Abdur Rouf Choudhury

Abdur Rouf Choudhury (1929–1996) was a Bengali writer

Choudhury was born on 1 March 1929, in Habiganj District, Bangladesh (then part of Assam) where his father Azhar Choudhury, a land owner, and his mother Nazmun Nesa Choudhury, a house wife resided.

Contributions

In his contributions to Bengali literature, the writer and philosopher Choudhury depicted a transparent portrait of modern Bengali’s life in abroad. He was a scholar of science, with great intellectual abilities and eloquent of both pen and speech. He had a remarkable openness to modern Western knowledge as well as Eastern knowledge. Choudhury made a lasting contribution to Bengali literature with his novels, travelogue, essays and his introspective autobiographical and epistolary works.[1]

His novels and short stories were often set against an emergent urban background, but more commonly in cities outside Bangladesh such as London, Bedford, Calcutta, Karachi and Kohat; where the majority of immigrant Bengali resided. Choudhury created his characters from highly diverse backgrounds and developed themes that revolved around the twists and turns of events, the conflicts and contradictions prevailing in the social processes. His characters embraced a new change; death of an old social values which were based on the ideas of corruptions, religious, political, economical; and the rise of the self-freedom, birth of a new society, these immediately preceded the social processes of the present day and hence are vital to identifying and understanding contemporary problems.[2]

It is essential to analyses Choudhury’s writings in the light of the social scenario from 60s-90s, when deprivation and degradation were taken for granted in Bangladesh, London and India-Pakistan which were known by some and unknown by others. These realities some times were dedicated and made indelible in the name of religious sermons and social sanctions. Thus his main task was to focus readers' attention, by giving a frame-by-frame picture of the helplessness and inhuman predicament of the victims of injustice.[3]

In Porodeshe Porobashi (Life on Distant Shores) Abdur Rouf Chowdhury has not only discovered London, where he stayed with fellow Sylhetis, but also discovered his own homeland. When you are far away, when you are detached from your object of love, your inner eye gets working and you discovery the truth. This discovery is ugly from a close look but is beautiful and lovable when seen from a distance. Most of us who stay in our homeland fail to take a close look at it. But the novelist succeeds in discovering his own land while staying overseas and thinking of it and loving it. Reality and nostalgia get mixed with each other to form a perfect image of the writer's homeland in his mind. Porodeshe Porobashi is a quality work of art by any standard. The writer is a powerful narrator and uses wit and humour quite deftly. He is a skilful user of words. The writer depends on autobiographical elements and has a philosophical outlook. He clearly understood the psyche of Bangladeshis staying abroad. He dips deep into the human mind, as he has written elsewhere about the book, the writer mixes reality with the light and shade of truth. Thus it is a true picture of common life. It is lively and hat at all dull, neither a travelogue nor a memoir, it is a novel with lively characters, a touching story of human suffering and a story of the eternal lonely man.[3]

The wide canvas of words and tales of this artist brought out the plight of women in the male-dominated set-up of society. Over and above the Islamic-based code of beliefs of the society; male-domination society pushed woman into complete subjugation, making them property for the use of men, because of such a 'life-style's set-up, economical and social oppression was principally faced by women. This drove women to utter frustration and desperation. Choudhury portrayed women, their plight, and their helplessness in the face of this male-dominated society. On the other hand, he wrote about their sense of humanitarian values, their love, sorrows, their deep longing for a life as normal and beautiful as free women.[2]


In the wake of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, which surged up all over Bangladesh, was recounted in his writing Ekti Jatike Hotay (Legacy of a Nation). Abdur Rouf Choudhury believed that in today’s world men no longer wanted to keep themselves constricted within the sphere of a specified duty.[2]

In Choudhury’s time, in a modern society with priest as its advocate and protector, religion lost all its progressivism. It went so far that religion became bogged down in rituals, superstitions and bigotry, while its proponents stank of greed, corruption, even debauchery: even the so-called mullahs could not keep themselves free from this downfall. Almost half the characters in his novels Sampan Crass (St. Pancras) and Aniketon represented the mainstay of the decadent society, while the other half, were absorbed with the emerging thoughts, ideals and values of the new society - humanist and secular in content.[4]

Choudhury’s most vividly depicted the unity of Bengal and the articulation of Bengali nationalism in his novel Natun Diganta (New Horizon) vol. 1, 2, 3. This is the largest novel of the author (Abdur Rouf Choudhury). Based mainly on the political activities and the political leaders of Pakistan, of the Indian Subcontinent in board sense, the novel covers the span from 1968 to the Liberation War of Bangladesh (1971). The novel begins with no other character than that of Bhutto and gradually reveals his true nature. The readers will also get a vivid picture of greater "Undivided Bengal", changes in the social structure and the creation of a socialist state. The author’s own experiences of tension, imagination and dreams combined together to produce a multi-faceted novel.[5]

In Choudhury’s short-stories the write portrays the changes of village life brought by the time. He is very much in love with his motherland, the rivers and paddy fields. He portrays the London life of people from Sylhet quite faithfully and in great detail. Researchers will find his works useful in the future. Abdur Rouf Choudhury handles a lot of characters and a wide range of time. Most of the writings are perfect picture of our society, and it has a lovely appearance also. In some of his short stories the writer gives a lot of importance to the physical state of human existence, society should get rid of its negative forces, and build strength on human body and its soul, both of which are deeply linked, and hence both are very important for human beings.[2]

He was an understanding revolutionary in his own right, ploughing alone a firm held furrow. He carried on his revolution through revealing revelations of all surviving social practices and norms. Unlike many others of his stature, Choudhury as a man, towers far above Choudhury as a writer, though he carved out a place for himself amongst the galaxy of contemporary novelists.[1]

Works

Novels

A Collection of Short-Stories

Essays

A Collection of poem

Chronology

[Source: Jibani Granthamala: A Series of Literary biographies, Bangla Academy, Dhaka, Feb 1991.]

Rouf Award

Following Bengali writers and free-thinkers received Drouhee Kotha-shahitayk Abdur Rouf Choudhury Award:

Comments and reviews

References

  1. 1 2 Sharak 1, Dhaka, 1998.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Jibani Granthamala: A Series of Literary biographies, Bangla Academy, Dhaka, Feb 1999.
  3. 1 2 LIVING IN A FARAWAY LAND,Junaidul Haque, Dhaka, 2003.
  4. ↑ Sharak 2, Dhaka, 1998.
  5. ↑ The Daily Star, 8 July 2005.
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