Acknowledgement Speech
Protibhashon
Kazi
Nazrul Islam
Translator:
Subrata Kumar Das
('Protibhashon'
(Acknowledgement Speech) is the response-speech that Nazrul made to the welcome
address by S. Wazed Ali (1890-1951) , President of the Nazrul Reception
Committee. On December 15,1929, Nazrul was accorded a reception on behalf of
both Hindu and Muslim people of Bengal. Organized at Kolkata Albert Hall, the
reception meeting was presided over by the noted scientist Acharya Prafulla
Chandra Ray (1861-1944). After the speech of Nazrul the revolutionary freedom
fighter Subhash Chandra Bose (1897-1945?) told in his speech:
There
is a clear relation between literature and life in a free country. This does not
exist in our land. As the country is not independent, people cannot collect
components from all the happenings of life. Nazrul is an exception. He has
collected components from various happenings of life. I shall particularly
mention one thing. Nazrul has written poems on matters of war. He went to the
battlefield with gun on the shoulder. So he could write out of his own
experiences. Such things rarely happen in our country. But in an independent
country such things happen very largely. It appears from all these that Nazrul
is a living being.
Many
of us are put into jail. But little influence of jail-life is found in our
literature. It so happens because we fail to feel sharply. Many of Nazrul's
writings prove that he was put behind the bars. This also testifies that he is a
living being.
The
influence of his writings is extraordinary. As I read his songs when I was
injai1 an unmusical man like me felt like singing. We do not feel so keenly and
so we cannot write such lively poems.
Nazrul
is truly a rebel poet. That he is a rebel at heart is well understood. When we
shall go to the battlefield, we shall sing Nazrul songs on battles. We shall
also sing his songs when we shall be put into jail. ...
The
dream of poet Nazrul is not purely the dream of his own, it is the dream of the
entire Nation.
(Karunamaya
Goswami, Kai Nazrul Islam: A _Biography, Nazrul Institute, Dhaka, 1996,
P-109)
Every details of the reception
ceremony were published in the monthly Saogat in its Pous issue, 1336
B.S. In the Nazrul Rochonavoli (Works of Nazrul) Vol-4 published by the
Bangla Academy, Dhaka, 'Protibhashon' has been included in the part titled'
Abhibhashon' (Speeches).]
Dear
friends,
I place on my head the gift
that you have given on my hand. All my body and mind and soul are ringing like a
veena today. The only melody is singing there. ' I am blessed, I am
blessed.
Maybe I am not in dearth of
enough hair to receive all the flowers of a forest, but how can I receive so
much love from so many people? My heart is full to the brim today. The water of
the river has lost its rhythm being captured in the pot of solemn rituals. If]
fail to say anything today, you please pardon my inability. You will go to that
riverside on whose river I am the water-flow, you will hear my language and
songs before asking for it.
Today is the day of yours, not
mine. Moreover among the plenty of love, I do not believe, I can lose myself.
Today my language is shy and robed as a newly married bride. If she were a
dancer, even then please do not request her to dance today.
Today I have been greeted in a
real sense. I am not telling only to those who have brought gifts of flowers
today. I am telling about those greater friends of behind the stage, who cannot
forget me though they have not come here and possibly they are remembering me
more. They get more pleasure in piercing than blooming flowers
From that point of view my
goddess of fate is mote satisfied. Those, who are my friends, love me with their
whole heart, those who are not, oppose me joyously. I enjoy it very much. Sharp
enmity is better than dull friendship. Great friendship and sharp enmity need
much closeness. He must be an intimate relative of me who stays so near my
heart. On this day I pay my respect for them from my heart.
On one balance of the scale my
friends have heaped the flowers of acclaims on the other the non-friends have
gathered the mud of defame and due to the equal balance of both the groups I can
stay well with out any imbalance.
