Nabarun Bhattacharya: A Tribute
Nabarun Bhattacharya, noted Bengali author and a man of letters passed away today at the age of 66. He was battling cancer for quite some time, to which he finally succumbed despite the best of efforts put in by doctors, first in Kolkata, and subsequently in Mumbai where he was shifted following a deterioration in his condition.
Nabarun, born to Bijan Bhattacharya and Mahasweta Devi, both writers of acclaim, had perhaps inherited the social consciousness that characterized the respective works of his parents. His father Bijan will go down in the annals of Bengali literary history as the man who had authored the much revered and celebrated play 'NABANNO' in the backdrop of the infamous, imperialist-sponsored and thereby man-made Bengal famine of 1943 which reportedly claimed some four million lives and is often referred to as the greatest genocide to have ever been committed by the British imperialists.
Nabarun rose to fame with his novel 'Herbert' which won him the prestigious 'Sahitya Akademi Award'
and several others in a row. The novel was later made into a movie by Suman Mukhopadhyay.
The magic realist that he was, Nabarun had carved out a space for the hapless and the marginalized in his body of work and lent them voice. He will always be remembered as someone who was radically ingenuous, while at the same time, as he confessed, no longer the hardliner that he was at some point earlier in his life.
He dabbled in poetry as well, and used to edit a literary journal 'Bhashabandhan'.
His sensibilities can be gauged from the lines he once wrote in one of his poems:
“এই মৃত্যু উপত্যকা আমার দেশ না
এই জল্লাদের উল্লাস মঞ্চ আমার দেশ না
এই বিস্তীর্ণ শ্মশান আমার দেশ না
এই রক্তস্নাত কসাইখানা আমার দেশ না”
Yes, he obstinately refused to cower before the forces that are out to tear the nation asunder. In the lines above he vowed, in the style so very unique to him, to keep his war relentlessly waged against those who would rather love to see the country as "a valley of the dead, an arena for the butchers to revel - a necropolis so widely stretched across, an abattoir so appallingly dripping with blood."
And now, with this so untimely a demise, the onus now shifts onto us to carry his struggle forward, to sign the pledge to unwaveringly keep the flag of his dreams flying.
Nabarun, born to Bijan Bhattacharya and Mahasweta Devi, both writers of acclaim, had perhaps inherited the social consciousness that characterized the respective works of his parents. His father Bijan will go down in the annals of Bengali literary history as the man who had authored the much revered and celebrated play 'NABANNO' in the backdrop of the infamous, imperialist-sponsored and thereby man-made Bengal famine of 1943 which reportedly claimed some four million lives and is often referred to as the greatest genocide to have ever been committed by the British imperialists.
Nabarun rose to fame with his novel 'Herbert' which won him the prestigious 'Sahitya Akademi Award'
and several others in a row. The novel was later made into a movie by Suman Mukhopadhyay.
The magic realist that he was, Nabarun had carved out a space for the hapless and the marginalized in his body of work and lent them voice. He will always be remembered as someone who was radically ingenuous, while at the same time, as he confessed, no longer the hardliner that he was at some point earlier in his life.
He dabbled in poetry as well, and used to edit a literary journal 'Bhashabandhan'.
His sensibilities can be gauged from the lines he once wrote in one of his poems:
“এই মৃত্যু উপত্যকা আমার দেশ না
এই জল্লাদের উল্লাস মঞ্চ আমার দেশ না
এই বিস্তীর্ণ শ্মশান আমার দেশ না
এই রক্তস্নাত কসাইখানা আমার দেশ না”
Yes, he obstinately refused to cower before the forces that are out to tear the nation asunder. In the lines above he vowed, in the style so very unique to him, to keep his war relentlessly waged against those who would rather love to see the country as "a valley of the dead, an arena for the butchers to revel - a necropolis so widely stretched across, an abattoir so appallingly dripping with blood."
And now, with this so untimely a demise, the onus now shifts onto us to carry his struggle forward, to sign the pledge to unwaveringly keep the flag of his dreams flying.
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