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It
is natural for a man, being more than fifty, to look for more
mature thoughts.
In
depiction of woman Al-Mahmud considers all the roles played by a
woman. Like an adroit artist he draws every image of a woman ¾
at once as being the beloved and mother. Not only does he
represent the woman as beloved but also regards her as mother.
We are exposed to her concrete motherly image in his poems. Even
he does not forget the motherly image of the woman who gave
birth to him once.
Let’s say, though we are defeated
by the torturous flowers thorn, I
never
forget the glory of being born of a woman
‘Kabira Bachao’ (Poets, Do Save)
Like
in other poetical works love is also dominant in Al-Mahmud’s Bakhtiarer
Ghora (The Horse of Bakhtiar) except for the difference in
mood and consciousness. Like twilight his spiritual belief
spreads the spectrum in his love-sky. Love being the soul of
Adam comes down to the earth. But Al-Mahmud does not turn love
into a failure of passionate fever.
Love being the
soul of Adam comes down to us
through
the constellation, milky-ways, whirling
atomic
lumps of cloud.
It
is said that in his poetical works Audristabadider
Ranna Banna and Bakhtiarer
Ghora, Al-Mahmud gradually turns to religion and critics
want to term it as his narrow communalism. But what Shibnarayan
Roy observes in this regard is quite worth mentioning:
“Al-Mahmud writes stories, auto-biography, once took part
actively in political movement and has recently proclaimed his
belief in religion but from hair to toe he is absolutely a
living poet” (27).3 He is a believer but he does
not preach what he belives in geligion. And here lies his
greatness as a poet.
As
to his faith Al-Mahmud says, “Thus the man harmonizes the
mystery and beauty of the woman with those of the nature and in
course of exploring the mystery of the universe, I come to terms
with spirituality and religion” (5). It is believed that to
realize the significance of God’s existence one has to explore
the mystery of universe, and to reveal the mystery of universe
one has to turn to the beauty and grandeur of nature. If it is
so, then why should not one turn to the beauty of woman being
the part of nature to realize the grandeur of the God’s
existence? That is why, perhaps woman and nature have come into
same being and entity in his poems.
I love river, so she turns to a river.
Whenever
I persuade her into understanding the ethics of nature,
I
wish you (she) were a tree ¾
Just have a look, saying so she spread out her boughs
yielding
to my order.
‘Amar
Onuposthititey’ (In My Absence)
In
telling the story of his lonely life he has put the nature and
woman together. Nature stands for woman and vice-versa.
In
his eternal poems, according to Abdul Mannan Sayed,
“love exists, but woman does exist more. Loveliness
fascinates him but femininity fascinates him all the more. And
that femininity is closely followed by passion. Dispassionate
love poems, heart-rending tragic poems have never been written
by Al-Mahmud” (72). Rather, he always tints his poems with a
sort of candid passion and appeal. Thus he creates a new horizon
where his keen sense of love and femininity gets on intimate
terms with a kind of enlightenment and mental appeasement. And
that very truth is also utterly exposed in his poem.
O youthful lady, would you be defeated for a night.
................................................................................
Love,
love ¾
by his word, all the mountains
inclined
their trembling peak, as it were.
Woman,
despite being carnal, is eternal and auspicious as beloved. The
desire for woman and the fascination for beauty are equally
present in his poetic approach of love. To him, woman is the
cause of his home-fascination and she is like a vaulted liquor
quenching his thirst. He believes that only woman can turn the
house into a garden of Eden. Of all the ways and means of
salvation he has explored hitherto, one of the most important is
woman being the door to his salvation. Besides, Al-Mahmud has
his own diction that helps him to be identified with his theme
as a poet of love and woman, and it also represents the
aforesaid theme in a way he wants to approach it. He also makes
it possible by blending the trail of the local traditions and
the latest ingredients of modernism.4
NOTES:
1.
Syed Ali Ahsan and Shibnarayan Roy also maintain that
women occupy an important position in Al-Mahmud's poems. They
also assert that the theme of women lends his poems such
diversity as makes them completely different from others dealing
with the same.
2.
Yeatsian impact on Al-Mahmud is also found in his use of
imagery and analogies in his poems. This Yeatsian impact on Al-Mahmud
is also supported by Khondokar Ashraf Hossain. For details see
'The Window of West' by Khondokar Ashraf Hossain in Upoma:
Special Issue (1994. P.81).
3.
Other critics like Khondokar Ashraf Hossain and Sumita
Chakroborthi assert the same notion about this transition in Al-Mahmud.
In this regard Ashraf Hossain maintains that though Al-Mahmud
gives up his commitment of "Proper allocation of
crops" he remains truly and honestly a poet of folk
tradition and life. Commenting upon his turn to religion
Shibnarayan Roy says, "Al-Mahmud is a believer but he does
not preach what he believes in religion." See Upoma
: Special Issue for more details (1994. P.2).
4.
This view is also shared by Professor Kabir Choudhury and
several other critics that Al-Mahmud uses rural images and
dialect which were not used with such diversity by any modern
poets.
Works
cited
Ali
Ahsan, Syed. ‘Al-Mahmud’. Upoma:
Special Issue. 1994.
P.18-24
Alam,
Almas. ‘Poetic Horizons’. Gulf Weekly. 1990. Republished in Upoma:
Special Issue. 1995. P.136-138
Chowdhury,
Kabir. Selected Poems: Al-Mahmud.
Bangla Academy. Dhaka. 1981.
Mahmud,
Al. ‘Ami O Amar Kabita’. Upama:
Special Issue. 1994.
P.1-6
¾¾¾¾
. Al-Mahmuder Kabita. Adhunik Prokashoney. 1980.
Mannan
Sayed, Abdul. ‘Recent Poems of Al-Mahmud.’ Upoma:
Special Issue. 1994. P.69-75.
Roy,
Shibnaryan. ‘Ekjohn Khanti Kabi’. Upama:
Special Issue: 1994. P.25-27.
********
