Poet Abdur Rab Munshi died on the first day of the Bengali New year, 1, Baishakh, 1370 in his native village Tamai in Pabna. He was only 48.

While presenting today his Collected Poems to the literary world, I am tempted to say a few words. I am no professional critic or editor. I have no training that may enables me to say something in a neat and orderly fashion on the technical aspects of literature. I shall, therefore, relate some incidents of Mr. Munshi's life. It wouldn't perhaps be an introduction befitting an editor, but that does not disturb me. For I believe that I have a clearer and more intimate conception of his life than of his work. To me the joy of a small boy building castles of sand at the seashore is more precious than his skill as an architect.

This happened about ten years ago. My first book of short stories had just been published. Without mentioning its title, let me only say that it was preeminently a first effort. As I look back today, I recall the many sleepless nights I passed with the book under my pillow and the many wise, well-read, respectable people I presented my book to with a steady hand and a stout heart.

During those days whenever I went out to some place, I invariably carried a few copies of my book with me. And whoever talked intimately and sincerely with me got a copy of my book as a gift with his name neatly inscribed on it.

It was at that time that I first met poet Abdur Rab Munshi. I had gone to visit my aunt, my father's sister, after many years. In fact I was more interested in seeing the village than her.

It was a real village all right. Nearly seventeen miles away from the nearest town. There was no regular road that led to it. During the rains it had one kind of a road and during the summer another. My uncle had sent a messenger for me with a bicycle to the railway station. When I got to the village it was eleven in the night. I should have got there by six in the evening, but the cycle had broken down midway, and I had to walk the rest of the way.

And the walk was far from being speedy. For one thing, I was not used to walking on a country path. On top of it, I had to lug along the disabled bicycle.

My uncle's home was on the other side of a canal. One had to cross the canal in a dinghy. From this side of the canal I saw a few shadowy figures anxiously scanning this bank. When I went over, I found my uncle standing there, anxiety writ large on his face, and my aunt almost on the verge of tears. I immediately told them about the breakdown of the bicycle.

I heard the name of Abdur Rab Munshi that very night. My uncle told me that Mr.Munshi was waiting for my arrival since dusk. He had come to know that I was a writer and he wanted to meet me. As we ate our meal, I learnt that Mr. Munshi wrote poems and composed songs. Uncle said, "He will come
tomorrow and make your acquaintance."

I remember that I was very thrilled. Perhaps it was because of the fact that someone was anxious to see me for the simple reason that I wrote. As far as I remember, Abdur Rab Munshi was the very first human being who had come forward to meet me as a writer.

But he didn’t come the next day. A week went by and still I didn’t see him. I asked my uncle about him every now and then, which annoyed him.

"Munshi's words don’t mean much. Who knows, he is busy reciting his poems somewhere right at this moment. You poets are a crazy bunch."

I smiled sheepishly to take the edge off his banter. I was not aware of the norms of the rural social etiquette. I gathered that if I first went to Mr. Munshi's home on my own it would adversely affect my uncle's social position. Uncle was a man of property, while Mr. Munshi had only a few acres of land. In this situation it was out of the question that I should go and pay him a visit.

The desire to meet Mr. Munshi waxed warmer inside me. One day an unforeseen opportunity arose. Uncle had a cousin, about the same age as mine. I called him uncle, too. They were rather poorly off. He was studying in the city with great hardship in order to prepare himself to be a druggist's assistant. On that day I had gone out with him in a dinghy. We moved up the canal in a leisurely way without any specific destination. My companion worked at the oar.

We were moving up towards the Baumari lake. Suddenly my companion-I will refer to him as my young uncle from now on-pointed to a house in the distance and told me that it belonged to Abdur Rab Munshi. I looked at it with interest. I saw a house with corrugated iron sheet roof, pleasantly encircled by betel nut and plum trees. The courtyard of the outhouse had come down steeply right to the edge of the canal. From my moving dinghy the picturesque house seemed to be moving closer to me in a swirling cyclic manner. "Hey, let's go to Mr. Munshi's place." My young uncle seemed to make a faint gesture of protest, or it was possible that I was mistaken.

He asked, "Do you want to go there?"

"Yes, let's."

"Who knows if he is in or not." My young uncle seemed to be doubtful.

Trying my best to keep my voice steady and natural, I murmured, "Let's go and find out. No harm in that, is there?"

By then our dinghy had entered from the main canal into a subsidiary stream. Mr. Munshi's house stood by its shore. My young uncle moored the boat at the landing ghat attached to Mr. Munshi's house. We climbed the steep bank and stood on Mr. Munshi's outer courtyard.

It was a neatly swept outhouse. Two big plum trees grew close to the steps of the outhouse. Underneath one of them a low platform was erected with bamboo for providing seating accommodation. Under another tree there was a haystack. Two cows stood near by lazily munching hay. One could hear the canal water flowing by with a low murmur. There was no other sound. The whole house appeared quiet and still.

