In Memoriam

Narayan Gupta: The last formidable Bangalee iconoclast

By A.H. Jaffor Ullah

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade."

-- William Butler Yeats in 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree'

 

The news of the demise of Narayan Gupta (ca. 1935-2003) was a shock to many of us who knew him through writings and occasional e-mails. Mr. Gupta had passed away sometime in the first week of May 2003 in Toronto where is only son, a physician, lives. Mr. Gupta left his loving spouse and son to bereave his departure to the other world. The Gupta family is not the only one to feel the void left by him, but out there, there are many NFB and Mukto-Mona readers who had the familiarity with Narayan Gupta's writings. Therefore, we all are saddened by the news of the demise of our own friend and mentor-Narayan Gupta. I hope, through his death he will be visiting WB Yeats mythical land 'The Lake Isles of Innisfree' and live there, for eternity.

I called Narayan Gupta an iconoclast. This is not an understatement. Many shallow-minded Bangalees loved to hate the writings of Narayan Gupta. Indeed, he was an iconoclast by definition. Who qualifies to be called an iconoclast? The American Heritage Dictionary (AHD) defines the word as - 'One who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas or institutions.' The word has a long history. By digging AHD, I found the following word history of the term iconoclast:

The original iconoclasts destroyed countless works of art. Eikonoklastes, the ancestor of our word, was first formed in Medieval Greek from the elements eikon, "image, likeness," and -klastes, "breaker," from klan, "to break." The images referred to by the word are religious images, which were the subject of controversy among Christians of the Byzantine Empire in the 8th and 9th centuries, when iconoclasm was at its height. Those who opposed images did not, of course, simply destroy them, although many were demolished; they also attempted to have the images barred from display and veneration. During the Protestant Reformation images in churches were again felt to be idolatrous and were once more banned and destroyed. It is around this time that iconoclast, the descendant of the Greek word, is first recorded in English (1641), with reference to the Greek iconoclasts. In the 19th century iconoclast took on the secular sense that it has today, as in "Kant was the great iconoclast" (James Martineau).

Well, our Naryan Gupta was a man of gentle demeanor and I don't think he even broke one single china dish at home let alone destroy any cultural icon. Nevertheless, he challenged many existing views in our society back home that are in vogue. In every piece of his writing, he hammered at the injustices that our poor are receiving day-in-day-out. He spoke against caste system in India. He protested against the simplemindedness of Mullahs and Ayatollahs. His pen's nib was as sharp as zulfiquar against the politicians who profited from the eternal Hindu-Muslim fight. He was never afraid or hesitant to call spade a spade.

Because of his no-nonsense approach to writing, Narayan Gupta was misunderstood for his enigmatic writing. To understand his humor and banter, one needs to be well versed in literature. His vocabulary was wide and his diction was unique. He would liberally use both Bangla and Urdu in his English essays. Often time, I saw a clear Swiftean satire in his many write-ups. Of all I liked his articles under the rubric 'Seleucus's Diary.' He started writing in the newly created 'Readers' Opinion' forum of NFB in mid 1997. The readers were never tired of reading Narayan Gupta's witty remarks in the pages of NFB. He wrote non-stop up until October/November of 2002. Then he stopped sending his articles not only to NFB but also to Mukto-Mona. This was solely due to his deteriorating health. Nothing could please Narayan Gupta more than writing a short pithy comment about the antics of Bajrangi's of Maharashstra, tomfoolery of the Talibani mullahs of Kandahar or the inanities of a Maulana from Choumohoni, Bangladesh. Naryan Gupta's sharp was always loaded with ink so that he could write on a short notice. I used to receive his articles within minutes of something bad happening in South Asia. It used to make me amazed how quick Narayan Gupta's mind worked.

