Akhtaruzzaman
Elias Intermingles
Dreams,
Myths and Realities
Akhtaruzzaman Elias
(1943-1997) wrote only two novels - Chilekothar Sepai (The Soldier in an Attic, 1986) and Khoabnama (Dream Epic, 1996) but he has created a permanent place
in the history of Bangla novels. In the context of the
novels of Bangladesh, he is possibly the second person
highest acclaimed after Syed Waliullah (1922-1971) both
of whom wrote the least (Waliullah wrote only there
novels) and with their small numbers could win the
majority readership of Bangla language with their
creativity and their novelty.
Akhtaruzzaman Elias started his literary career with the
volume of short stories Anya Ghore Anya Swar in
1976, though before it his Chilekothar Sepai began to be published serially in a national daily. By
then he came in limelight as a serious and committed
fiction writer. In 1982 his another volume of short
stories Khoanri was published. His literary
creation got an official acclamation when in the year
1983 he was honoured with the Bangla Academy Literary
Award. After two years his third volume of short stories Dudh Bhate Utpat came into light in 1985. The
year 1987 accorded Elias with the Alawol Literary Award.
In 1989 his fourth volume of short stories Dhojokher
Om was brought out. During the last months of 1995
he felt very sick which resulted the detection of cancer
in the right leg. On March 20, 1996, he had to undergo
an operation on his leg, which was later on cut off from
his body. The authority of Ananda Award of Kolkata felt
honoured to award Elias for his great novel Khoabnama in April of the same year. On January 04, 1997 Elias
died. Jaal Swapno, Swapner Jaal, a collection of
stories and Sanskritir Bhanga Setu, a collection
of essays were published posthumously in the same year
of his death.
It is worthy to mention that Chilekothar Sepai evolves from the time before the liberation - when the
upsurge of the mass movement raged through the whole
Bangali nation. Some ten years after the publication of Chilekothar Sepai, Khoabnama came out
where the context of the time of the novel is set before
the pre-partition period of the sub-continent. The
center of Chilekothar Sepai is Dhaka, the then
provincial capital, while Khoabnama takes its
root near the places of Pabna-Poradaha, which is very
near to Elias’ native district Bogra. It is known that
before his death, he was wandering over a plot for
another novel, that, he planned, would take the ancient
Bogra i.e. Pundranagar as its set and the
thousand-year-old history of Bogra as its theme. Elias
could not be able to make his dream a reality, but we
can realize his power to portray the reality in dream
for which Khoabnama is an outstanding example.
Khoabnama is a novel about real history - history
of the time of ‘Tebhaga’ that tormented and elevated the
revolutionary Bangali nation during the second half of
the forties of the twentieth century. But before its
climax, the division of Pakistan and India, which was
later on unanimously acknowledged as a result of
political selfishness, shattered the long-felt dream of
the mass people. The question of Pakistan-India division
created a deep-rooted clift in the relationship of the Hindu-Muslim
communal harmony. Like the other states of undivided
India, Bangla also experienced a harsh time of communal
riot - that commenced first in Kolkata and afterwards
spread throughout all the parts of Bangla. Huge
bloodshed and migration were the usual consequences of
the whole incident. Akhtaruzzaman Elias has delineated
this infamous time with his mighty pen. Through the
story of different families and communities of the
locality he has manipulated his ideals.
But it may be easily imagined that Elias does not
narrate the story - though the existence of any story in Khoabnama is not beyond question. The novel opens
with Tamijer Bap (Father of Tamij - his real name is
never exposed) and in the very first paragraph the myths
related to Tomijer Bap and Munshi Boytullah Shah and the
nearly locality come forth. Tamijer Bap lives a
mysterious life and socially he is believed to be a
mysterious man also. When the story says that Hundreds
of years before Boytullah Shah fought with British
soldiers on his way to Mahasthan, the intermingle of
history with the myth is created. In the inter-weaving
of history and myth, the presence of reality is also
felt. We get the description of the villages, their
people and geography, their modes of life also.
Throughout the whole novel this blending of myth,
history and reality takes the upper hand.
