Jasim Uddin

Jasim Uddin (1903-1976) is a poet with a difference. He is one of the best known of Bengali poets of the twentieth century and a pioneer of the cultural and literary Risorgimento that paved the way to Bangladesh. With his mentor Dinesh Chandra Sen he is a master in the field of national literature of Bengal, often glibly misrepresented as ‘folk literature’. Author of over fifty titles, Jasim Uddin is better recalled as a ‘virtual poet laureate’ in Bangladesh today.
Jasim Uddin’s fame as ‘Palli Kabi’ (folk poet) now appears rather ironic for he is in fact also a founding father of modernity. A lyricist of the highest order, Jasim Uddin is credited with collecting about 10,000 songs from all corners of rural Bengal. He has been an unparalleled prose stylist, instrumental in reviving our sometimes forgotten ‘Sadhu’ (i.e. urbane or civic) register, making it possible to think origins and development of the Bengali language anew. His autobiography Jibankatha is a modern classic.
Except perhaps for Rabindranath Thakur, Jasim Uddin is the most widely translated of Bengali poets. His acclaimed ballads, Nakshi Kanthar Math (1929) and Sojan Badiar Ghat (1939) are the epics of modern literature.