A few personal words on Professor Sibnarayan Ray
I came to learn about the death of Professor Sibnarayan Ray
Wednesday evening from a reference in a post-editorial piece written
by poet Al Mahmud. I could not believe that Professor Ray was gone
and the news was not covered in the media of Bangladesh . I made a
Google and Yahoo search and to my utter surprise, nothing was turned
up. I looked at the archives of The Statesman, The Hindustan Times
and The Telegraph. No reference. Last night Syed Tosarraf Ali's
obituary on late Professor Ray gave me the date of his last
breathing. Taking cue from that I gathered from the AnandaBazar of
27 February some details of the circumstances relating to the expiry
of this great Bengali pundit.
When I was living in the Mohsin Hall, Serajul Islam Quadir, who
lived in an opposite room to that of mine, would sometimes show me
letters from Sibnarayan Ray, then living in Melbourne. Later, one
day, I found a book in Nilkhte Bazar titled "Kabir Nirbashan O
Onanyana Bhawna". It was a collection of essays by Professor Ray
published in 1973. The second hand book cost me Taka 10 only. I am
grateful to the person who considered that great book not worth
preserving and disposed it off, presumably through a "Shishi-bottle-
Kagoj-wala". I was ushered into a height of Bengali mind which is a
rarity.
I had a chance of meeting Professor Ray in Dhaka in 1989, when he
had come to deliver a lecture on a literary occasion. A thin
upright person, simply dressed in pyjama-punjabi. He was humble in
his voice. He was firm in his conviction. He was logical, analytical
and consistent. He had no bias except that for logic. I still
remember one of his finishing sentences: "If Bengali as a language
has an opportunity to flourish, that will be in Bangladesh and not
in West Bengal." On later occasions, when Sunil and Shrishendu
visited Dhaka, they often echoed Professor Ray's belief.
In a very humble way I belong to the genre of writers and has been
publishing since 1973. But I can claim that I was most gratified
when Professor Ray published two of my articles in the Jijnasa of
1998-1999. It is deplorable that Jijnansa no longer is a regular
quarterly.
With the risk of exaggeration I would like to say that within my
gamut of reading, I found Professor Sibnarayan Ray the only Bengali
whose way of thinking and writing gave out the flavour of, I do not
know how to phrase it, internationalism. While studying in Melbourne
I had occasions to meet two of his PhD students: Marian Madderna dn
Elizabeth Bachkovsky. The amount of respect these two ladies showed
for Professor Ray, his personality and talent, was simply un-
Western.
One of initial essays was on the paintings of Rabindranath Thakur
published in as back as 1946. That promised a great mind in the
making. We should remain indebted to late poet Abid Azad who
published an anthology of essays of Professor Ray in 1990s from his
Shilpataru Prokashoni.
I saw him at his house in Calcutta early last year. He was still
working on the 4th volume of complete works of Manabendranath Roy.
His comments on the poetry of Jibanananda Das were not very not very
enthusiastic. He pointed out the limitations of JD. This year, on
the occasion of Ekushey Boi Mela, I produced an anthology of 100
poems of Jibanananda Das in English translation. Somoy Prokashon has
published it under the title "Beyond Land and Time". The back cover
contains a long quotation of Professor Ray on Jibanananda.
I have learnt three things from Professor Ray. One, Bengali language
needs to be strengthened with new words, terms and novel syntactical
patterns to be able to express intricate thoughts. Second, in
writing critical essays, one must take into consideration the
international perspective on the issue. Thirdly and perhaps most
importantly, knowledge is essentially a multi-disciplinary
exercise. Otherwise it remains half-knowledge or mere analyzed
information.
May his soul rest in peace.
Faizul Latif Chowdhury
March 07, 2008
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