In the novel Tamij may be considered as a significant
character who shares most of the incidents of Khoabnama indirectly or directly, familially or
socially. We have talked about the mythical inheritance
of Tamij’s father earlier, but Tamij’s step mother
Kulsum, at the same age of Tamij, does also inherit some
uncommon heritage. Kulsum’s grand father Cherag Ali was
believed to have some mysterious power. Cherag Ali’s
main treasure was the traditional Puthi ‘Khoabnama’ that
could tell the meaning of dreams. Cherag Ali passed away
long before, and resultantly ‘Khoabnama’ is now in
possession of Kulsum. Thus Tamij is the member of such a
family tradition in which the other two members are
never cent percent normal. With such an unreal and
dream-like time the story opens when due to the Second
World War prices of all commodities are going up rapidly
and the effects of it are touching even the agrarian
village life. Famine and massacre of hundreds of
thousands of people are the two common results of that
War. Before settling down in a peaceful situation the
Tebhaga movement starts. Tamij and many of his fellow
men are inspired by this movement but the unfortunate
incidents like Hindu-Muslims riot and Separation of
India cause meteoric change in their belief and deeds.
And thus true dreams of the common people of this sail
again get shattered. Thus Akhtaruzzaman Elias presents
the shattering of dreams through his dream-like
delineation.
The role of Hindu-Muslim riot deserves immense
significant in the novel. The riot first started in
August 1946 in Kolkata. The huge killing of Muslim
people there by the Hindu miscreants enkindle similar
heinous incidents on the Hindus by the Muslim people.
Even the remote villages can not be saved from this
flare. The Hindu-Muslim communal harmony for hundreds of
years faces a irreparable havoc. Before Khoabnama Bangla
novel had a very small number of instances in which the
representation of Hindu-Muslim riot and the
interpretation could satisfy the readership. Probably no
Bangla novel has been written that can be a counterpart
to Krishan Chandar’s Gaddar or Kushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan. Even Riot by Shahi
Tharoor is also a worthwhile example in terms of
communal disharmony. But the sorry saga is though
hundreds of thousands of innocent people were killed in
this part of Bangla only on religious dogmatism. Only a
few writers came forth to write novels on this issue.
Significant Bangla-language novels on riot are probably
Manik Bandopadhyay’s (1908-1956) Swadhinatar Swad (1951) and Narayan Sanyal’s (1918-1970) Lalmati (1951), Abujafar Shamsuddin’s (1911-1989) Padma
Meghna Jamuna (1974). Shaukat Osman’s (1917-1998) Janani (1958), Ashim Roy’s (1927-1978) Ekaler
Kotha (1953) or Shahidulla Kaisar’s (1927-1971) Sangsaptak (1965) give only a flick of the whole
incident.
While the movement and motivation for an independent
nation like Pakistan is becoming widespread, the Anandabazar Patrika creates a great hue and cry in
Mukunda Saha’s shop . The mischievous news tells that
the Muslims are killing the Hindus in Kolkata. If also
says that Suhrawardy himself has come out of his house
with a pistol to kill the Hindus. But when Baikuntha, an
employee at Mukunda Saha’s shop who was also a close one
to Kader, the pro-Pakistan local leader, visits Kader’s
shop hears the news of the death of Kader’s elder
brother Aziz’s brother-in-law Ahsan Ali by the Hindus in
Kolkata. Thus the incident of Kolkata spreads with
manifold interpretation across the villages also.
Meanwhile the agitated mob of Majhi Para (fishing
community) try to attack the Kachhari (local office) of
the Zamindar. Elias does not hesitate to explore the
inner causes of such incidents. Leaders of the uprising
middle class people instigate and lead the common folk.
The common people get no return from these incidents but
the provokers are benefited hugely. In such an
occurrence Dasharath of Kamarpara succumbs death. After
some days when Afsar Majhi, who set the house of
Dasharath on fire, goes to Kamarpara secretly, he is
attacked by them and killed inhumanly.
Refuge-problem is another consequence of the partition
of India. Khoabnama also treats the sufferings
and agonies of the refuges much meticulously. Abdul Aziz
buys the house of Kartik Bhaduri in the town. The
inscriptions of ‘Om’ or ‘Sree Sankaralaya’ on the house
door declare its recent history very clearly but
silently. In an event Niren Lahiri, among many of
Babar’s (Aziz’s son) school teachers, was present. On
the spur of the moment, we can know that Niren is a
nephew of Kartik Bhaduri. When Niren sighs for his
Pishima (paternal aunt), suddenly a loud cry is heard
outside ‘the house of the Bose’s is being looted’, and
at the same time we can hear the lamentations of Aziz’s
mad wife, who has lost her normalcy after hearing her
brother’s killing in Kolkata.
