Remembering Munier Chowdhury
mwzaman
by KABIR CHOWDHURY
Munier Chowdhury was one of the most brilliant personalities of our
land. Born on November 27, 1925, his distinguished career was brutally
cut short by the local killer-collaborators of the Pakistan occupation
army on December 14, 1971, only a few hours before Bangladesh was
liberated. He was an ardent nationalist but never a militant one. In
his student days he was an active communist, a regular Party member
and card-holder, but he voluntarily severed that connection years ago.
He chose the life of a scholar, a professor and a writer, and in all
three fields achieved enviable success.
Educated in the universities of Aligarh, Dhaka and Harvard, he
first carved a name as a fine teacher of English literature. He was,
however, passionately devoted to Bengali language and culture, and
courted imprisonment in 1952 for his participation in the Bengali
language movement, where he had, along with some others, Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman as his prisonmate. While in jail he assiduously studied
Bengali language and literature, appeared at the MA examination in
Bengali from inside the jail and came out first in the first class. On
his release from imprisonment, he started teaching Bengali at the
University of Dhaka, later becoming the Chairman of the Department and
the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, which posts he held till his tragic
death in 1971. Students flocked to his class, many from other
departments, as he lectured in his inimitable fashion on Meer
Mosharraf Hossain, Bankimchandra and Rabindranath, among others. To
this day he is fondly remembered as an extraordinary teacher who was
able to kindle in his students a genuine love for great literatures.
Munier Chowdhury possessed a truly creative mind. He was interested
in many things, and he left his mark in many fields. He designed a
keyboard for the Bengali typewriter which was vastly superior to the
earlier ones. Commercially patented by a German firm, it was known as
the Munier-Optima typewriter. He wrote plays, short stories, literary
criticism, scholarly dissertations and humorous sketches besides
translating and adapting a number of plays from English into Bengali.
However, his forte was drama, and he is rightly considered as the
father of modern drama in Bangladesh. He was passionately attracted to
the world of drama since his adolescence. His one-act play Rajar
Janmadine (On the King’s Birthday) was performed at the Dhaka
University stage when he was still an undergraduate student. He avidly
read all the best plays of the world, ancient and modern, the popular
works as well as the classics. He travelled widely, visiting UK, USA,
Germany, Russia and Japan and, wherever he went, he made it a point to
visit local theatre halls and opera houses, see some performances and
meet a few contemporary local playwrights.
Munier Chowdhury’s most famous work is Kabar (The Grave),
written in the background of the glorious language movement of 1952.
First enacted inside the jail by a band of political prisoners on a
makeshift stage soon after its composition, Kabar has been performed
hundreds of times all over Bangladesh, and the trend shows no signs of
abatement. Among his other plays are Raktanto Prantar (The
Bloodspattered Field), a historical play in three acts; Chitthi (The
Letter), a social play in three acts; Rupar Kouta, a fine adaptation
of Galsworthy’s Silver Box; Keu Kichchu Bolte Pare Na, an
excellent adaptation of Bernard Shaw’s You Never Can Tell; and
Mukhara Ramoni Bashikaran, a brilliant translation of
Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. All these plays have been
successfully staged, broadcast or televised in Dhaka and other places
of Bangladesh.
His plays amply reveal his expert knowledge of the theatre arts.
They are skilfully constructed; the dialogue is racy and unflagging;
and their content is characterised by a broad liberal humanism. They
also reveal a sense of humour, sometimes pungent and satirical,
sometimes farcical and gay, often scintillating with the aroma of high
comedy.
Had he lived today in free and sovereign Bangladesh with the common
people committed to the ideals of democracy, secularism and social
justice, he could make invaluable contribution to our arts, culture
and literature, but he was not allowed to live by the evil forces
opposed to the ideals stated above. It is a great pity that those evil
forces of autocracy, religious fanaticism and ruthless exploitation
are still alive in Bangladesh, in fact, are flourishing undeterred. As
we remember Munier Chowdhury let us all rededicate ourselves to the
liquidation of those forces as early as possible. Unless we can do so,
the very existence of Bangladesh will be in jeopardy.
