Last few days, I was thinking a lot about promoting Bangla literature more in internet. The easiest solution came to my mind was that many people should open blogs on Bangla literature in English language. This is the best way and they should all try to right something and whatever they can do. Even if you can translate just one short poem or write one hundred words about any poet or a novel or a drama of Bangla literatures then it helps. Don’t get discouraged if you see that it is not bringing you any money or does not make you famous. It does not matter because reality is that you have to do it not for earning money but for promoting your own literature.
I live in Dhaka , Bangladesh Dhaka University
For this blog, I never give time seriously simply because it does not bring any revenue for me. However, I gave small amount of time whenever I could and this way now we have small but good materials on Bangla literature.
You may wonder why not open a website but open a blog? The best part of opening a blog is that thanks to Google it is free and you don’t need to have any technical knowledge. All you need is just a free Google account and then the rest is very easy. Just simply go to blogger.com and then sign up for a blog. It takes around five minutes and it is very easy to do.
After opening a blog you don’t need to have any technical knowledge or you don’t need to maintain the website. All you need is that sometimes write some content and then put in it. If you do not want to maintain a blog then there is another way.
In Wikipedia, there are many entries in Bangla language and English language on Bangla literature. You just can add two or five sentences whenever you can. This will be very helpful if you can do so because Bangla has one of the richest literatures on earth. But unfortunately very few people outside of Bangladesh and West Bengal of India
Yes, we are proud of Tagore but people from other countries hardly know anything about our writers and poets except Tagors. This must change and because we live in the age of Internet, we all can contribute.
we need authors like tagore
ReplyDeletend nassrul chatterjee
translated nd present online
if nt the original texts at places like gutenberg.org
we english readers want to read the poinsonwood, tulsidas, devdas etc in english...!
TOO MUCH PROPAGANDA ON RABINDRANATH TAGORE
ReplyDeleteI am a Bengalee by birth and origin. I deeply love my mother language Bengali as also our greatest Bengalee writer Rabindranath Tagore, who was befittingly awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 and this prize made him ten times more popular than what he could be without it. This is very realistic evaluation.
Once in 1964, when I used to attend the classes on English Literary Criticism by Professor T. N. Sen at Presidency College, Calcutta, I was having some discussion on Rabindranath Tagore with our fellow students at the nearby famous Coffee House. I very much remember that a non-Bengali Brahmin student (from North India) said: If we translate the first lines of the first poem of Gitanjali, "Aamaar maatha noto korey dao...", in Hindi it will be simply: "Patak de mere sar terey taang par ... etc." According to him it was not as good poetry as claimed by the Bengalees. But we all understand that the sarcastic presentation was not correct.
But I point out the above just to say that as a student of literature, I strongly feel that if any learned person wants then he can lecture for hours on the words, usage, rhythm, music, and philosophy of a even a second grade poem of any poet.
Rabindranath Tagore is the only classic icon of the Hindu Bengalees. They were not educated and mature enough in the 19th Century to hold Bankim Chandra or Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar or Raja Ram Mohan Ray or Michael Madhusudan Dutta or Swami Vivekananda as a national icon. In the 20th Century the Hindu Bengalees were ready to adopt a national icon. Never in the history of mankind a poet / lyricist was so much propagated and publicized in spite of various limitations as was in the case of Rabindranath Tagore. The matter may please noted in accordance with the laws of the situation.
Rabindranath Tagore’s getting Nobel Prize was apparently a political move to quell the Bengalee-led 'Terrorist Movement' in the undivided Bengal, especially from 1890 to 1910. As such, it was a diplomatic pampering by London. Had there been no 'Terrorist Movement', perhaps even hundreds of 'Gitanjalis" could never bring Nobel Prize for the "Anglo-Indian" (as stated by the then Nobel Prize authorities) poet Rabindranath Tagore.
In this context the people may please remember the examples of Nobel Prize for Aung San Suu Kyi ; Dalai Lama; and Liu Xiaobo.
Time has come that the too much propaganda for Rabindranath Tagore will naturally stop. In 2010 no new edition of the complete works of Rabindranath Tagore has been published. On the other hand though double older writer's works are getting new edition in the Calcutta market. Of course very popular, but can general Bengalee reader name more than 200 hundred songs and poems by Rabindranath Tagore? No common Indian knows more that 5 (five) poems and songs by Rabindranath Tagore.
A.B.M. Shamsud Doulah
shamsuddoulah@yahoo.com