Relevance of Munier Choudhury’s thoughts on theatre

For me, working on 10 short plays by martyred intellectual Munier Choudhury has been a blissful and humbling experience. As a practising playwright, the burning question in my mind was about the relevance of Munier's plays in today's world. How can we commemorate Martyred Intellectuals Day in a broader manner and with a contemporary mindset?

Munier was a minimalist, and he perfected this style in 1953 when writing the play Kobor (The Grave) while serving a prison term. In the early 1940s, Munier met some US soldiers at Kurmitola. Among them was Dr Norman Springer, who gave him a copy of Irwin Shaw's Bury The Dead, which later subconsciously influenced Munier to write Kobor.

Munier Choudhury started his writing journey by penning short stories. Late national professor Anisuzzaman once wrote about him, "In his stories, we see a deep observation of reality and subtle expressions. But Munier Choudhury didn't realise his potential of being a powerful story writer due to his obsession with playwriting.'' Even though Munier stopped writing stories completely, short-story-writer-turned-playwright Chekhov's spirit worked within him, enabling him to transform his concepts into applied theatre.

In the selected short plays, amid all the fanfare, Munier's characters are subject to suppressed anxiety. Due to this undercurrent of anxiousness, the plays are deliberately stiff, which also shows the uncomfortable relationship between the playwright and the state where he was residing. The post-World War and postcolonial situations, the fatigue from the bloody Indian divide, and the bitterness of being second-class in a new country led Munier to conjure a fictional story of hope in which all the protagonists and antagonists would be speaking in his mother tongue.

Though Munier was an activist of the Indian communist party in his youth and later joined the Pakistan communist party, he was far removed from being an ideologue in his treatment of the theatre. His characters are individualistic, which didn't sit well with the party line.

In the selected short plays, amid all the fanfare, Munier's characters are subject to suppressed anxiety. Due to this undercurrent of anxiousness, the plays are deliberately stiff, which also shows the uncomfortable relationship between the playwright and the state where he was residing. The post-World War and postcolonial situations, the fatigue from the bloody Indian divide, and the bitterness of being second-class in a new country led Munier to conjure a fictional story of hope in which all the protagonists and antagonists would be speaking in his mother tongue.

Other than the pointed use of the words "fifth column" and "rulers" (in Fifth Column and Leader, respectively), most of Munier's characters in the selected works represent either the middle or the working class. As such, the plays mirror social dynamism, class struggle, and futuristic aspirations. As per my reading, Munier was an experimental writer. His characters speak in standard Bangla (promito Bangla) and the linguistic projection is free from any archaic pretence. Though the hinterlands of Bangalee urban cities are agricultural villages, his characters don't represent rural attitudes, but rather portray a cosmopolitan psyche.

If we consider myths as the aesthetical base of urban and indigenous communities, we will find Munier's plays enhancing the potential of mythical proverbs to make them tangible and believable. Without screaming out slogans, Munier did this subtly. And keeping with the same subtlety, his vision of nationalism is not a punctuated excuse for extremism, but a way forward to wider discourses and dialogues.

Munier opted for the humane perspective of literature. He was no teacher, parent or missionary to his characters. He was also not a Boalian educator for his audience. I didn't find him to be "above all the patience of a detached writer," as observed by late professor Anisuzzaman. Munier's journey was patient indeed and solitary to an extent, but he was attached to and engaged with his characters.

Among the 10 plays in the series, particularly the ones centring man-woman relationships (like Upstairs, Downstairs;Dondokaronno;Who are You; and Percussion) made me think of his wife, Lily Mirza. Lily had acted in Upstairs, Downstairs, which was Dhaka TV's first televised play. Munier and Lily's complementary efforts remind me of the theatrical mutuality of Italian playwright Dario Fo and his partner Franca Rame.

Some of my hand-picked plays are surrealist, some are realist. One common trait of the drawn characters is their existential struggle, stemming from a political tug of war, and their efforts to overcome it via personal endeavours. Accusations are the basis of these selected satires, but the core is humorous, influenced by Bernard Shaw. In Munier's own words: "Comical, introvert and absurd." He also translated Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, a task which had a determining effect on his short plays by making them click.

The murders of Munier Choudhury and other intellectuals represent the worst of censorship regimes. All over the world, it is other intellectuals that justify the killings of the dissidents and let censorship penetrate all spheres of life. In independent Bangladesh, too, some quarters holding an apologist, censorial attitude argued against the Liberation War.

Turning the pages back to January 1971, Munier was attending a linguistic conference in the US. A rumour spread that the Pakistani authorities had banned international flights to Dhaka. Munier cut his stay short and returned to Dhaka in February. At Dhaka University, he was appointed the dean of humanities. Responding to Bangabandhu's call to boycott Pakistani honours, Munier gave away the Sitara-E-Imtiaz that had been bestowed upon him in 1966. After March, his eldest son left to join the Liberation War. On December 14, Munier Choudhury was picked up by the al Badr militia from his parents' residence.

The relevance of Munier's work today is owing to how he related with his language, Bangla. After liberation, Bangla as a language was supposed to flourish, but the creative diversity of the language became somewhat stalled. Universities have more arts and performance faculties now, but their playwriting has dried up. The formal reading of theatre and the fine arts has increased manifold. Still, the literary pursuit of drama is poorer than ever before, with fine arts leaning heavily towards abstraction. The secular achievements of 1971 are questioned by reactionary forces. So, Munier's dialogues are needed now more than ever to revive the stagnant status quo.

This piece is a concise version of the Bangla preface to '10 Short Plays of Munier Choudhury,' to be published at the Nondon BisshoMela 2024 in Dhaka.

Choyon Khairul Habib is a Bangalee poet and playwright living in Brittany, France.

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