Ultimate destiny of an individual man is death. This is the irony of life and everyone must accept this hard reality. Yet if death comes all of a sudden and takes away the life of a creative personality who at that time is at the peak of his/her creativity, then we, all of his/her near and dear ones, well-wishers, friends and fans can not but be shocked and stunned. Similar situation we experienced on November 19, 2007 hearing the news of the sudden demise of Sanjeeb Chowdhury, renowned singer and journalist of the land. At noon that day when Sanjeeb's body was kept at TSC mall of the Dhaka University, the grief over a great loss profoundly engrossed the people who gathered there to pay their last homage. Thousands of grief-stricken people from all spheres of the society, consisting of noted artists, singers, journalists, politicians and his well-wishers, friends and fans literally became bewildered. Especially, at the time when through his immortal songs and lyrics he started to capture the heart of the generation, when so many things he had yet to be contribute to the cultural realm of the land, his unexpected premature death had created a void never to be fulfilled.
In his short span of life Sanjeeb could turn himself into a celebrity singer. His deep hypnotizing voice, appealing lyrics, and soulful music attracted the young generation so much that in any of the concerts of his group he became the focal point. His immortal songs like gari chole na, ami tomake bole debo, tumi amar bahanoo tas, bioscope, etc. are in the favourite list of the generation and, no doubt, these will be sources of inspiration for the generations yet to come.
Sanjeeb's identity should not be confined as a singer only. Sanjeeb with his versatile qualities, in his lifetime traversed different spheres of cultural domain of the country and everywhere he could successfully mark the sign of his genius. At the same time he was a writer, poet, actor, journalist, organiser, political activist and what not. Many of his scholarly write-ups and poems, published in different national dailies and weeklies as well as in different little magazines were hallmarked as high esteemed by the critics of literature. Rushprint, the only one published poetical work of Sanjeeb was also appreciated much by many of the leading poets of the country. Perhaps, his most successful endeavour was in the field of journalism. He worked as mentor for many of today's established journalists who worked as colleague of him either in the Bhorer Kagoj or Ajker Kagoj. In this context, journalist Nobonita Chowdhury of the BBC Bangla Service commented , "Sanjeebda shaped our lives and we never took the opportunity to thank him. He never wanted any recognition from anyone he mentored. According to her, "whoever you are, wherever you are - if once belonged to Sanjeebda's group, you will remain in his heart forever and he will always greet you with a warm smile and hug."
I knew Sanjeeb as my batch-mate at Dhaka University. I forget to remember the specific day when I first met Sanjeeb. But it must have been any day in 1981, the year when we started to pursue for our honours degrees in Dhaka University. Within a short span of time we became close friends, too. Soon our closeness reached an extent where one can freely open up one's mind and it persisted throughout our university life. Although academically we were not in the same discipline (I studied physics while he started studying mathematics and ended with journalism!), it did not retard our proximity in relationship. This was because, due to his magnetic personality, I could not but love agile company.
In his student life Sanjeeb was an ideal political activist. Socialism was his political ideology and he dreamt of a classless society for the country. Eventually he joined Chhatro Union, the student front of CPB and worked for its cultural wing. During the autocrat Ershad regime, for obvious reasons, we, the students of Dhaka University were proactive in politics and took part in the mass movement against Ershad. During this movement, in the processions on the streets Sanjeeb was one of the frontiers.
The first and foremost requisite attribute of a true leftist is to be declassed and perhaps this is the hardest task on part of anybody, especially in a class-based society like ours. To my surprise I witnessed Sanjeeb could easily gain that attribute. While he interacted with the people from lower strata of the society, never did I observe any influence of his class consciousness. So, it was natural on his part to keep close friendly relationships with the peons or even cleaners of Jagannath Hall.
The essence of his political ideology influenced his write-ups, poems and lyrics. So, his poems, songs reflect love for human being. I assume the same ideology led him much to make decision for donating his dead body to the Anatomy Department of Dhaka Medical College for the research of human wellbeing. This was really a hard decision, especially if we consider the religious bindings and social taboos centring the dead body. So, in true sense he was a humanist and he proved it even after death!!
(Md. Anwarul Kabir is an educationalist, working at AIUB
and is a freelance writer)