DESI DIARY

BENGALIS CELEBRATE A WRITER’S LIFE

Nearly 200 guests gathered in Toronto celebrate the 60th birthday of Bengali writer Subrata Kumar Das (centre, in green kurta).

Toronto poet laureate Lillian Allen and city councillors Brad Bradford and Parthi Kandavel were among the nearly two hundred guests who gathered at St Paul’s United Church of Scarborough to celebrate the 60th birthday of Bengali writer Subrata Kumar Das.

Professor Lillian Allen read out a poem dedicated to Subrata and said, “It’s a universal delight to be a writer. I’m so delighted to see what your community and Subrata have brought to this cultural ecology, creating beyond the words, creating possibilities, bringing us beauty, peace, ideas of living and working together and a future together.” There’s an award in her name in the Creative Writing department of OCAD University, she said – she would propose that it be named after Das, or that an award be instituted in his name.

The two-hour event was presided over by Akbar Hossain and directed by Shekhor E Gomes.

Two books were launched at the event to mark his birthday. Subrata Kumar Das: A Wonder Boy of Intellect and Hirok-Joyonti: Subrata Kumar Das, both published by Murdhonno of Dhaka.

Toronto-based Das was born on March 4, 1964, to Baidyanath and Gita Rani Das. with 29 books under his belt, he is a member of the Writers Union of Canada and the Literary Translators Association of Canada. He is the recipient of Nalanda Best Canadian Bengali Author Award and Gayatri GaMarsh Memorial Award, and was the initiator of the first website of Bangladeshi literature (bdnovels.org) in 2003. He has participated in Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) and led teams of Bengali authors in this prestigious international festival.

Subham Chowdhury and Rituparna Mitra Chowdhury performed a duet, Dr Mamataj Mamata and Arunava Bhattacharjee performed Tagore songs, and Sonali Roy played classical music on the piano.

Sujit Kusum Paul, a researcher on the Irish poet W. B. Yeats and the editor of the two volumes on Subrata, spoke of the role Das has played in connecting Bengalis and Canadian literature. Well-known singers Sumayya Muazzem and Apurba Roy brought the evening to a close.

Das and his wife Nilima Datta were felicitated with the Toronto writers who contributed to the two books also present. They included Shaikat Rushdee, Reshma Mazumder Shampa, Delwar Elahi, Ashim Bhowmik, Tasmina Khan, Debanjana Mukherjee, Chayan Das, Sreyoshi Bose, Jakaria Muhammad Moyen Uddin, Rekha Pathak, Samina Chowdhury, Roksana Parvin, Jannatul Nayeem, Badal Ghosh.