Ginsberg and his ode to a bloody September
Although Ginsberg visited the famed Jessore Road in September as the poem suggests, the beat-generation poet actually wrote it down in New York between 14 to 16 November in 1971
At the long last in bleak December Bangla Desh emerged as a sovereign nation following the surrender of Pakistan Army on 16th. However, to get there the sea of blood, sweat and unimaginable sufferings that Bangalis had to cross was best presented to the world by the words of an American poet, one Allen Ginsberg.
His poem 'September on Jessore Road' is still heralded as one of the most painstaking pieces of literature depicting the suffrage of the exodus from East Pakistan to India.
Millions of souls nineteenseventyone
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homeless on Jessore road under grey sun
A million are dead, the million who can
Walk toward Calcutta from East Pakistan
Although Ginsberg visited the famed Jessore Road in September as the poem suggests, the beat-generation poet actually wrote it down in New York between 14 to 16 November in 1971.
He, accompanied by his friend, legendary novelist Sunil Gangopadhayay visited the refugee camps set up in the West Bengal border towns. 'Jessore Road' in September 1971 submerged due to heavy rain. The writers had to resort to boats for travelling to now Jashore border.
For the first time, Ginsberg personally witnessed the plight of the refugees living who ended up in camps on the Bangaon-Boyara border.
His journey to Kolkata had been frequent especially in the early 1960s. But this time in 1971, Keith Richards, guitarist and vocal of Rolling Stones band handed some money to Ginsberg for donating the refugees stranded in Kolkata. He expected Ginsberg to move around the camps and write a report highlighting the real situation of that war but the 'Howl' writer did something more.
His swift travels to Kolkata impacted the writer's later works. For the poem is not just the description of the torments that Bangladesh endured but is also a stern letter condemning the then Government of the US. The Nixon Administration openly sided with Pakistan and subsequently lent support to their brutality and oppression.
For his anti-war counterculture persona, Ginsberg was loved by many especially the younger American generation. However, that rebellious identity also made him infamous to the US administration as Ginsberg openly held them accountable for the mindless killings in the Vietnam war.
Where are the President's Armies of Gold?
Billionaire Navies merciful Bold?
Bringing us medicine food and relief?
Napalming North Viet Nam and causing more grief?
Allen Ginsberg even argued that the fund for the military to feed the war machines of Vietnam should instead be used to help the victims of the Bangladesh Liberation War.
Within days of writing the epochmaking poem, Ginsberg teamed up with the contemporary legend of Russian poetry Andrei Vozesensky. Together they arranged a charity event for the refugees of liberation war at 207 East 16th Street in New York.
According to a New York Times article, Vozesensky recited his verse in Russian while Allen Ginsberg recited the translations and only 'one' other poem. A poem that was titled 'September on Jessore Road'.
Later after being published in Village Times, the poem made waves across the world.
During his visit to Dhaka in 2015, Numbers and Nerve editor and author Scott Slovic encountered the poem for the first time. In his blog, he wrote, "'September on Jessore Road' is a powerful demonstration of the effort to communicate the emotional meaning of large-scale social upheaval and human suffering.'
The 152-line poem was first translated in Bangla by poet Khan Mohammad Farabi who met his untimely demise in 1974. Famed singer Moushumi Bhowmik later used the translated verses to churn out another iteration for the song used in 1999 movie Muktir Gaan by Tareque Masud.
Jessore Road now
The transborder passage connecting present-day Jashore to Shyamnagar in Kolkata is 38 km long in the Bangladesh part spanning from Jashore to Benapole. The trees on both sides of the road are aged over 100 years.
Environmental activists of both Bangladesh and West Bengal protested against a government decision to cut down the trees on the sides of Jessore Road for extending the Benapole border route to 4-lane. The government backed out from that stance following the protests.
Later in 2019, similar protests spurred when West Bengal administration decided to cut down about 300 trees to continue the Jessore Road expansion project as part of which, flyovers were to be built over the five rail gates of the Indian national highway. That project was subsequently postponed.
The road that played a vital role in extending a lifeline to save the Bangladeshis from Pakistan's massacre is also a tragic tale of exodus where offerings were paid in full in human flesh and blood. Ginsberg's ode to this tale has been sending reverberation among generations to this day.
