The story begins with his father. It is like the chronicle of one life nestled inside another. And what breath-stealing suspense that story carries! It pulls the reader like a magnetic force into an unimaginable scene: a ten-year-old boy stepping off a train onto an unfamiliar platform, unfed for two or three days, his small frame trembling with dizziness as darkness gathers before his eyes—utterly alone in the vast, indifferent expanse of Dhaka. In our childhood, we watched such melodramatic scenes every Friday in BTV’s afternoon Bengali cinema. But where do the ideas of cinema originate? From raw, unvarnished life itself! Poet Farid Kabir’s father, Sadullah, grew into manhood bearing the agonizing brunt of that sheer reality. And through his exquisite prose, the poet channels the raw ache of young Sadullah’s harrowing days directly to our senses. This is no cinema; this is stark, undeniable life.
Reading through the book, a spontaneous question surfaces in the mind: was Farid Kabir’s celebrated poem “Train” born from this very chapter of his father’s life?
‘The train dropped us midway, at an unfamiliar station.
Is the destination where one desires to go? Or is it where they disembark?
Or does the destination itself seek out its own people!
Stepping onto the bewildered platform, we too wonder—
was this where we truly wished to arrive,
or did the train merely discard us here . . . in this thick, fog-drenched night!’
Farid Kabir’s ‘My Story’ is, at its heart, an entire constellation of stories housed within a single spine. The narrative that began with the father also concludes with the father. Yet for a substantial stretch in between, the father’s life and the poet’s own journey unfold along parallel tracks. Just as father Sadullah would forget yesterday’s happenings by the following dawn, we find Farid Kabir making the exact same confession. This book becomes an eerie voyage of unearthing unseen affinities between father and son. The turbulent peaks and valleys of their lives outstrip the suspense of any cinematic rollercoaster!
Through the voice of schoolboy Farid Kabir, we overhear the crack-of-dawn squabbling and unprintable curses exchanged between two women at a communal tap in Old Dhaka; or the irrepressible obsession of an adolescent who braved daily beatings just to catch a glimpse of television. Even amidst the hellfire of the 1971 Liberation War, we witness through the author’s gaze a surreal normalcy in the everyday rhythms of Old Dhaka: as warfare raged on all sides, Uncle Humayun’s wedding festivities were celebrated in full swing that May! We also learn how, in the days preceding the fateful night of March 25, thousands fled Dhaka in nameless dread. At the launch terminal, he paints with a thumping heart the visceral scene of freedom fighters beating Razakars—the very first time in his young life he had ever witnessed a human being being killed.
The author’s intellectual awakening was ignited when he traded his addiction to television for the voracious appetite of a bookworm. Exchanging letters with ‘Riya’ nudged Farid Kabir onto the path of poetry. Yet he undertook a rigorous, patient apprenticeship for it. Before ever writing, he became a reader of the first rank. To master language and craft his lexicon, he sought the mentorship of the country’s foremost poets and immersed himself in spirited literary gatherings with poets in West Bengal. Accumulating wisdom over time, he would eventually sit in poet Shamsur Rahman’s living room, vigorously debating metrics and poetic metre over his own manuscript with luminaries like Zillur Rahman Siddiqui—a recollection that fills the reader with genuine awe.
The memoir features a tender, memorable encounter with Shahidul Zahir, where the legendary writer wistfully pleads: “Please do let me know how you find the book. Nobody ever tells me anything about my work.” In the eighties and nineties, there was scarcely a poet or literary figure in the Dhaka-Kolkata circuit whom Farid Kabir did not know or share an adda with. His half-hour meeting with Satyajit Ray (who sheepishly admitted that he rarely read poetry) and his lively, bittersweet rapport with an intellectual colossus like Humayun Azad are genuinely enviable. Reading of those golden days of an incomparable generation leaves one with a lingering, nostalgic sigh.
The book’s revelations about the inner machinations of the journalism world are astonishing. He chronicles the historic birth and fall of dailies like Ajker Kagoj and Bhorer Kagoj with remarkable courage. The ascent of Matiur Rahman and the subtle maneuvers deployed to crush an entire dream—these realities might have remained forever hidden had this memoir not been penned. He effortlessly exposes just how menacing individuals who wear the polite mask of respectability can become when self-interest takes over.
Where autobiographies often devolve into an unwritten competition to portray oneself as an immaculate saint, Farid Kabir writes with disarming candor about his affairs, his sexuality, and his visits to brothels. Yet this is not where his true courage lies. Burdened by staggering debts during the darkest trials of his life, he never abandoned his domestic obligations or fled; instead, he confronted brute reality with an iron grip and overcame it. To find genuine inspiration, Farid Kabir’s unvarnished life struggle is infinitely more potent than the cheap motivational paperbacks flooding the stalls.
I conclude this review with a lovely personal memory. I had the privilege of conversing with Farid Kabir once. In conversation, he was so lively and disarmingly warm that he came across as a thoroughly endearing soul. It never felt as though I was speaking to an author of such towering stature for the first time. The manner in which he captured the turbulent post-independence era onto his canvas makes his contribution to Bengali poetry undeniable. Even amidst the towering giants of the fifties and sixties, he carved out an indelible, understated presence in the eighties and nineties through the sheer power of economy and restraint. The brief time spent with such a vital, evocative writer will remain a cherished memory. Perhaps future editions of this book will illuminate even more of his rich experiences—I await that day with keen anticipation.
