Hasnat
Abdul Hye
Though
biographies and autobiographies are plenty in number
in all major languages, biographical novels are not
many. The most outstanding biographical novels in English
are Lust for Life (based on the life of the great
painter Vincent van Gogh, 1934), The Agony and the
Ecstasy (fictional recreation of the passionate
life of Michelangelo, 1961) and Depths of Glory (spotlights of the art figure Camille Pissarro, 1985),
all written by Irving Stone (1903-1989). Among the good
number of historical novels in world literature, Jenghiz Khan by the soviet writer Vassili Yan can
be taken another one which sketches much about the historical
personality of Jenghiz Khan, though they should no be
categorised in the same genre as the Bangla novels Shashanka (1915) and Dharmapal (1916) and other historical
novels by Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay (1885-1930). Even Keri Saheber Munshi (1958) written by Pramathanth
Bishee (1902-1985) cannot be termed as a biographical
novel because it does not expose the title character
in full bloom. These historical novels have some episodes
of the lives of those personalities and delineate the
canvas of their time. On the other hand, novels by Irving
Stone, mentioned above and Satyen
Sen’s (1907-1981) Alberuni (1969) can be sited as a good example of this genre,
mostly portray their lives than their times, as we see
in some novels of Hasnat Abdul Hye (b 1939).
Hasnat Abdul Hye has been contributing enough to Bangla
fiction and travelogue for a long time. He authored
novels like Suprabhat Bhalobasa (Good Morning
Love, 1977), Aamar Atotaee (My Assassin, 1980), Timi (The Whale, 1981), Jubaraj (The
Prince, 1985), Prabhu (Master, 1985), Somoy (Time, 1991), Morelagonj Songbad (News from
Morelagonj, 1995), Bairey Ekjon (One Standing
Outside, 1996), Interview (1997) and Moitrei O
Rabindranath (1999). But with much surprise, the
readers of Hasnat Abdul Hye once observed that he began
to demonstrate ‘biography’ in his novels with innovative
means.
Hye has started writing biographical novels with Mahapurush (1982), which brought him success -
success in drawing a single character, named Syed Belal.
It is worth mentioning that this first attempt took a
fictitious character as its subject. But later on, Hye
turned to characters who are real and well-known
personalities like Aaraj Ali Matubbar, S M Sultan and
Novera. Encompassing the uncommon and dramatic
situations of their lives he wrote novels Sultan (1991), Ekjon Aaroj Ali (1995) and Novera (1995). With brilliant exposition of actual figures,
Hasnat Abdul Hye has enriched this genre in our
literature.
Before discussing these three novels let us have a look
on the style of Hye that he adopted in Mahapurush.
Belal is the protagonist of the novel though if we say
the book is about Syed Belal himself, it would not be
wrong. All the characters and the whole plot are
deployed there only to give this character a complete
shape. A high bureaucrat Syed Belal once was imposed
with the responsibility of relief works in a cyclone-hit
area. There he realised that the distribution system was
quite faulty and he himself discovered some new ways. He
decided to serve the distressed people and quitted his
job A government plan is also in the pipeline that he
can materialise his ideas. But unfortunately, the
government changed and all his labour and dreams ended
in smoke. People who did not support his novel
programmes now came forward and thus Belal began to be
humiliated indoors and outdoor. He was termed ‘mad’. But
the irony lies in the incident that after the accidental
death of ‘mad’ Belal, the people of the locality changed
their minds. They became supporters of his activities
and created a tomb on grave where hundreds of thousands
of people crowd every year. Hye introduces his plot with
the craze of the people of Syed Belal’s locality about
the tomb and gradually goes in quest of different
episodes of Belal’s life from varied sources and thus
finally the whole character of Syed Belal gets
illuminated.
Hasnat Abdul Hye continues similar style in his later
novels also. In Sultan, he focuses light on the
childhood of Lalu, the son of a mason, who through
different incidents, proves himself as Sheikh Mohammad
Sultan and enriches modern art creating much amazement.
The author has arranged all the background causes of
Sultan’s being a celebrity. Demonstrating different
incidents of Sultan’s life, he has presented Sultan as a
very soft and intellect mind. He has also shown how
Sultan, highly acclaimed abroad, is disgraced in his own
soil. Ekjon Aaraj Ali is written using the same
form. Here the novelist selects Matubbar’s life as his
topic. Using every necessary information, Hye creates
Matubbar as a believable character, who had schooling
only up to class two and at the end of his life upheld
himself as one of the greatest thinkers. The
revolutionary attitude and perseverance that enhanced
Matubbar to find himself in such a formidable character
has taken a magnificent presentation in the novel.
Devoted to studies Aaraj established himself as a
worthwhile social worker and to present him is the only
intention of Hasnat Abdul Hye. Similarly we get Novera
Ahmad, major artist of the fifties and sixties in our
country, who went out of sight afterwards, in the novel Novera. The life of a Bangali woman Novera, her
childhood and youth, ups and downs of her life, have
taken an artistic form in the novel. The novelist has
examined her personal and social life in it. Through
different interaction of her the writer has made her a
lively character.
It is obvious that Hasnat Abdul Hye has selected such
personalities from our recent past, who did not pass a
very usual and cliche life. Sultan, Aaraj Ali and Novera
- all of them had unique features in their lives. They
are known to us by their intellectual and artistic
accomplishments, but their personal lives remained
mostly dark to us. Hye has focused enough light on those
dark parts and made us grateful.
In Mahapurush we meet a journalist who comes to
visit the tomb of Syed Belal and consequently meets with
other people, talks with them and presents the whole
life-sketch of Syed Belal. On the other hand in Sultan, Ekjon Aaraj Ali and Novera we
get Hasnat Abdul Hye, the litterateur himself, who
broods over writing a new novel on Aaraj Ali, Sultan or
Novera. Afterwards, the character Hye himself talks with
varied people, takes help from newspapers, etc., and
thus we get a complete biography.
As Mahapurush is a fictional endeavour, the other
characters around Syed Belal are also fictitious and, to
a great extent, all those characters fail to come up,
barring Mrs. Belal. But in the following novels all such
minor characters are from our real society. We meet
Ahmed Sofa, Jainul Abedin, Debadash Chakrabarty and
National Professor Abdur Razzak in Sultan, Ali Noor and
Syed Shamsul Huq in Ekjon Aaraj Ali, Shamsur Rahman,
Khan Ata, Aminul Islam, Hamidur Rahman, Fayez Ahmed, S M
Ali and Sayed Ahmed in Novera. Interactions with these
highly appreciated personalities of our society help us
believe the unbelievable events of Sultan, Matubbar and
Novera’s lives.
Hasnat Abdul Hye gives every detail in all these three
novels in such a way that we become respectful to them.
And thus these books become not biographies in the
ordinary sense, rather biographical novels with artistic
qualities
