The Rebel Poet

One of my grandfather's favourite stories is the time when Kazi Nazrul Islam visited his house. The poet, aptly known as the Bidrohi Kobi (the Rebel Poet) inspired by his fiery poem Bidrohi (The Rebel). The following is a translated stanza from one of his popular songs, Kandari Hushiar
(Captain Beware)

The boat trembles, the water swells
The boatman’s lost his way
The sail’s in tatters, who will take hold of the rudder?
Who has the courage, ho?
Are you that youth? Hurry forth!
The future beckons
Heavy is the storm and cross we must
And land the boat on the distant shore!

Sometime in the year 1926, Nazrul was invited to visit Noakhali. To welcome the poet to her area, my great grandmother wrote a poem in his honour and sent it to the inaugural event. It is said that upon hearing the poem, Nazrul demanded to meet the author. Taking this as a hint, my great grandfather invited him over for lunch to his house. A feast was prepared. My grandfather, then a little boy, was caught up in the excitement. Those were in the days of purdah, so my great grandmother waited in the inside rooms for updates from her son, while the men were eating chicken roast. Nazrul asked to see more of her writing and after some hesitation, she sent him a novel she was working on. The following year this novel was published in a Kolkatta magazine, under a pseudonym (for proprieties sake, of course). The same year my great grandmother passed away from malaria in her late twenties.

I can’t help wondering what had inspired my great grandmother to write? Did Nazrul’s fiery rhetoric strike a chord with her? What would it be like to go through teenage angst, finding yourself married to a rural zamindar, watching your first child die in infanthood and hearing complaints that the new bouma (daughter-in-law) spends too much time reading & writing?