My young uncle went up to the thatched wall of the house and raising his voice called out, "O, poet uncle, are you in?"

There was an answering sound. Then a middle aged man came out. He had a lungi wound around the lower part of his body, but his torso was bare. His hands were plastered with mud and rice husks right up to his elbow joints. Just a fleeting moment. As soon as his eyes fell on mine, he drew himself in, hid himself and quickly stepped back into his home. My young uncle asked aloud, "O, poet uncle, why do you run away? See whom I have brought."

But there was no response. After a short while, a little girl with a ball of molasses in her hand came out and said to my young uncle, "Father has asked you two to take your seats."

After nearly half an hour, poet Abdur Rab Munshi came out to meet us. He had put on a freshly laundered lungi, a kurta, somewhat torn but clean and snow white, with a yellow brown scarf thrown over his shoulders, a pair of wooden sandals and a cap on his head. When I raised my hand and greeted him, he felt very embarrassed. He averted his eyes from mine and resting them over my young uncle's, smiled without a word, as if I was not there at all. Then he said, "Come on in, please sit down, Doctor."

I did not know what to say. I wanted to meet him, but what exactly should I say now? I could not decide anything though I clearly felt that I ought to say something. At last I murmured, "I have heard that you write poems."

"Oh, no, who told you that?" Abdur Rab Munshi protested in a startled tone. Then he smiled as if caught in some mischief. "There is hardly any time. Making a living keeps me too busy." Then he thought that perhaps he had not said enough. So he added shyly, "Would you like our writings? I have little education, you know. There was a poet singer in my school during my childhood who used to write beautiful poems. Inspired by their example, I started to write on my own. That’s all. People for no reason call me a poet. I am nothing."

Pausing every now and then, making many vague gestures with his hands, without glancing at me and with my eyes on some figures who were on the other bank of the canal, he slowly uttered the above words. But my young uncle protested. Turning to me, he said, "Look, you have not seen his poems. There is no one in twenty villages around here who can write so beautifully. People around here sing his songs all the time on all occasions. Our students recite his poems at school functions."

I said,"I have brought with me a book of mine. I would like to present it to you." So far I had presented my book to various persons on the basis of only slight and casual acquaintance. Today while giving away my book, I felt within me an extraordinary sensation of trembling hands, and his eyes filled with tears. He rested his eyes for a long time on his name on the book carefully written by me. He leafed through some pages. His eyes grew thoughtful. Then suddenly closing the book, he stood up and went inside his house without a word. My young uncle said, "Let's go. It is getting dark."

Mr. Munshi returned with a little pocket size book in his hand. It had a green cover. He said, "I published a book. Its title is Necklace." There was a picture of a rose at the lower part, the picture that a rural press usually printed on wedding presentation leaflets. Below the picture of the rose were written these words; "Composed and Published by Abdur Rab Munshi". Eight foolscap folded sheets, carelessly printed, in broken type. Eighty pages. Price ten annas. Mr. Munshi's first book.

.....................

Two days later, I returned to Dhaka. The present becomes past. The past becomes a memory. And memory lies asleep. Without the touch of a relevant association her sleep remains unbroken. I forgot all about poet Abdur Rab Munshi.

Then after about four years that young uncle of mine came to Dhaka. He was to appear before an interview board for a government job. He stayed at my place.

One day in the course of our conversation, he asked me if I remembered poet Abdur Rab Munshi. "That village poet, you know."

In a moment, raising a ripple in the stream of my memory, the poet came up as fresh as ever. I remembered his first look at me, his furtive withdrawal to change his dress, his anxious waiting for me seated under the plum tree, our mysterious conversation in the dark as we walked along the bank of the canal-all flashed in my memory at the same time. I felt happy and said, "Yes, yes, of course I remember him. How is he? Hasn’t he published anything else in the meantime?"

My young uncle picked up the first question and replied to it. I detected a note of sadness in his tone; no not sadness; more like a sense of guilt. He muttered, "He is all right."

An unknown apprehension made me uneasy. Gradually I learnt everything.

It was a savage persecution, indeed. It was discovered that Mr. Munshi's paddy field was brutally ransacked. The maturing well grown sheaves of paddy were mercilessly uprooted and carried away by some unknown people. On another day his two cows failed to return from their gazing ground. Mr. Munshi was warned that if he wrote one poem or one song in future, or if his songs were heard ever anywhere again, he would be driven out of the village for good.

I said, "Didn’t you, the young people of the village, make any protest?"

My young uncle answered, "You don’t live in the village. You don’t know how things are run here. We are just dirt under feet."

I learnt that Mr. Abdur Rab Munshi didn’t write any more. He doesn’t even talk to any one."

