Of exotica and allure

Rummana Chowdhury

We all remember the luminescent lines of Shubhash Mukhopadhya, who wrote about the first day of Falgun:

"Flowers may bloom or not
Spring is here today"

Falgun is spring, February is Bashonto. And the season of festivals is upon us. And I received the book of poems written by Rummana Chowdhury during the first week of Falgun. I was reminded of the lines by Syed Badrul Ahsan as I read Rummana Chowdhury's book: 'Poetry is an ageless experience. There is about it a timelessness you cannot ignore'. I have read some of the previous books of poetry and other works  by Rummana Chowdhury, who is academically junior to me at Dhaka University, but was a celebrated student and sportswoman and is now a citizen of Canada.
There are twenty seven poems in this collection in Bangla and each of these poems is translated   into English on the converse page. There are specific statements about concrete emotions  Rummana rarely generalizes or resorts to abstractions  and yet they echo well beyond their given points of utterance. At their most intense, these twenty-seven poems convey all the exotica of the Bangla language and life and the allure of the English translation of the poems. To praise poets for their subjects is misguided. Many of them like Rummana have little choice in the matter. What poets do with their inheritances means everything. And Rummana's language has evolved from the imitations of Bangla poets into an instrument of marvelous flexibility: capable of grand, sweeping imagery but also of harsh interruptions and interjections. The combined effect is a verbal radiance of scenes illuminated by "the eternal sunshine". The myriad aspects of nature, exile, belonging are explored in ways both witty and moving. The voices of the outsider and the voices of those who believe they belong are juxtaposed in impassioned dialogues that continue to charm and mesmerize. Rummana's personal history is a lyrical ode to the poeta travelling adventurer, rebel and a writer.

Mahbub Husain Khan is a novelist and critic and has been a civil servant.