Audity Falguni Writer

Audity Falguni studied at the Faculty of Law in University of Dhaka, obtaining her Bachelors and Masters Degrees. Although she wished to study Sociology, she had to study Law because her parents wanted her to. She entered the development world since she held a great interest in Sociology. She started her journey with Ain-O-Salish Kendro (ASK) on a part time basis in 1997. She was still a law student back then. Today she is working with the Urban Partnerships for Poverty Reduction (UPPR) at UNDP as a Gender Expert.

 

Audity wrote her first poem at the age of 4 in Rangamati. She was just learning Bangla and English alphabets and she could not write either of them fluently. She says, "I merely chanted it from my soul with my three elder siblings. There was a cage in our courtyard where we used to keep our pet parrot. I suddenly uttered two lines from my heart, Chotto ekti graam/ tota pakhir pran (A little village there is/The soul of the parrot). Often I used to marvel at the distant and azure hilly village from our window panes. My elder brother, Taposh simply hugged me, crying, "Are you a born poet?" My elder sister, Kaberi instantly wrote it down in her note book. It was the beginning and I knew from that day that I wanted to be a writer."

Audity grew up in the midst of books and literature all around. Her mother was a voracious reader of Bangla literature. Her siblings' only passion was to buy and read books in Bangla, English, French as well as Russian classical literature translated in Bangla or English. Her main source of inspiration comes directly from the environment at home. Regarding her job as a Gender Expert, she says, "My passion to understand the pulse of the society led me to the development arena as it offers you the scope to witness cross-segments of people and their diverse characters." Audity gad also faced difficulties while pursuing her goals. She says, "Life is still not so smooth, particularly for the young women in our country. Our society, even in the global context, has been as tolerant as to accept a woman both as a homemaker and a career woman, but has it yet been mature and tolerant enough to contain a woman writer, painter or filmmaker?" She adds, "The image of an actress, singer or dancer goes well with the traditional image of femininity, as put forth by Simone de Beauvoir. But it is not so easy if a woman wants to be a creator herself! Many women have to sacrifice their talent to raise a family or fulfill the “feminine” role desired by society. Even if our society accepts you as a female writer, it still cannot imagine that a woman writer may have to live in a fisherman's village for 6 months to write a novel like 'The Old Man and the Sea.' There are still many difficulties to overcome and I am not at all satisfied with whatever I have so far written."

Falguni thinks our politics and economy are at stake and due to these problems combined with the social issues, she still has not been able to come up with a future plan in context of Bangladesh.

Regarding how she wants her homeland to be, she says, "To begin with the line by Justice Mohammad Habibur Rahman, “Should not the soil of this melancholic Bangladesh be soaked in blood again!” - no Coup d'Etat along with stable, effective and meaningful democracy, no extra-judicial killings of the civilians, enhanced job allocation both at rural and urban economic sector, freedom of press, increased mobility for women, less inflation, electricity for the farmers…a tall order!"

By Naziba Basher

Baki Billah Writer

When Baki Billah enrolled at the University of Dhaka as a student of History in 1997, he was more into politics than literature. An active member of a left-leaning students' political party, he soon started to explore the vast expanse of Bengali literature. But when the expanded horizon of his reading was compounded with his experience of down-to-earth realities, he decided to write not only to voice his own thoughts but also to give expressions to his social observations. Although very adept in non-fiction, he took to writing short stories. But unlike many belonging to his generation, he is not a prolific writer who hastily churns out several books in every Ekushey Book Fair. Writing for him is a serious, creative engagement which does not go by the market demand.

 
 
Photo:Courtesy

"I believe in the sheer power of fiction. Non-fiction can communicate with readers very quickly and it actually informs them of certain things. But fiction can shake the entire being of a reader. It not only activates the logical or rational part of our mind but also strikes our sensory perceptions; it arouses a reader's whole being. Such a serious engagement is not possible keeping in mind the publisher's deadline," reflects Billah. It well explains why he has published only one short story collection so far, titled "Nehati Adhunik Ebong Anyanya Chhoto Golpo," which came out in 2009. His book did not raise a storm in the literary circles but it did herald the arrival of a fresh new voice.

Although authors such as Rabindranath Tagore and Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay had already aroused in him the desire to articulate his thoughts and observations, authors such as Akhtaruzzaman Elias, Hasan Azizul Haque, Samaresh Majumdar and Sunil Gangopadhyay had held sway over him. And it was from these writers that he took all his inspirations.

Aged 34, he is now an owner of a printing press at Fakirapool called Chitrakalpa. He not only believes in putting life at the centre of literature but also in mastering it as the most sublime form of art.

By Rifat Munim