The descendant died before his Ancestor was born

I didn’t know when I hastily shut the door no 12 behind me- it was Nazrul’s 108th anniversary today. That didn’t make the difference really as I was sweating being sandwiched in the bilateral conspiracy of uncomfortable clothes and malfunctioning sun. And no rickshawpuller mistakenly took its sudden way into the BDR.

The only difference I noticed was the open gate that kept one of the best epitaphs, ever written, wide open and accessible…

I will never address you again, my friends!/And will never make the noise to disturb your sleep/freeze and silent/ Will I alone be burned within myself…

Just the gate paved a quicker by-pass for me when I was haste to get into the crowd mosque. The loud voiced old Imam was uttering those last words that pulls the prayer closer. After a cooling ablution I met Ashraful, whom I see more often here, but this time I moved deep into the mosque. My bag, pregnant with heavy anthologies, disturbed the youth in his prayer who stood close to it.

I quit before the exit got crowd and took the short-cut way that touched the Nazrul epitaph at its last end. From the adjacent footpath, I picked up a poetry book with a weired name that means “To my unsuccessful Ancestors”. In the preface, the son, perhaps the only, of the poet tells how the name came to his mind when his father told him take responsibility for publishing the book.

Standing in front of Fine Arts Institute, when I mobiled Saikat for fourth time, his answered negative. Somebody inside me thought of the Bokultola premise and the people sat around there but I asked the rickshawpuller… who dropped me at Katabon crossing, where I met a gang of married people who was busy discussing their family stuffs. I felt alienated and somehow managed to leave the shadowy place.

The article on recently past Nazrul critic Shahabuddin Ahmed was just at the middle of the magazine that I opened to tray my cut-off nails. I enjoyed all of his speeches on literature specially those on Nazrul. This strange man had remarkable similarity in appearance with Nazrul. More strangely, he breathed his last when people was preparing to celebrate his favourite poet’s birth anniversary.

The descendant died before his ancestor was born.