Zafir Setu, who emerged as a poet during the 90s publishing Bohuborno Roktobij (Pigmented Bleeding Seeds) in 2004, his first collection of poetry, is a remarkable figure in the contemporary scene of Bengali literature. With sixteen collections of poems to his credit, Setu has established himself as an important voice of Bengali poetry. His famous poetry collections include Tabur Niche Dutabash, Jatok O Dondokaronya, Sindhudrabirher Ghotaki, Ekhon Mrigoya, and Tinvag Rokto. Essentially a poet, Setu has also earned name as a fiction writer, an essayist and a researcher. As he has been asked several times which identity he likes to bear and feel more attached to, he has aligned with the identity as a poet. There is no denying that Setu is a poet to the core—he carries the qualities that the great poets of various nations of the world has. His powerful words of verse speak for him; his poems represent his poetic being; his thoughts and ideas make him what he has aspired to become—a poet from within.
After reading a great number of his poems, I have discovered that he is deeply rooted in Bangladesh and Bengali culture. The small suburb where he was born is prevalent in his work; the country he is born in appears over and over in his poetry; the Bengali culture he belongs to enriches his poetic world—thus one can easily identify his deep rootedness if they read his poetry or attempt conducting research on his work. His poetry presents his motherland with its small details—from clay paths of the village or suburb to pitched roads of the city, from mud houses to concrete buildings, from green paddy fields to dry land, and from haor to hyacinth. Common people of the village, their daily life, their struggle with poverty, their honesty of purpose in life, their happiness with a few demands are the raw material of his work. Besides, the landscapes of his motherland, green fields and orchards, crops and trees, haor and river dominate in his poetry.
Born on 21 December 1971, Setu turns fifty in 2021. To mark his 50th birth anniversary, the poet’s friends, colleagues, students, readers and well-wishers organized a programme titled ‘Zafir Setu at Fifty: Creativity and Contributions’ at Baatighar, Sylhet, the city in which he was brought up and the one that made him what he always wanted to be. In about a four-hour long event, the poet was accorded with warmth and love, bouquets of flowers and books of poetry and history. The speakers highly praised his work and wished him a long life full of enthusiasm and dynamism to continue writing and enriching the realm of Bengali literature. It is worth mentioning that the poet’s span of life equals to that of Bangladesh—the country is also celebrating the golden jubilee of independence along with the birth centenary of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Another important identity of the poet is that he is a well-known academic and researcher. Many of the scholars believe that he will be remembered long for his great works of research, for his devotion to research. But what I should specially mention is that he is a wonderful professor of Bengali literature. Before joining Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, he worked in a government college for about a decade as he had been qualified in civil service examination. His passion for teaching, disseminating knowledge among his students, creating new knowledge, and building the nation on the scale of quality education is what I have observed closely. He never gets tired of talking to his students for hours, spreading light among them and inculcating spirit in their life to become better human beings and better citizens of the country. Needless to say he is also very popular as a teacher. A wonderful educationist and philanthropist, Setu has established a school in his village.
I am a Karach Tree reveals the poet’s love for nature, as he has taken a tree as the driving force for his renewed creative impulse. The way a karach tree stands with all humility on earth is also evident in the poems included in this collection.
Out of his seventeen collections of poetry, I will now turn to a single collection titled I am a Karach Tree, which was hot off the press on 21 December 2021 on the occasion of his fiftieth birth anniversary. Published by Onubad, a publishing house based in Dhaka, I am a Karach Tree is an exceptional book of poetry. With forty-eight poems, the collection has already drawn attention of readers. Established as a poet of love, myth as well as a modern voice of poetry, Setu takes a new turn through this new book. His poet-friends and scholars believe that the poet of I am a Karach Tree has returned to his own roots. Surfing the city life, traversing the ancient and the modern, uncovering the lust of life in many other collections, the poet has come down to the soil of his own land to walk on the green grass of his own orchard, to harvest the crops of his own field and to smell the fragrance of his own flowers. Now he settles down to sit under the karach trees of Sunamganj and Sylhet and Bangladesh.
