I was awestruck today by the scale of the genius of Kazi Nazrul Islam. His mesmerising meandering melody with subtle intricacies of raga music quite captivated me even as his poverty-stricken life full of the fiery idealism of rebellious youth refusing to cower before colonial consequences moved me to pity, nay, an empathy that kindred souls bear across apparently unbridgeable distances of time. The volcanic force of his verse, spelt out in a meter, vibrant and vigorous, hit the minds of the Bengal revolutionaries hard and awakened them from their stupor when armed resistance had been quite quelled in Bengal and Gandhian passivity had made a mockery of all that was virile in the national resistance to British imperial occupation of the motherland. His clarion call for freedom spelt out in unequivocal terms, his socialistic ideas and his catholicity of stance in matters religious and philosophical made Nazrul Islam a dangerous proposition for the British who quickly censored his books, banned some of them and eventually put him behind bars.
To be continued ...
To be continued ...
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