An Ekushey statement

Shaheed Quaderi
(Translated by Kaiser Haq)

When I heap obloquy on enemies
Or scream for no reason or rhyme,
Leap for joy and roll in bed,
Regard the accumulated rage of days
As an ominous owl
And like an anxious farmer
Scare it away
Shouting in chorus
Around midnight, at a fork in the road;
And, out swimming, enter a friendly race
Only to go out of breath in midstream
Like a cheap skyrocket on Shab-e-Barat night,
Then yell desperately for help
From the people on the banks,
Or on rare occasions on the speakers' dais
My unpractised tongue
Beguiles the crowd with honeyed words,
Showering saliva all around,
Or when, as theatre lights go out,
I hurl obscenities from behind a screen of darkness,
And passing on some shocking news
That takes the sparkle out of friends' faces,
Burst into song, rebuke little brother
For going on a protest march,
Break into loud jeering
On seeing a jaywalking rustic's panic-stricken face
As a taxi suddenly bears down on him,

That is to say
Whenever I speak out I find
The letters of my mother tongue
Emanating effortlessly from my vocal chords

Though always wishing I were a sailor
Uniformed in blue, on unknown storm-tossed seas,
Clad in shirt and trousers I've roamed around
This familiar city for days on end,
Amidst the dazed crowds of my native land

Yet I know for sure
That beyond the geography familiar since childhood
There lie cities wealthier by far,
Serene expanses of unknown grasslands,
The sparkling hint of an estuary,
Colourful stores fronting foreign pavements,
Clusters of well-lit cafes well past midnight,
Flanking an avenue, Santa Claus-like rows
Of trees swathed in snow, and always
New styles in shoes and clothes,
The lower lip quivering in anguish
On the other side of a restaurant's glass front,
And rows of skyscrapers
Soaring like human desire
Still,
I'll never ever say goodbye and stand
Briefcase in hand, at the ticket counter,
Dressed in a three-buttoned brown check suit,
Tie fluttering in the breeze
I'll never, not even by mistake,
Rush to the airport to board a plane
That'll rip through clouds
To an alien land.

This poem is from Shaheed Qauderi's 1974 collection, 'Tomakey Abhibadon Priyatama'. In 1976 Quaderi became an NRB, living first in Berlin and then in London, before making the USA his permanent domicile. He had planned to return to Bangladesh but the plan was cruelly scotched when he suffered sudden kidney failure. He now has to undergo thrice-weekly dialysis, and awaits a kidney transplant. He lives in New York with his wife, and is the leading light of a lively coterie of Bangladeshi writers and literature enthusiasts.

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Dr. Kaiser Haq teaches English literature at Dhaka University.