Theatre
কবর
Not translated into English
Munier Chowdhury · 1953
Synopsis
One night, in a cemetery, after the shooting that killed students defending the Bengali language. A political leader who claims to be master of the country's largest party and Inspector Hafiz of the police, devoted to those in power, drink to ease their fear and see to it that the bodies are buried without leaving a trace. Murda Fakir appears, a madman who has lived in the cemetery since he saw all his family die in the famine of 1943: he says they smell of corpses and claims that those being buried are not dead.
Context
Held in the Dhaka Central Jail, the author wrote this one-act play in early 1953, at the request of Ranesh Dasgupta, to commemorate 21 February. The political prisoners performed it on 21 February 1953, at night, in a room of the prison, with hurricane lamps borrowed from the detained students. A copy left the prison and appeared in the daily Sangbad, then in a collection edited by Hasan Hafizur Rahman; the book came only in 1966. The author acknowledged the influence of Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead.
Who it is for
A short one-act play with a single set; you need to know what happened in Dhaka on 21 February 1952.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's best play and as the first revolutionary play of East Bengal, and also the first on the events of 1952.