked him to do any writing outside his schoolwork. And this includes his parents and his teachers. Rather, he faced some opposition when he wrote something on his own. Far from any encouragement, all he got from his father was total disapproval. However, he refused to be disheartened and kept up his spirit.

When he was in class seven, a one-year-old sister of his, Nahar, died after a brief but fatal attack of smallpox. He loved his little sister very much. Whenever he picked her up or took her to the fields he tried to please her by putting his pencil into her hands. Two or three days after her death he wrote a small prose piece on her. Just felt a sudden urge to write. That expression of a very personal feeling made him write his original piece. He cannot claim any literary merit for it. After this a few years rolled by. Prose or verse, nothing came out from his pen during the period, apart from classroom tasks.

A few days after he had stepped into the grounds of Dhaka University, it was a noon darkened by monsoon clouds. He just managed to write a poem: an act of pure impulse. Without any preparation, no forethought preceded it. The weather must have produced a feeling of dejection. Any particular reason for this change? Actually he just wanted some relief from the sadness that had engulfed his mind. There is a feeling of joy once your thoughts take shape in words. Once the shape assumes a body beautiful, the writer feels fulfilled.

When he started writing, there was no thought whatever that it would do any good to his country or his people, that it would change men for the better or that it would be a force for social change. Had it been so, he might as well have put his paper under the pillow or the mattress. True, at the time he was deeply grossed in writing, adding lines upon lines. When he finished, he look for readers. He even looked for appreciation.

However, to come back to the question of why he wrote, what made him write? Whatever he experienced he wished to share with others. His experience was derived from two sources -- his reading and his living of his own life. His writings are the result of his endeavour to articulate his experiences. The value of the experience of life outweighs that of reading, but the latter has its own claim to be counted. The world of books is like the house of a liberal teacher with a capacious mind. Here we can, and do, pick up lessons, both necessary and useful for us. Our outlook on life is transformed. Creative literature teaches us how to be makers of truth. Behind a person's work as a writer are the two urges: the urge for self-expression and the urge to pursue truth that allows no rest to the pursuer.

To pursue truth! The words are easier said than done. One can have a vision of truth only through discovering one's true self. To attain this one needs to traverse many levels of consciousness. Many of us never come to see truth after long wanderings. A few do. The crucifier did not wait a moment to see truth as he lifted Jesus on to the crucifix. A writer's journey is as arduous as a saint's in this life-long pursuit of truth.

For some, a literary work is a higher form of life's playfulness. But this is no common play. This is a play involving a deeper, and higher, level of intellect. Literature is not a part-time endeavour. It needs total commitment. Literature claims self-sacrifice, total dedication, and unremitting labour.

One who commits himself to literature has two resources to draw on -- ideas and words. There can be no communication without the aid of words, of language. It is possible to convey some feelings with the help of gestures but to communicate one's thoughts, however simple they may be, one needs sharp, crystal-clear, meaningful words. There is no other way.

Shamsur Rahman had an understanding of this simple truth when he first took to writing. Each and every word has its own colour, its own tone. The sentence that he composed with words, his experience tells him, presents him a picture, makes music for his ears. With words as my support, he at times takes a walk along mountain paths, at times on moonlit nights, close to woodland, and fixes his eyes on the soulful eyes of a deer. At times he becomes the lone inhabitant of an island, at times he flies on his wings in the air, staying away from the sun lest his wings melt away. At other times, he sees himself among miners, deep underground.

I have said earlier that for a writer to be able to write, his one resource is the depth of his experience. For a poet, his true love, as Reiner Maria Rilke said, is his childhood. A poet can always pick up some gems from there. An elderly poet finds a wider field of experience since he has already left his childhood and youth behind. Many things had happened in his life.

He met many people, he found many friends, had been fortunate in respect of the warmth and kindness of many that had come his way. He had seen bloody riots, seen the ugly face of communalism, famine, loss of dear ones, partition of his country, floods and cyclones, language movement, mass uprising, the arrogance of military rulers, the unique non-cooperation movement under the leadership of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, genocide, the resistance of the Bengalis, the War of Liberation, the birth of Bangladesh, the inhuman killing of August 1975, the black phases of army rule, peoples' uprising, restoration of democracy, all crowding his memory.

In his experience, alongside events very personal to him, many national and international events had occurred, and I think these, quite naturally and logically, had cast their shadow on his works in the different phases of his poetic life. His life and work had always been closely linked with each other and he had always regarded his writing as an art, never a propaganda piece. He had always kept in mind that no creative work can eschew the quality of art.

Shamsur Rahman was a humble practitioner of Bengali poetry who had been lavishly rewarded by the poetry-lovers of the land, and bestowed with many literary prizes. He received the Bangla Academy Prize as well as state awards like Ekushey Padak and Independence Award. He received Honourary D. Litt degrees from Rabindra Bharati University, Shantiniketan, and Jadavpur University of Kolkata, as well as North Bengal University of West Bengal. He had written over sixty books of poems, three books of literary essays, one memoir for young readers, four books of rhymes, and five novels and short story collections.