In Saldah, Comilla, a handful of fearless freedom fighters set out on a perilous mission to pulverize a Pakistani military bunker. Serving as squad commander was none other than Azam Khan himself. Yet compared to the scale of the operation, their weaponry was pitifully scarce—consisting of nothing more than a few pistols, an automatic machine gun, and four hand grenades! As they crept near the bunker, they realized this was no ordinary encampment; it was an impenetrable fortress heavily fortified with heavy machine guns. The slightest misstep meant certain death. Fortunately, the Pakistani soldiers were preoccupied, casually dining without a care in the world. Whatever had to be done, it had to be struck in that fleeting window of opportunity.
Squad leader Azam Khan issued strict orders: no one was to fire until he gave the signal. As they waited, who knows what wild, unpredictable impulse seized the mind of this tempestuous artist! Just moments before charging forward with the auto-machine gun, he burst into song—“Aisa mauka phir kahan milega…” Before the Pakistani soldiers could even grasp what was happening, six of them were silenced forever under the roaring fury of his gunfire.
During the Liberation War, Azam Khan took part in over thirty direct combat encounters. Yet these legendary exploits of heroism rarely made their way onto printed pages. Even the hair-raising episode described above is the singular account that author Maqsoodul Haque managed to extract from Azam Khan’s lips with immense difficulty. Whenever the subject of war arose, Azam Khan would fall silent, keeping his eyes shut—perhaps never wishing to summon back the harrowing terror and trauma of that battlefield.
Another brilliant, theoretical chapter in Maqsood’s book is his meticulous academic dissection of why Azam Khan is emphatically not the ‘Pop Guru.’ The author offers a sharp and cogent critique of how mainstream media compromised his authentic ‘Rock’ persona by saddling him with the cheap label of ‘Pop Guru.’
Though modest in size, this book unearths a wealth of lesser-known anecdotes about Azam Khan that might never have come to light had Maqsood not put pen to paper. For instance: had Maqsood not received that famous slap from Azam Khan, he might never have sung in Bengali in his life—and we would have been deprived of Maqsood’s timeless, era-defining anthems.
Regarding Azam Khan, Probor Ripon—one of my favorite contemporary vocalists—offered a sublime reflection: “In Bengali music, the singer who sang most completely from the depth of the heart is Azam Khan.” I can offer you tangible (or audible) proof of this right now. In the legendary Bengali collaborative album “Daag Theke Jaay,” there is a song by Azam Khan titled “Dure Aachhi Ei Bhalo” (Better Far Away). While listening to that track, at precisely the 1-minute-50-second mark, Azam Khan unleashes a vocal magic that will shake any sensitive listener to the very marrow of their bones.
Those who walked alongside Azam Khan and witnessed his life up close ought to write more books like this. In those turbulent, precarious days, had Azam Khan not stepped into the fray, braving the avalanche of criticism and skepticism, how could the kaleidoscopic revolution of band music in Bangladesh have ever taken flight?