We must admit that Khoabnama is not a novel of
Tebhaga movement, rather it has only the shade of that
momentous event that occurred around the year 1946 and
ended in 1950. We observe in the novel the appearance of
the communist leaders of that movement in the village
and bazaar areas of our novel as they appear again
during the Hindu-Muslim riot. We know that Tamij i.e.
the protagonist of the novel as well as his fellow mates
had dreamt of Tebhaga but as is usual none of their
dreams meet any success. In the last part of the book
when Tamij is an absconder he leaves the company of the
family of Abdul Aziz. Without any prior information he
takes a train bound for Santahar from where he gets the
train for Hilly or Jaydebpur or Takurgaon and thus the
story of Tamij ends in dreams - the dreams of a family
where he is an human being, more over where he is a
husband of Fuljan, a father of his daughter. But we
cannot but mention here that the bright hopes that we
observe are only in Tamij’s dream, in the outward world
there were only oppression by the police of the newly
liberated country Pakistan. The same treatment of the
police may be observed in the interior villages also
where Tahsen and his cops are only the instruments of
Kalam Majhi in trespassing Kulsum’s house, in acquiring
other people’s possessions.
The uprising of the Muslim society is also an striking
aspect of Khoabnama. Kader, or his brother Abdul
Aziz or their father Sharafat Mandal is the
representation of that sect of the society. On the other
hand Kalam Majhi and his police officer-son Tahsen are
also the pioneers of this change. But the characteristic
feature of both the groups is they do show the same
aggressive attitude towards the property left by the
Hindus as well as the property possessed by the
insolvent village people. The conflict is not only
between Hindus and Muslims but also the haves and the
have-nots. Due to these conflicts the nearby town is
soon crowded with Muslim migrants flooding from India.
They lost everything they had. The case of Tamij, though
a Muslim and a settler of this region, is no better than
those Muslim Mohazers. He also loses everything - his
father loses his good fame as a religious person, and at
last in dire hopelessness he dies, his stepmother Kulsum
loses her security and homestead and later on losing her
chastity she is killed. Tamij himself loses his right to
live in his community. To grasp Tamij’s homestead and
stepmother, Kalam Majhi traps different plots and last
of all sues a case against Tamij which compels him to
leave his home and even the village.
Regarding the techniques adapted in Khoabnama the
term ‘magic realism’ is very often quoted. It is well
known that this Latin American technique is a popular
trend in the literatures of Europe and America. In Bangladesh,
it has also been hailed as an unprecedented means. The
main characteristic features that are related with magic
realism are ‘mingling and juxtaposition of the realistic
and the fantastic’, ‘skilful time shifts’, ‘labyrinthine
narratives and plots’ and ‘miscellaneous use of dreams,
myths and fairy stories’. ‘Expressionistic and surrealistic
description’ is also considered as an inseparable element
of this trend. If we look into the last two novels of Syed Waliullah we
will feel the expressionistic and surrealistic description.
Both in Chander Amabashya (1964) and Kando
Nodi Kando (1968) Syed Waliullah has used this device
and in the later one ‘skillful time shifting’ may also
be observed. Later on in the eighties of the last century
the Bangladeshi novelist who emerged with a tremendous
authority over this narratology is Shahidul
Zahir (b 1953). Shahidul Zahir’s Jibon O Rajnoitik
Bastobota (1987) was his first but successful effort.
His second and till now last novel She Rate Purnima
Chhilo (1995) is also a worthwhile instance. Another
novelist Nasreen Jahan (b 1964) is also a significant one in the trend. In
her second novel Chandrer Prothom Kola (1994)
she began to manipulate it but her third novel Chandralekhar
Jaadubistar (1995) made her a significant writer
in this arena. Akhtaruzzaman Elias, much senior to Shahidul
Zahir and Nasreen Jahan, exercised magic realism is Khoabnama abundantly. Earlier we have talked
about myths and history. Now we will try to locate the
dream-elements in the novel and see how skillfully Elias
has exercised them in Khoabnama.
