Nazes Afroz has translated Syed Mujtaba Ali’s debut book Deshe Bideshe into English. He recounted Ali’s wit and humour and love for languages. Shrabasti Malik reports
For those familiar with Bengali literature, works of Syed Mujtaba Ali would have a special significance. At a time when the regional literature was synonymous with the works of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay and Rajshekhar Basu, Ali rose to popularity with his debut work Deshe Bideshe. Published in 1948, it is till date considered the first Indian travelogue and continues to attract new readers in Bengal, which remained his home for nearly five decades and Bangladesh, which was his country of birth.
The book chronicled his brief stay in Afghanistan from 1927 till 1929 and was first serialsied in the Bengali literary magazine Desh, published from Kolkata. What immediately struck a chord with the readers were Ali’s witty jokes, puns and his unique way of describing even the most ordinary conversations. Although parts of the book have been translated into Urdu in the past, it was never translated into English.
In 2011, Nazes Afroz decided to translate a part of the book into English on the insistence of his Afghan friends so that “they can get a taste of Syed Mujtaba Ali.” He received a good response and that inspired him to translate the book he grew up reading. “I was 13 when I read Deshe Bideshe. It is not only an account of the place but is also a book written in the 40s about events that happened in the 20s,” said Afroz at the launch of In a land Far From Home, a translation of Deshe Bideshe, published by Speaking Tiger.
The book is a documentation of the events that happened at the critical point in Afghanistan’s history when the reformist, King Amanullah, tried to steer the country towards modernity by encouraging education for girls and giving them the choice of abandoning the burqa. In the process, Amanullah was termed as a kafir and was overthrown by bandit leader Bacha-e-Saqao. “Ali had an acute sense of history. So he not only chronicled the times but also put them in historical perspective,” pointed out Afroz. Ali’s narrative brought to life the characters that he met from all sections of the society.
Ali was also a rebel at heart, he said. India was under the British rule when Ali had the courage to defy the norms of the empire and refused to study in any institution run by them. Afroz said, “He went to Shantiniketan instead. He inherited the virtues of humanism, creativity and internationalism from Tagore. During his time there he also acquired the interest to travel the world and Afghanistan was his first step.”