Perhaps man has to accept defeat somewhere. Poet Abdur Rab Munshi didn’t write any longer. On that day I could not think of a greater defeat. I felt a strong urge inside me to go and see him once. It seemed to me that I was my uncle's partner in his crimes. As if I too had moved far away from the poet.

.....................

The poet lay in the room on a tattered mattress. It was difficult to think of him as a living human being today. It seemed as if a skeleton was trying to look alive. On seeing me, he feebly stretched his hand. I took his lean eager hand in mine and sat down by his side. He continued to stare at me with hungry eyes. He tried to tell me something but found it hard to breathe and was unable to say a word.

I said, "You will get well." Pointing to my companion, I added, "He has told me that this complaint of yours is nothing to worry about."

But it seemed that my words did no register in his mind. He quietly said almost in a whisper. "How good of you to have come. There are so many things to talk about. When I heard about you from the doctor, I was so happy. How are you? Haven't you written other books during this time?"

While he said these words, he gently released his hand from my grip and fondly touched by body all over. My eyes filled with tears.

My young uncle got up, "I am going to a place close by, "he said. "To make a professional call. You two talk. Don’t cry, poet uncle. There is nothing to cry about. You will get well, I tell you. I'll be back soon."

When he left, Mr. Munshi said, "He may have become a doctor but his senses have not developed. Death is coming for me. Who can stop him? The Doctor? Don’t I recognise my own end? Well, you came about two years ago when I ill treated you. I didn’t even talk to you. Please forgive me, dear brother."

I quickly stopped him and said, "I took no offence, sir. I had heard everything. I even saw that you were watching my retreating figure. You are a great man. One day this village will be proud of you. They will boast that Poet Abdur Rab Munshi lived here. They will say that he used to sit under the palm tree over there and compose his songs and write his poems."

I seemed to be in the grip of some intoxication. I eagerly wanted to make that picture come alive before his eyes. My voice grew husky. I was almost choking, but still I went on.

As he listened to me the poet sat up on his bed, his eyes shone as if in a trance, the lines on his face began to throb with joy.

I took his hands in mine and said, "You will see that all this will come true. There is nothing for you to grieve over. One day everybody will come to appreciate your worth and then they will be sorry for their mistake."

As if I was relating a fairy tale to him. A child's bright and eager curiosity kept oozing from his eyes and face. He thought that I was a messenger, an angel, from the future. he felt me again with his hands as if he could not believe that I was real.

His eldest son brought me a glass of sherbet made with liquid molasses. I saw the poet's wife looking at me from behind a half open door across the courtyard shading her face with the skirt of her saree like a ray of sorrow.

Mr. Munshi said, "Please drink the sherbet."

He picked up the glass himself and offered it to me. I drained it. He watched the scene in complete silence.

Then he lay down on his bed again and said, "I called you to let you know that the message I gave through the doctor last time was false. I am nearing the end of my days, I know. Mr. Talukdar couldn’t do me any harm. Now I am not frightened any more to tell you that I never stopped writing. Can anyone live without speaking? I composed a large number of songs and poems after that incident. Everything is written up. All neatly packed in that trunk. The people will come to know of them, tomorrow, if not today. I sent for you to arrange for the publication of these writings in the form of a book. You can do it. Won't you do it?"

I felt thrilled. An indescribable joy filled my heart. Poet Abdur Rab Munshi had not given up. He had worked all day in the field with his plough under a burning sun, returned home in the evening, and secretly written his poems in the darkness of the night.

He turned to his eldest son and asked him to open the trunk. The boy took out a bundle carefully tied in an old cloth and gave it to his father. Mr. Munshi made a sign to me to take the bundle. In a moment he looked amazingly disinterested and calm. In spite of all his erstwhile love and anxiety about his writings, he didn’t even touch them once with his hand, didn’t even glance at them a second time. Only big drops of tears continued to fall from his eyes.

Turning his face, he said in a cracked voice. "Often I thought of going away from his place. Anywhere at all. And then I thought again, where shall I go leaving behind this little patch of earth of mine? Where shall I get these trees, these clouds, this air, this sun and this moon? If I go away, will injustice go away, too? It will stay on here. So what good will my going away do? Therefore I stuck to this place. And I spoke to the earth. So many words, you know! I said, "O earth, you are my mother. Do you think I don’t know about the pain and suffering that have darkened your colour? You never disowned me. Why shall I disown you? As long as you are there, I have everything."

As he said these words, he lowered his head still more. With his face nearly touching the floor, he brought out those tearfilled words from the very depth of his heart. He handed to me the flowers he had raised during the lonely days of his sad and long dedication. His son sat at his head quietly with dull eyes.

That was the last time I saw Poet Abdur Rab Munshi.

I regret only one thing, that he could not see his Collected Poems before he died.