You
greeted me that day on which you liked my writings. My only duty in this
occasion is to express that ‘likeness’. That is to smilingly pay my humble
homage. You take only that from me and make me free. Do not make me a victim of
high words. In fear of being a victim on the stage I have been hiding from it
and from people around. If you decide to punish as I was hiding, then you have
fulfilled your intention, you have embarrassed a spotted moon bringing him to a
smiling one.
They,
who know me not only through writing but, personally, know that I am a good man.
I have not come to create anything abominable. There was a necessity of knocking
where I have knocked. It is not an offence of an employee of the
corporation-authority who crushes a collapsing building, rather the offence is
his who perpetuates it and manages death for some ten people.
Some
are creating fear in the minds of people calling me Vidrohi (a rebel). I
do not possess the desire to scratch, bite or drive the nation. Those who have
driven me, are being driven for long by death. I have only helped with my little
power.
I do not hesitate to admit that
I have not exceeded the attraction of power, the beauty and grace, the beauty.
Like the thoughtful child of beauty my motto is also "Beauty is truth,
truth is beauty."
I do
not know whom and how much I have gratified with whatever I have provided. But
I know well, I have not been able to provide myself completely, my desire to
provide is not yet satisfied. Let me not dishonour the highness of the peak of
mountain, in whose fall, to be united with the ocean, was my existence.
I have been born in the
possibility of impossibility of twentieth century. I am one of the trumpeters of
its adventurous army. I know the existence of heinous snakes and dangerous
tigers in every turn of this journey. The marks of their attack are on my
person.
Even then it is my own way, my
motive and my polestar:
Do not curse the black cloud of
the northeast seeing its snowy calmness and indifference. When the flute of
storm will blow, that mad one will come forward with its previous identity. We
have to wait for the new spring during the whole winter.
I
request them, who, blame me for my not becoming like them, to consider the birds
of the sky, flowers of the garden and poets of songs as everyone's. I am not
only of this country and society due to my birth here. I am of every man, of
every country. Meditation for beauty and worship for Him is my religion. It is a
mishap for me in whatever family, society and religion I am born. I am a poet
because I have come out of that. The forest does not complain because the birds
sing from above their nests. No one will support a cuckoo into a crow as
the crow chases the cuckoo thinking it ungrateful. Please accept what I can give
you. If you beat a mango-tree, punish it on an open street, it will not be able
to produce jackfruit. Rather due to the punishment it will lose its power to
produce mangoes.
They do not know I am one of
the pilgrimages that is proceeding to unrobe death at the light of youthfulness.
Though not as a torch but as a fearless song of the voice. I also want to say
them who have got vexed not seeing me in the market of flowers on the New Year's
day that the contemplative-state of me as a future Tajmahal is nor yet exposed.
When it will be exposed, I myself will come there as a Khurram with dreams of a
Taj in my eyes.
I have seen not only the veena
in the hands of beauty or lotus on its feet, but also tears in His eyes. I
have seen Him in the form of poverty on the ways to cremation or graveyard. Seen
Him in the battlefield, in the black holes of prison or on the scaffold for
hanging. My song is to get that beauty in multifarious forms.
Some
call my language as of Muslim', some call it Kafer' (Infidel). I say,
none of those two. I have only arranged a handshake between Hindus and Muslims
and change their fight into friendship. If that handshake is worse than
fight, they will be separated spontaneously, it will need no extra effort.
Because one of them has a stick and the other a knife in his sleeves. ...
There
are so much dust, and so many snakes and sounds in literature that if I go with
a candle, it will blowout and I myself will die,
If
this is the venom of the upsurge in the seas, then all the responsibilities of
upsurge should not go to the demons, half of it goes to the gods also. Without
their participation this upsurge should not have been possible. In spite of that
I want to say that this upsurge is not the only truth, please do not get
impatient - proceed gradually, the Amrito (ambrosia) is waiting.
I
pay my deep respect and love for you again. I have not come to make you
satisfied, rather I have come to be. Many thanks to you all...
Source: Subrata Kumar Das, Selected
Essays: Kazi Nazrul Islam [Nazrul Institute], pp. 69-73.