A
pīr[a Muslim holy man] speaking in bookish Bangla, a man towing his boat upstream till his death, a tunnel underneath the bedroom of a young woman to be married soon, and a judge sleeping as a young woman stands trial for the charge of murdering her own child: these are indelible images from Syed Waliullah’s
Bahipīr[The Bookish Pīr] (1960),
Ujāne Mŗtyu[Death Upstream] (1963),
Sudanga[Tunnel] (1964) and
Tarangabhanga[Broken Waves] (1964). At a time when modern theatre in East Pakistan was, by and large, a provincial backwater where inconsequential social melodramas were produced by amateur clubs, Syed Waliullah appeared as though from nowhere, to lead a select group of three new-wave playwrights (comprising of the playwright himself, along with Sayeed Ahmad and Zia Hyder), to…
1700 words
Citation: Ahmed, Syed Jamil. "Plays". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 August 2020 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=39301, accessed 31 October 2024.]