Incredible evening with Syed Shamsul Huq

Samira Abbasi
Bangladesh

26th March. A night special for every Bangladeshi living in any part of the world. 26th March 2016; a uniquely memorable night, for me and my sister Dr. Nashid Kamal were totally engrossed in a wonderful presentation by Syed Shamsul Huq. This was a solo presentation of the poet where he was reminiscing that night of March as well as reciting and elaborating many of his beautiful poems. It was pure time travel as Syed Huq was painting an incredible picture of the night of 26th March 1971.

It was not a crowded gathering in the Indira Gandhi Cultural Center, as not too many people come for talks and recitations. That night in another part of town people were crowding for a presentation by  the poet Gulzar. Syed Huq started humorously saying each Bengali represents a thousand people, and so in that respect there are thousands in the audience. He mesmerised the audience with recitations of his selected poems as well as descriptions of the premises of each of them. Since it was the historic 26th March, he took the audience to 1971 in the blink of an eye with his vivid descriptions and photographic details of that night. He remembered every sound of bullets, bombs blasting and light outs and recreated the scene with his dramatic delivery. His wife had fever on that night, and was lying in bed and his eldest son was lying beside her.  The sounds of firing were becoming ever so frequent and that's when Syed Huq sat down at his table to write poetry. To me, that was the ultimate statement that proved Syed Shamsul Huq a true poet at heart and spirit. When the world hides in fear and uncertainty, the true poet picks up his pen and expresses his emotions through his powerful writing. I still shiver when thinking about that moment!

Syed Huq also talked about other historic aspects of our nation such as the Partition of 1947. As a very young child he had been separated from his Hindu friends Naresh and Paresh as they left suddenly one night for India. He could not understand what caused this sudden separation which was unbearable to a young child. Syed Huq wrote an excellent piece of poetry on this. And as he was describing the story, we could not hold back our tears.

As the programme ended we all felt so enlightened. There was no place better we could be at that night of March. No place more appropriate and enriching as his presentation. The audience talked to him over tea and biscuits and felicitated him on his lifelong achievements. Few years ago I had a long chat with him, sitting next to him on a Channel i programme. He had expressed a lot of interest in my writing and my film work. He remembered those and asked me about the progress that night. I was pleasantly surprised that he would remember. A brilliant man, a man deep rooted in his soils and his thoughts, always present at the present and aware of the past.

I feel very fortunate to have shared that special night with him. Syed Shamsul Huq, as you have said yourself, real friends never say goodbyes.