I am a Karach Tree reveals the poet’s love for nature, as he has taken a tree as the driving force for his renewed creative impulse. The way a karach tree stands with all humility on earth is also evident in the poems included in this collection. Trees are more humble, trees are more sentient, and trees are more humane than human beings—even a humble reader can pick up on this in each and every line of the poems. The very first poem of the collection “Romeshchandra Theke Paowa Galpa” (A Story from Romeshchandra) has numerous references to the country life and nature, such as boat, koi fish, hut, wood cutter, red rice, and lily. In a poem of only nine lines, the poet depicts a complete life of Bodon, a poor member of the dom caste. “Boner Vitor Amar Ghor” (My House in the Woods) portrays the life of a farmer who lives happily in the woods with his wife—birds and trees are their companions.
Sometimes, the poet does not stick to the surface meaning as the poem “Ghor” (Home) suggests. There is a beautiful description of home, but apart from the apparent meaning of the words, the reader has to travel further for something deeper, something philosophical, as the poet refers to “eight rooms” and “nine doors.” The reference to “bamboo stick” reminds a reader of their journey into eternity. I am a Karach Tree can also be studied through the lens of Anthropocene as there are frequent references to trees, devastation of nature, and an urge to return to nature over and over again. The poem “Dudhvai” (Sibling) is such a poem in which a tree is shown as a mother figure suckling its children. Although very short, the poem is powerful in respect to its deep connection to the human beings, to the world. The poet writes, “Once I’d drink milk of a tree/ A scratch would bring fresh milk out of its skin.” The poem “Haorer Parhe Ei Songsar” (My Family by the Haor) is about a simple family in which demands of life are not high; rather, a little steaming rice and ghee is enough to bring happiness in life, as the poet writes in the poem:
As you pour ghee on the plateful of steaming rice
an astounding love billows from it—
as steam rises from rice, I deeply feel you. (1-3)
In a family by the haor, a farmer’s wife offers a plate of rice—from which vapour floats—to her husband who has come back from the field working daylong. This is life, this is happiness that people search throughout their whole life. The line “Under the soil of this country is buried aromatic water” (“Under This Fecund Soil” 3) informs of the invaluable resources under the soil of Bangladesh. The poem “Haorer Bhaibon” (Haor’s Siblings) goes as follows:
Nine karach trees standing tall—
they’re haor’s siblings.
Orphans and having no kinsmen too,
they talk to streams about weal and woe. (1-4)
The place that Setu’s poetry has portrayed, especially I am a Karach Tree, is the region dominated by haor, where common people seek happiness in nature, in rivers, trees, and in humble food, and ordinary stuff for subsistence. As the poet feels sad hearing the stories of “griefs of the people on the boat” (“Sholmacher Pona” 7), he actually feels connected to them, having empathy for these haor people. Setu doesn’t forget to mention that he was born near the land of linseed as he writes, “Here’s the linseed field where I was born” (“Ei Je Tishir Kshet” 1) (This Is the Linseed Field). The poet’s deep sense of belonging to his root, to the place with riches of nature where he was born, is reflected in the line. The poem “Jiafote” (In an Invitation), the poet shows how he becomes one with the country people, “I’m eating rice of amon-paddy on the banana leaf/ kneeling down on the ground” (1-2).
“In the land of water-hyacinth and jarul trees” (“Kochuripanar Deshe” 1) (In the Land of Water-hyacinth), the poet continues to compose verses of humanity that make the readers undergo an internal transformation. Those who want to have the smell of paddy fields in the rural areas of the country and enjoy the maddening beauty of nature, they should read Setu’s poetry, especially the collection I am a Karach Tree, as the poet writes in the poem “Dhangach Amar Bhai” (Paddy Plants Are My Siblings), “Bury me under the paddy plants” (1). The poet who craves to eternally lie down by the paddy plants is a poet of Bengal, no doubt, but he has a universal voice as the crises around the world hurt him; he laments over the decline of empathy among the people; he urges the world to stop war and stand under the single banner of peace. I am a Karach Tree ends with a question that appears in the poem “Ami Ki Anandita” (Am I Cheerful), “I’m happy but am I cheerful?” (1) The poet poses a rhetoric question which implies that neither the poet nor his fellow poets, not even the people of the world, are cheerful. A karach tree bends with its flowers and fruits to adorn and enrich the world; Setu at fifty is humble with his beautiful words of verse.
Nicely expressed