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(6)Interview>Nazib Wadood with Bangla Literature (part 3) Bangla Literature : How much role should a
story-writer play in building faith and conscience or in
reforming society?
Nazib Wadood : Faith and ideology, that might
be religions like Islam or political theories like socialism,
obviously influence a writer and affect his writing. But a
real writer doesn’t write short story for the sake of his
faith or ideology, though his faith and ideology remain
mixed and integrated with the parts and parcels of the
story. However, as a story reflects life and social
conditions of a specific community of a specific time and
explains and criticizes these life and conditions, there
must be some kind of reflection of opinions of the writer
in it. This creates thoughtfulness, enlightenment and
conscience about life and world in reader’s mind that
might inspire him to work for a movement. This is an
indirect influence.
Bangla Literature : Then what can society expect
from those who are out to write story without story or
abstract essay-story?
Nazib Wadood : Firstly, I think society
shouldn’t expect cash profit from a story-writer or his
writings. Secondly, story without story seems to me
absurd like a stone-cup of gold. I think literature should
have some kinds of entertainment value. It shouldn’t be
aimed at only for writers of the same category and
researchers. Readers wouldn’t receive anything which is
devoid of minimum amount of entertainment. That
doesn’t, however, mean that entertainment would be the
prime factor.
Bangla Literature : Main problem of these
writers is that a reader cannot understand what the writer
wants to tell, what life and society he wants to tell about...
Nazib Wadood : That is their big failure. In a
story, time, geographical position (setting), religion or
philosophy of life of a character or community should be,
at least as hints, developed. It isn’t a writer’s duty to raise
a wall before the readers.
Bangla Literature : I guess that language of
your short stories is quite different from that of your
novels. Your language in the stories is very concrete, rich
with imagery and simile and allusion. On the other hand,
we see clear, playful and straightforward language in
your novels…
Nazib Wadood : Isn’t it desirable? Short story
deserves to be concrete and allusive like poetry. Novels
give opportunity to work in various ways.
Bangla Literature : What do you think about
use of prose, syntax, and especially verbs in your
fictions?
Nazib Wadood : I don’t think much about it.
After writing a good length, I read and review it like a
common reader whether my narration has been clear,
smooth and contextual. Narration and syntax is built up
according to the subject matter, time, setting and socio-
economic position of the characters. Use of verbs
depends mainly on time and relation of the writer with
the story and its characters.
Bangla Literature : How do you judge the
necessity of direct experience in writing?
Nazib Wadood : It is very valuable, but it can’t
be said that writing isn’t possible without direct
experience.
Bangla Literature : How much importance do
you give to your experiences in collecting ingredients for
writing?
Nazib Wadood : Enough. Experience helps in
building the frame-work, but to develop it to literature or
art the writer is to improve it to a specific form and put
many other colors on it.
Bangla Literature : Then is it true that each
experience of the writer is useful in the sense that it
might be necessary any time?
Nazib Wadood : Right. Any experience can
work any time. When and which one you can’t say earlier.
Bangla Literature : In your consideration, what
is a short story, actually?
Nazib Wadood : None can answer this type of
question straightforward. What I understand is that a
short story is a picture of a fragment of life. It is shorter in
length moving in one direction compared to a novel. But
all these might not create a short story. Many other
beauty and credits it needs to be a short story.
Bangla Literature : How is a short story
developed? Will you explain?
Nazib Wadood : This has already been said
while answering the previous question. When all the
ingredients, beauty and merits are put in place, then a
story emerges as a piece of art, i.e. literature. How a writer
will make it possible cannot be imagined by another
writer. Sometimes it also happens that the writer himself
can’t imagine before it is written. It has no fixed format or
model.
Bangla Literature : What is the position of short
story in our literature?
Nazib Wadood : I think it is next to poetry if we
give the latter the first position. Actually, till now,
beginning from Rabindranath Tagore, a huge number of
good short stories have been written in Bangla.
Bangla Literature : You have written some
essays and short stories on Prophet Hazrat Muhammad
(PBUH). It is very much usual that one will write essays
on him, but short story? How did the thought come in
your mind?
Nazib Wadood : You know, Hazrat Muhammad
(PBUH) is the greatest man of all the time. He is also the
most successful human being. And we are to follow him
as a prophet. So, I have plans to do works on his life and
contributions. Those essays and stories are parts of that
plan. There are huge number of good articles, researches,
essays, poems and books on him. I haven’t much
knowledge to add anything to these. But I think I could
write some important and significant incidents and
aspects of his life and credits in the form of short story to
present them in a new and interesting form. I have
written two stories only so far as a part of practice and
these have been warmly received by the readers and
critics. I have plans to do more.
Bangla Literature : Many writers and
intellectuals of our country consider Hazrat Muhammad
(PBUH) as merely a preacher of Islam. What is your
opinion, as a creative writer, in this regard?
Nazib Wadood : If you look as a religious man,
you shall obviously consider him as a prophet whom you
are bound to follow. But if you see him as a neutral
common man and consider him too just a human being
like you, then you can’t but acknowledge that Hazrat
Muhammad (PBUH) is the greatest savior of humanity.
So, as a creative writer, you have many things to do with
his life and works. But you know there are difficulties in
writing on him. The problem lies in the realities that one
(religious) group is unable to see the matters beyond
religious emotion and another (secular and atheist)
group unreasonably tries to band the attempt as
‘fundamentalist’, reactionary’ and ‘backwardness’. So a
creative writer fears to write on him. ============================================================================== Readers' Comments : ==============================================================================
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