(Abdul Mannan Syed (3 August 1943 –5 September 2010) was a Bangladeshi poet, prose-artist and critic. He is known for his considerable research works on Kazi Nazrul Islam, Jibanananda Das Farrukh Ahmad, Syed Waliullah, Manik Bandyopadhyay, Samar Sen, Muhammad Wajed Ali etc. From 2002 to 2004, he held the position of the executive director of Nazrul Institute, Dhaka.
Mannan Syed was born on 3 August 1943 at Basirhat, on the Ichamati River, in West Bengal. Besides, in 1946, an awesome riot took place in 1950 that drove the family of Syed from West Bengal and to settle in Dhaka of erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. His father bought a piece of land on the Green Road and since then Syed family has been living there till his sudden death in September 2010 because of cardiac and diabetes problem. Towards the latter half of his life, he tried to enter into the realm of mysticism.)
Inside Ownself
It has been long delayed; din and bustle, much ado reigned.
Now you dive deep in your own pivotal point—inside own self.
Keep on excavating and reach the kindred point at the lowest bottom.
A whistle was blown. The ship will be unmoored. Rise and stand up.
Stand before a mirror, Face to face with your own, stand.
Be nude. Get emptied. Inconceivable riches belong to you—
You just learn it that an introvert is frightful of materialism.
From the deeply inserted roots, trees; spreading wings you fly afar.
Light white patches of cloud are drifting across overhead.
Be calm, be silent, and let your emotion flow inside yourself.
Light white patches of cloud are drifting across all around the head.
Getting peaceful you fly away in your own calm, firm pledge.
Light white patches of cloud are floating across inside your head
Bathe in varied hues, either in the sun-glow, or in the moonbeam.
Road
The first gold of the sun pours its rays on the roads.
I am walking alone. Mist is lifted, dejection, too,
Grass, trees, happiness, birds, sky—all are having tongue.
Behold, that is the blue, the green stirs in the grass.
The first sun of Magh penetrates within me.
I walk along absorbed in. Alone. Fog vanishes, despair, too.
A new craving awakes inside me, an insatiable thirst for the unseen.
My spirit shudders in another voice within my own voice.
You changed countless levels during long fifty years,
O the Almighty Allah! You will make me rotate the circle fully,
It seems. If it is not, then how you will bring under
Your command, the total number of letters of my poems,
How you will make me know in a spring of deep perception:
Roads are never closed—rather they lead to a new one.
Of Those People
Every night slumber is broken as poetic lines overwhelm me.
—Has the season of spring of poetry come back again?
It was lighter than flowers, but now is it so intense and vigorous?
Why sleep is lost these days at every wee hours of night.
If under the pressure of poetic lines? Is it the marvel of words?
Or the interaction of sounds created out of collision of words,
Or my rest during night is torn apart by wonderful images,
Or does the wonderful expression of similes break the sleep?
The attraction of heart-touching themes of word-rhythm-simile
Has never so overpowered me in such a way.
So, I lose sleep not for word-rhythm-simile- imagery;
I get up for the magnetic attraction of heart of those people—
Those who gave assurance and safety against nothingness,
Who gave people the whereabouts of their souls.
My Eyes
When all the doors get closed, windows are also shut,
Only then my eyes get opened within myself.
So far my sight runs, I see in the gathered leaves and roots
A different sun, or a moon keeps pouring light.
—This sort of glow, where does it come from?—it seems
A gold knife has got stuck—in the pure heart of a noon.
I could remember this sort of light I saw in the wonder of babies;
I have never seen such a flameless glow.
This light is mysterious! You are like innocent dawn
Inside fruits, the sword of the rains at night,
You are the sun within words, stars within rhythms,
You are the stream of smile of angels across skies,
You are the rains of the second moon are pouring in torrents,
After an eternal night, dawn will be breaking forever.
So Many Doors
So many doors have passed through one door:
Through the moon, the sun, fruits, flowers, streams, stone—
Their marks have been lying nameless in countless signatures.
Let us go hidden from view—this time quest should start in.
Pearl remains concealed. Open that oyster which is tightly shut:
Of nature. So many hues ooze out of the moon-sun-fruits-flowers,
Countless rows and stripes are created with deep affection of mercy
In straight line-triangle-circle—also in red-blue-green-turquoise blue.
I have perceived reaching at fifty; the sun is a transparent palace,
The rains are a wonderful courtyard. With what amount of wealth
You have filled in days and nights, what tasty flavour you have gifted
For the five sense-organs—oh King of kings!—what the gold finger
Has touched have been turned into gold by amazing alchemy.
How much paltry and trivial is our artistic writing to this.
Gazi Abdulla-hel Baqui is a poet, researcher, translator and educator.
খুলনা গেজেট/ এস আই