From the very beginning of the novel, we observe the use
of dreams in Khoabnama hugely and abruptly. Among
all the characters Kulsum dreams most of the dreams. The
first appearance of Kulsum is also in a dream. Dreams
are very common in her nature. Her affinity to dreams is
made usual by her possession of the mysterious book
‘Khoabnama’ that she inherited from her grandfather.
Sometimes fairy elements are also intermingled with
them. Stories about Kathlahar Bil, and the concerned
people are no less indispensable than fairy elements. As
they are fairy and dreamlike, the writer has integrated
the impossible and the possible through them.
The most impossible incident in the novel is Tamij’s
physical relation with Kulsum and that has happened
right after the death of Tamij’s father. Their subdued
passion got some tongue inwardly very often in previous
time but after the death of Tamij’s father and after
Tamij’s release from the jail, their subdued passion is
gratified in a dream. There are other people also who
possesses affinity towards Kulsum. Keramat Ali, the
husband of Fuljan but who does not live with the family
now and roams through the villages and composes and
sings songs has a very deep-rooted liking for Kulsum.
The origin of his desire is caused from the long
heritage of Kulsum. Moreover the book of Cherag Ali is
an attraction for him. Because he believes that book is
the inspirator of all his songs. He thinks if he
misses the blessing of Cherag Ali, he will lose his
power to compose songs. The other person who relishes a
carnival desire for Kulsum is Kalam Majhi. Kalam Majhi
appears before her as a saviour but her real attitude is
not unexposed to Kulsum to the end, though not to other
people till the end.
The cruelest incident in which Kulsum was killed was
also a dream, which occurred near the end of the novel.
Kamal Majhi enters the house of Kulsum at noon, as at
night he fails to come close to her because she stays at
Kalam Majhi’s house at night where Kalam’s nephew
Budha’s wife always remains near Kulsum’s bed. The
pseudo-well-wisher Kalam has done this arrangement for
Kulsum because how could Kulsum stay in her own house
alone as her husband is dead and her son Tamij is an
absconder. So Kalam enters her house at noon. He tries
to rape Kulsum there and at last in a very mysterious
series of incidents Kulsum is killed. At first Kalam
sees Keramat Ali at the door and mistakenly recognises
him as Tamij. When Kalam enters her house Kulsum is
talking in her dream and thus the horrendous spectacle
is displayed. Seeing Kalam Majhi at Kulsum’s house,
Keramat retreats but he does not disappear forever. He
feels some danger befalling on Kulsum and his appearance
gets strengthened when Kulsum in her dream addresses
Tamijer Bap and tells ‘What are you seeing? Don’t you
see what Kalam Majhi is doing with me?’ - which is
presented before Keramat as an appeal to himself. And
thus the rape-scene takes a different robe - the boti (a domestic fish and vegetables cutter) comes up to
Keramat’s hand which hits Kalam Majhi. But Kalam by then
springs up from Kulsum’s reclining body. Though the boti hitting on the elbow of Kalam hits Kulsum’s
breast and she succumbs death.
Breastless Kulsum denotes some more significance in the
novel - the loss of beauty as well as the loss of
completeness. Such an another incomplete one-breasted
woman we meet in the refuge camp. The woman was raped
and later on the Hindus in Bihar cut off one of her
breasts. At the time of seeing her, Keramat visualizes
one breasted Kulsum, which comes into truth at the end
of the novel. The loss of one breast by two women both
Muslim - one by the Hindus one by the Muslims - adds a
special meaning to the whole plot of the novel - the
best of which denotes the separation of India and
Pakistan for which Bangla was divided and was made
incomplete - that incompleteness is yet to be completed,
history says.
When Khoabnama meets the end, Tamij does not meet
Fuljan and Sakhina - his daughter from Fuljan. We meet
him earlier where in his absconding life Tamij makes his
tour to the northern zone where Tebhaga reached its
climax. At the end of the novel Sakhina is seen with
Fuljan at Kathlahar Bil where Sakhina remakes her
connection with her forefathers where remains the long
hereditary connection only, nothing else.
Related
Links:
http://www.bogra.info/bogra22.html
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/elias.html
http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/E_0044.htm
http://www.makaias.org/html/books/400022e5.as
