National poet Kazi Nazrul Islam visited Trishal in 1914. He stayed there for a year and studied at Darirampur School in Class VII. He was a good student and earned a free studentship. He used to skip school and spend time at the foot of a banyan tree playing a flute. That tree is still there in front of the campus of the Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University, but by now a cemented crescent pad is built around it. Locals disagree on the originality of the tree, some vociferously claiming that it was the same tree, now hundred years old, which gave shade to the poet, some, however, forward the more realistic view that the present tree is an outshoot of the original one. The villagers are in agreement on the point that the site of the tree is the same as the place which the imaginative youth frequented. However, on inspection, it may be found that the present tree is not a banyan but an Ashwath — a typical countryside tree belonging to the same class.

A vagabond youth is nature’s own child, which Nazrul was. In his first published prose write up, titled, “The Autobiography of a Vagabond,” Nazrul describes his own daredevil childhood in the mouth of a fictional character who says: “Yes, I don’t remember my childhood much. And whatever of it comes to my mind through a hazy memory, I don’t find anything of interest or romance or difference in it. Like the average children Ram and Shyam I was spoiled by the plethora of love of my parents, and in studies I showed no promise, and in the stick games I was second to none, and in playing pranks and tricks upon the innocent people I was the sure child of Lord Krishna, and in the bunch of naughty children I was the smaller edition of Alexander the Great. Whether at my merciful attention and torture the villagers — men, women and children — were happy with me I cannot swear by touching anybody’s head, but the language in which everybody wished me ‘well’ did not go unheard by my sharp hearing. There is a local saying that ‘the trouble maker is finally punished’, so did it happen to me in a more obvious sense. As in the course of events I was thrown out of my mother’s orbit into the wide world of work and business, I also fell flat on the footpath of life and then how many hundreds of busy feet, booted, walked over the helpless bones of my ribcage — even the best numerator cannot keep any account of it.”

The little paragraph above translated very poorly by the present writer gives a glimpse into the life of the poet as to judge what a vagabond he would turn out to be.

His encounter with Kazi Rafizullah, the sub-inspector, who would bring him to Trishal, sounds like a fairy tale. Shoilajaranjan Mukhopadhay, Nazrul’s childhood friend, wrote in his book, “Some forget, some don’t” that Nazrul first worked as an errand boy for a railway guard at Prashadpur. He was a born drunkard and Nazrul couldn’t last in this job. Then he was employed by M. Box, at one taka per month as salary in his tea stall at Asansole. M. Box also provided food for the poet but no accommodation. When night fell, Nazrul used to sleep on the veranda under the staircase of a three-storied building situated nearby. That very building was the residence of Sub-inspector Kazi Rafizullah. His ancestral home was at the Kazirshimla village, in Trishal thana in Mymensingh. When he saw the youth sleeping on the veranda at the downstairs of his house he became curious about the boy and on inquiry came to know about the vagabond life of the poet. It is thought that he got the poet unengaged from the tea stall and employed him in his own house as a servant for taka five as monthly salary. Kazi Rafizullah and his wife Shamsunnessa were a childless couple, so they afforded parental affection to the young boy. And on the request of the boy they decided to arrange schooling for the boy. Kazi Rafizullah sent Nazrul to his home with a letter to his elder brother Kazi Shakhawatullah for making necessary arrangement for Nazrul to go to a local school. Thus ended the life of Nazrul at Asansole tea stall and a three month stint at the house of Kazi Rafizullah.

At Trishal, Nazrul at first lived with the Kazi family as a lodger at Kazirshimla village. Later on, he lodged at a few more houses in order to stay close by the school at Darirampur, as because to come to school Nazrul had to walk five miles every day from Kazirshimla. In 1914, the assistant teacher of that school, Mahim Chandra Khashnabish used to teach English in Class VII. From his reminiscences, it may be known that Nazrul used to be unmindful in the class, and when questions were asked to him, he used to get upset in the beginning, but when a question was repeated for the second time, he could answer it correctly. In that very year under the direction of Mahim Babu a cultural function was held at the school in which Nazrul charmed all by reciting two famous poems by Tagore: “The Two Acres of Land,” and “The Old Servant.”

At Kazirshimla or at the school, Nazrul failed to develop any friendship with anybody, rather the youths of the village bugged him all the time. Nazrul was occasionally seen playing a flute at the Thunibhanga bill sitting under a big tree. Nazrul was basically a good student and he passed from Class VII to Class VIII either becoming first or second, and that was by the end of 1914. He then returned home.

Nazrul and Kazi Rafizullah never met afterwards. Later on, when Nazrul was at the pinnacle of success by 1931, Kazi Shahib visited Kolkata on an official purpose. He came to the abode of Nazrul and sent a slip seeking his permission to see him. Nazrul was so busy in writing or reading that he did not cast his eye on the slip, and after waiting for two hours, Kazi Rafizullah left the house. At long last when Nazrul’s attention was drawn to the slip, Rafizullah was already gone, though after returning home, Rafizullah received a telegram from Nazrul regretting the matter and urging him to see him again on his next visit, which however was never materialized as Kazi Shahib fell ill with tuberculosis and died in Assam in that very year.

In this way, Nazrul’s stay at Trishal was his first encounter with the East Bengal, and though he never visited Darirampur, Kazirshimla or Trishal itself, but in his short story, “Agni Giri,” anthologised in his book, “Shiuli Mala,” we find the reflections of his life at Darirampur in the character of Sabur Akhnad. In the story there is a rhyme used in the dialect of Mymensingh, which gives an evidence of Nazrul’s affection for the indigenous accents of the dialect.

(Source: “Kazi Nazrul Islam: Jibon o Srijon” by (Prof) Rafiqul Islam.)

The writer is Vice-chancellor, Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University.