National Professor Kabir Chowdhury continues to teach part-time in
the Department of English, University of Dhaka. He is also a renowned
critic and translator
[THE NEW AGE, DECEMBER 14, 2003)
Lest we forget
Prof Munier Choudhury
Shamsher Chodhury
This 14th December 2003 was the 32nd Anniversary of my illustrious
brother's kidnapping. My brother and I were watching from the outer
balcony of our ancestral home in Central Road, the Indian fighter jets
flying right over our head, apparently hurling rockets at a house
where presumably the then Commander of the Pak Armed Forces General
Niazi had taken refuge. It was now 1145 a.m. the shelling and
rocketing which began around 7 am had come to a sudden halt.
My mother called out from the inner yard of the house opposite the
outer verandah on the ground floor, "Now that there is some respite
from the air raids, the two of you should have a quick shower and have
lunch. I am laying the table". At this we both came down and my
brother went for his bath at the makeshift bathing place which was
located at the inner yard of the house having a bucket, a plastic mug
and a water tank capable of storing about ten to twelve buckets of
water on a six by three feet of concrete platform.
At about this time as I was waiting for my brother to finish his bath
and make way for me I saw a microbus camouflaged in mud had stopped
right in front of our main outer entrance and about three or four
young men alighting from the bus, all in militia uniform. All had
rifles in their possession. The two of them were making rattling
sounds beating on the lock hanging from the large gate made of wrought
iron apparently trying to attract attention of the inmates of the
house. I was watching all this from the window of one of the rooms on
the ground floor, which provided a clear view of the gate and the
front yard including the street right across.
My first reaction was to ignore, wait and watch and at the same time
hoping that they would give up and disappear. No such thing happened.
They seemed determined and now even began to shout. Seeing this I
finally came out and decided to face these people who appeared from
nowhere. Besides I was quite apprehensive of their purpose since the
entire city was under curfew imposed by the Pak Army. As I approached
the gate one of the three people now standing on the outer side of the
closed gate asked me to open the gate to which I responded by saying
that I would like to know the purpose of their visit. The three of
them said in one voice that they had me to see Munier Sir. I was now
getting somewhat nervous and told them that they could not see him
since he was unwell. At this, one of them looked at me angrily and
asked me to open the gate in a terse voice. I felt I could no longer
resist them from coming into the yard. After some exchange of words
leading to arguments and counter arguments about my brother being sick
and his inability to meet them, I finally asked these people (who I
later learned to be Razakars) to wait till I inform my brother.
As I went in, I found my brother standing in front of the glass window
located on the middle section of the stairs, still in a vest and a
Lungi. Before I could say something, he wanted to know if these people
had come to see him. Having had confirmation from me he asked me to
tell them to wait. A little while after he returned wearing a Punjabi
(a traditional long sleeved shirt reaching way below the knee) and the
Lungi and in a pair of slippers. As he approached the Razakars , they
greeted him and said that they had come to take him to the Police
station for some questioning.
At this my brother wanted to see their authority by way of a Warrant
of Arrest. After considerable exchange of words the Razakars could
neither persuade my brother to accompany them nor could they produce
any document in support of his arrest. As matters came to a pass my
brother refused to accompany the Razakars. As I was watching the
proceedings standing beside him, one of the Razakars all too suddenly
rushed behind my brother and held the gun pressed at his back ordering
him to move. I was completely dumbfounded at the sudden turn of events
and followed my brother to the entrance door of the bus. And now as he
was entering the bus he turned to me and said " Rushdi (a name by
which my family used to address me) I better go."
Epilogue
32 years have gone by, since that frightful incident, I have neither
seen nor heard from him. To this day I keep asking myself: "Is he
dead, if so who killed him and why? Was he tortured to death? Who was
he thinking of before the end came? Was he thinking of his mother whom
he left waiting at the dining table to join her? Or was he thinking of
his wife and children whom he had left behind?" My mother has left
this world (June 2000). I am glad that at least her long and painful
wait for her son was over. As for me the gaping wound caused since my
brother disappeared still remains, yet I feel no real pain. I have
learnt to live and cope with the tragedy. But what I find even harder
to deal with is the current state of our beloved Homeland. The tragic
state of our country has long overshadowed my personal loss.
(The Daily Star, December 15, 2003)