The passing of an icon
Sunil Gangopadhyay, poet, story-teller, novelist, playwright and essayist, died at his South Kolkata residence from a massive heart attack in the early hours of October 23, 2012. It was the Nabami of Durga Puja. His wife Swati Ganguly was beside him. Their only son Souvik was in Boston. He came home to perform the last rites on Thursday, October 25.
Sunil Ganguly turned 78 on September 12, 2012. What a coincidence that he died on the birthday of his great friend Shamsur Rahman! Sunil was a great friend of Bangladesh too and was born in Maijhati in Kalkini of Madaripur. He always missed his birthplace and visited the area several times in the recent past. He was quite healthy and never had any serious illness. His death came as a shock to his admirers.
Sunil Gangopadhyay was one of the finest all-rounders of Bangla literature after Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam and Buddhadev Bose. Like Bose, he was working on the Mahabharata before his death. He was one of the best living poets of Bengal and one of the best writers of fiction. He had been President of the Sahitya Academy since February 20, 2008. Earlier, he was its Vice Prsident for five years. Humble and down to earth, he was secular to the core of his heart. He was Muslim-friendly and minority-friendly. He was affectionate and kind and a guardian of young writers. He also wrote under the pen names of Neellohit, Sonaton Pathak and Neel Upadhyay. Neellohit's novels are about an imaginative twenty-seven-year-old who never grows older. As Sonaton Pathak, he wrote an excellent literary column on writers and books in Desh, the famous weekly, in the early seventies. . His Neera poems inspired several generations of Bengali readers. He always considered poetry his first love.
It was immediately after liberation that we came to know about him and read him a lot. I even liked his name. His simple, attractive prose made him a favourite writer of many. His world view was very modern and liberal. He was a humanist. Eka Ebong Koekjan, his epic novel, was well-liked by us as it appeared serially in Desh. Later he wrote his historical masterpieces, Shei Shomoy, Purba Pashchim and Prothom Alo. They became best-sellers and brought him many awards. Shakti Chattopadhyay and he were the most popular Kolkata poets after Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam and Jibanananda Das. He and Shirshendu Mukherjee were the most popular novelists of Kolkata. He visited Bangladesh often. He also went to Europe and the USA. The Bangla-speaking world admired him as a writer. Hard work brought him fame and money.
He was a prolific writer and authored nearly two hundred and fifty books. He was the founder-editor of Krittibas, an influential poetry magazine that became a platform for a new generation of poets, experimenting with new forms. Sunil wrote travelogues and the 'Kakababu' series of detective fiction. His first poem was written as a seventeen-year-old. His first novel was Atmaprakash, published in the Puja issue of Desh in 1965. Two of his novels were turned by Satyajit Ray into films. He won the Sahitya Academy Award, the Ananda Purashkar (twice), the Bankim Purashkar and The Hindu Literary prize. Writers Amitav Ghosh, Shirshendu Mukherjee and Abul Bashar mourned his death. So did poet Nirendranath Chakrabortty and fiction writer Samaresh Mazumder. Nabaneeta Dev Sen and Shankha Ghosh rushed to his residence after getting the news of his passing away. The literature-loving Bengali President of India condoled his death and eulogized him. So did the President and the Prime Minister of Bangladesh and the Chief Minister of West Bengal.
It was true that Sunil Gangopadhyay was a rightist like Buddhadev Bose. As in the case of TS Eliot and Buddhadev Bose, people I admire a lot, I would prefer to ignore his political belief. It is true that Shamsur Rahman or even Shakti Chattopadhyay and Al Mahmud are better poets. But he had the breadth of mind to admit that. It is true that he could not author a novel like Putul Nacher Itikatha or Padma Nadir Majhi. He was no Manik Bandopadhyay. Nor was he even as powerful a writer of fiction as the recently expired Syed Mustafa Seraj. His epic novels are best sellers and extensive works but not very deep. But Sunil Gangopadhyay was brilliant in his own way, had a wonderful prose and understood young people well. Therein lay his popularity.
And he was liberal, broad-minded and down to earth. A crazy student leader friend of mine once told him point blank during our DU days that Junaidul Haque was a serious student of literature and a young writer and he felt that half of his (Sunil's) novels were not very good, were not worth reading! (I was very shocked at my friend's behaviour). Now those were the days when Sunil Gangopadhyay would be surrounded in Dhaka by admirers like Humayun Ahmed, Imdadul Huq Milon, Afzal Hossain and many others. Youngsters here loved him. Any writer of his stature would turn my student leader friend out of the room. But not Sunil. He just smiled and said, 'Tell Junaid to read my good novels only. The bad ones are not for him.' That was the essential Sunil for you --- liberal, smart and ready for any situation. It gave me great pleasure to learn later that both Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, my favourite, and Sunil Gangopadhyay liked my literary column, Pogor Journal.
How shall I and his millions of admirers remember Sunil Gangopadhyay in the future? As a poet of rare merit who wrote many memorable poems, poems which became very popular; as a literary organiser of brilliance, as the editor of Krittibas; as the spearhead of a movement of modern Bangla poetry. Allen Ginsberg liked him exactly because of that. As a powerful writer of ficton with a smart, racy, attractive prose well-liked by his admirers. As a writer of a few good epic novels. Brilliant epic novels like Eka Ebong Koekjan and Purba Paschim. Brilliant short novels like Arjun. Wonderful travelogues, detective novels and honest, brave literary criticism. As a warm and kind man who loved Bangladesh, the land of his birth, from the core of his heart.
It was Sunil Gangopadhyay who made West Bengal observe Ekushey February. It was Sunil Gangopadhyay who sincerely believed that Dhaka would be the future capital of Bangla literature. His death proved his belief. Dhaka mourned his death much more than Kolkata. His son acknowledged the love of Dhaka with gratitude.
Rest in peace, well-loved Sunil Gangopadhyay. We shall miss you for a long time. You were unique, with a new style, both in prose and poetry.
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