One time Narayan Gupta made his wish known to me. He badly wanted to write a short story based on the partition of Bengal. I gave my encouragement to such lofty ideas of his. He wrote not a short story but quite a lengthy one. We published his story 'Moina' in 6 parts sometime in 1999-2000. I lost many of his articles including the story of 'Moina' because of a hard drive crash in my pc. I am hoping someone has saved religiously all his articles. One time Narayan Gupta had this idea to write articles using animals a la Aesop's Fables. Thus, he created a whole bunch of characters out of uncastrated goats. In Bengali, these animals conjure up images of stupidity. Thus, Narayan Gupta was able to lampoon our modern-day society. Indeed these are the fine examples of Swiftean satire ate its best. Because of the acerbic tone of his lampoons, a section of the readers of NFB never quite had appreciated the geniuses of Narayan Gupta. But the late writer could care less. Before president Clinton made his maiden voyage to Bangladesh in March 2000, Narayan Gupta wrote an excellent article on what Clinton must see while visiting Bangladesh. It was a wish list from him. He wrote the article using such evocative language that I forwarded the article to Dhaka's Daily Star. Narayan Gupta's article was published before Clinton could arrive at Dhaka only for a day. From time to time, I used to forward Narayan Gupta's article to Dhaka's English daily newspaper The Bangladesh Observer. Once his article was in published, I would write him e-mail telling him where to find his article in the Internet. The joy he used to get hearing the news that he could connect with his long lost people who he left in 1947 when the sharp scissors of Sir Cyril Radcliffe cut the Old Bengal into two parts. Because of his age, Narayan Gupta was better suited for debating with Bangalees of his generation. With this view in mind, he used to write rebuttals against Prof. Rashiduzzaman's article. Similarly, he often commented on all too simplistic and much opinionated article of Holiday's editor Enayetullah Khan.

Many people have hidden talents that you or I may not know. Well, such was the case with Narayan Gupta. He was an excellent painter. He could sketch a drawing in a short notice. Once the word was out, I asked him to send me some of his paintings via e-mail. Mr. Gupta started to send the images that he took with digital camera instead of scanning them to obtain the image digitally. Consequently, the byte size was huge and it used to freeze my pc while being downloaded from the mail server. Later, one day he called me and asked for my home mailing address. A week later, a package came via USPS. It contained many of his superb art sketches. I will publish in the Internet Narayan Gupta's some humorous and others not so humorous paintings.

Naryan Gupta told me a long time ago that his health was breaking down due to his ongoing battle with the cancer he had. He was a good fighter. I was planning to meet him personally in April 2001 while I was attending the World Sindhi Conference at Washington DC. That get together was cancelled at the eleventh hour because Mr. Gupta was not feeling well. I regret immensely that I could not see him face-to-face. Who knows what could have been the topics of discussion. Nonetheless, I talked to him few times over the phone. He had a deep and scratchy voice. He could speak three or four languages intermingling them as he wished. I was amazed that he never did forget his Kishoreganji dialect! To make fun out of me, he used to address me as Baniachongi pola. My father originated from a village located next to Baniachong, a big village under Habiganj sub-division of Sylhet district. As a young boy, Narayan Gupta used to visit the small thana town of Ajmiriganj, a place not too far from Itna, the village he was born. He told me that Ajmiriganj was famous for shutki'the dry fish. It is a marshy place. Mr. Gupta said he would write an article based on what kind of water sport he saw in that no name place. Indeed, he wrote an article on age-old water sports of old Bengal based on his experience of visiting Ajmiriganj, which was re-published in NFB on May 12, 2003, in his honor.

I am happy to learn that both NFB and Muktomona has decided to re-post Narayan Gupta's old articles to honor this iconoclast. Narayan Gupta had a vision for his birthplace. He wanted to see no communal strife between the dominating Muslims and the minority Hindus. He never considered himself a Hindu. He considered him as a human being and a son of the soil. I think this is an understatement. Naryan Gupta was a worthy son of Itna, Bangladesh. 

On May 9, 2003, we heard the sad news that our beloved friend and writer Narayan Gupta had passed away. I wrote this eulogy in Bangla.
Sincerely,
Jaffor Ullah
Sat May 10, 2003

 

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A.H. Jaffor Ullah writes from New Orleans.

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