It is not often that we get to read, or even hear about the contemporary literati in our neighbouring countries. While we have heard about certain South Asian poets like Tagore who nevertheless lived many decades ago, we know little about modern South Asian writers and their work, whether in English or in translation.
But now, thanks to the Asiatic Journal, we have the key to unlock the doors to the literary cultures of our neighbours. The interview with Kaiser Haq by Amit Battacharya, published in the Asiatic Journal, June 2024 gives an in-depth description of a contemporary Bangladeshi poet, essayist, translator, critic, and professor at Dhaka University till 2016, and presently a Modern Poetry and Creative Writing Professor at the University of Liberal Arts, Bangladesh. Amit Bhattacharya, who is himself a Professor of English at the University of Gour Banga, Malda, West Bengal, brings his own knowledge of many literary genres into the discussion resulting in an interview that is both enriching and entertaining.
Incidentally, shortly after the interview was published I heard the news that Prof. Kaiser Haq, Dean, School of Arts and Humanities, ULB, has been appointed as Senior Consultant Editor for the Murty Classical Library of India, published by the Harvard University Press. This prestigious role broadens his exceptional contributions to literature and academia. The Murty Classical Library publishes bilingual editions of the important pre-colonial texts of South Asia, and Prof. Kaiser Haq will be part of the editorial team to plan and oversee the selection of texts and their translation into English from the countries in the region, to be published by the Harvard University Press.
In Battacharya’s own words, “Kaiser Haq has been a poet-witness to the transformation of the Bangladeshi nation and culture. His experiences of the liberation struggle, observations on the prolonged socio-political upheavals and concern about the diverse ecological crises of the world today have found a critico-creative treatment in his poetic oeuvre.”
Battacharya also calls Haq a “poet witness” who had lived through the many changes in the history of Bangladesh, writing poetry as a teenager and continuing to write even today, as a septuagenarian.
Big achievement
In his poetry, Haq talks about diversity. “The diversity actually gives unity to Bangladesh. We have a mix and pluralistic culture. I think, if we can make something positive out of this plurality, that will be a big achievement. But if we can be proud of this mixed identity as something positive, then things will change for the better. Our intonation, I mean, the South Asian intonation or the Bengali intonation is different. Now, the poetic expression is directly related to that. So my poetry is not lyrical but satirical and more like monologues. That’s why satire, humour, and irony may play and do play important roles in my poems.”
There is a message here for all of us, to make something positive out of this plurality. Haq, the “poet as a Witness’, explains the recent rapid development of his country.
“I think Bangladeshis today have become ‘homo economicus’. So, they are focusing mainly on economic activities. People do not spend as much time chatting about politics as they used to in the past. Quite early in my life, I imbibed that aspect of Bengali culture with endless talk about politics. From childhood, I saw my father and uncle spending the evening with friends discussing politics. They talked about history, political activities, the problems they were facing, the language movement and martial law. For instance, my poem, “Arriving on a Weekend,” written just before the Liberation War, ends with reference to “the intermittent therapeutic chatter” among the hookah’s smoke shared by a group of people in the evening: crop-talk, cattle-talk, talk of power, of inscrutable disasters, of death burgeoning everywhere, incubating fast within parched ribs.”
Back to colonial centre
As a translator, Haq prefers transcreation to straightforward translation. As a literary and social critic, he promotes creative innovation and honest rather than conventional deportment. Above all, as a postcolonial writer, Haq writes back to the colonial centre with his unabashed championing of the Global South.
Talking about his translations, Haq says, “I have mainly translated selected poems of major Bengali poets Shamsur Rahman and Shaheed Quaderi. I have also translated a couple of Lalon Sah’s songs (“The Mysterious Neighbour,” “Strange Bird of Passage”) and Rabindranath Tagore’s “Tirthajatri.” I have written an essay on Jibananda Das’s “Banalata Sen,” “The Monalisa of Bengali Poetry: ‘Banalata Sen’.” Jibananda Das happens to be my favourite Bangla poet. I really don’t warm to Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry too much, but his free verse poetry interests me a lot.
In The Essential Tagore I translated some of his poems in free verse, which he calls “gadyaritite lekha” (written in prose). However, it’s not prose poetry, it’s actually free verse, and these free verse poems, which Tagore wrote in the very last phase of his life from Punashcho onwards, I like very much. The verve and virility of Nazrul Islam’s verse have ever appealed to me. So, I have translated “Bidrohi.”
Another response by Haq would apply to most young people around the world. “Today, ‘history’ seems to have started just yesterday for the younger generation.” They are not interested in the past, nor interested in learning from the past.
Asked about maintaining the balance between tradition and modernity, Haq said, “We are becoming more and more consumers than connoisseurs capable of critical thought and judgment. To be brief, discernment is, somehow or the other, lacking. If these questions are left to professional intellectuals only, there will be academic discourse, but it won’t shape our collective life.”
When a poet’s hands are tied, or has to work under a sword over his head, his creativity suffers. His solution is “In fact, as the world is becoming a downright dangerous place in an extraordinary way with the implementation of some strange curbs on freedom of expression, one has to be cautious in talking about subjects related to power. So, one way of avoiding that is to focus on romance, love, and sex, and it allows one to comment indirectly on life as a whole. In fact, ‘love’ as a primal passion, is also a liberating force.”
Enduring message
When asked for an enduring message of Kaiser Haq the poet, for his readers, Haq had responded with, “I see everything as provisional and tentative. We are on earth for a brief spell during which we have to guide our lives in ways that do not violate our sense of decency and ethics. There is no absolute principle of right and wrong or justice and injustice, yet we cannot dismiss these concepts as insubstantial. While we try to live as ethical and politically conscious beings, we must also attach value to the aesthetic dimension. Striking a balance between these is an aim worth having. If we realise that there can never be a perfect balance, that realisation will induce in us a salutary humility. What I have said is commonplace but may be worth reiterating.”
This is why Kaiser Haq’s poetry needs to reach all of us in South Asia. Through more interviews of South Asian writers by learned academics like Battacharya, we will finally break through the geographical, linguistic and cultural barriers that have separated us across the years and become one literary family. [email protected]
