লালন ফকিরের মাজার

লালন ফকিরের মাজার

Tuesday 10 April 2012

I'M HARUN BAUL SPEAKING (3)


Candles are illuminant. Offering of candles at Mazars (shrines) has spiritual meanings. One of them is to enlightening one's own self. I lit six candles at the Mazar of Lalon Fakir during the recent congregation at his Mazar. One of the candles was lit as desired by Daktor Fate Molla - email fatemolla@hotmail.com. Another candle I lit seeking Lalon's blessings for the book 'Al-Bho(n)dorer Desh' - a recent work of the Daktor. The book focuses 'Islam' in its historical perspectives. It also helps find difference between 'universal Islam' and 'political Islam'. Political Islam did bury the pristine universal Islam with the burial of the prophet Mohammad (sm.) and his key successors - Fatima, Ali, Hasan and Hossain (and Salman Farsi?). Since then, Mabia/Yajid's political Islam persists overshadowing the original. Islam as the religion of peace and submission (peace through submission?) was reborn as the religion of violence. Unsustainability has emerged. Baul's task is to sing about how to retrieve the sustainable Islam of the prophet (sm.) and to help its believers who seek peace through submission (to guru/wise).
Three candles were offered unlit to sing to the three political leaders of Bangladesh.

তোরা কেউ যাসনে পাগলের কাছে।


তিন পাগলে হলো মেলা নদে এসে,


একটা পাগলামি করে জাত দেয় সে অজাতেরে দৌড়ে এসে;

 
তার যেথের বোল এমন পাগল কে দেখেছে,


একটার নারকেলের মালা তাথে জল তোলা মেলা করম দোষে;


আবার হরি বলে পড়ছে ঢলে ধূলার মাঝে।


পাগলের নামটি এমন বলিতে অধীন লালন হয় তরাসে;


সে চৈতে নিতে অদ্বৈ পাগল নাম ধরেছে


Tora kew jasne oi pagoler kase.
Tin pagoler halo mela Nadia eshe.
Ekta paglami kare Jath dai se ajathere Daure eshe;
Tar jether bol Emon pagol Ke dekhese.
Ektar narkeler mala Tathe jal tola mela Karam doshe;
Abar Hari bole Porse dhale Dhular majhe.
Arek pagoler namti emon Balite adhin Lalon hoy torase;
O se choite nite Ode pagol Naam dhorese.
(Do not go near the three insanities ...
One plays like a lunatic...
One has a coconut shell...
Another has the name that lowly Lalon is afraid of uttering...).

The last candle was given to one of the Khadems (caretaker) of the Mazar. He will lit it when 'Jam Azam' is validated, and his party reborn with the spirit of 'Lalon's religious secularism'.

From the Mazar, I and the writer went to Chandrapara village of Nagarkanda thana in Faridpur district. The minister for the Environment and Forest has a desire to see this village as an 'eco-village'. Purpose of the visit was to report to the minister how to depict Chandrapara as an eco-village.

The afternoon and morning goers to nearby Rasulpur Bazar gathered at Younus Khandakar's tea stall after our arrival there. My ektara contributed to this effect. Two persons were found to be highly conservative. Their attitude towards us was though annoying and disrespectful, we consider them important from the view point of ecological 'conservation'. Others revealed valuable information about the past and the present ecological conditions of the region. I have integrated the villagers views throughout this article.

The phrase 'eco-village' is unheard to the common people of the region. The concept has reached us from the North, where villages like that of Bangladesh are either non-existent or incomparable. An eco(logical) village in Bangladesh may be comprised of village homesteads that are individually eco-friendly and collectively ecologically sound in the local environmental context. To accomplish this, it is to envision village 'development' that is 'sustainable' in the geo-environmental and socio-economic perspectives of the country. The present development has so far resulted in environmental degradation in several ways. 'Sustainable development', in contrast, is meant to do development 'without destruction'. It conserves the environmental resource-base, traditional ecosystems, and cultural sciences and technologies while development taking place.

Chandrapara can be depicted as a model eco-village undertaking 'integrated socio-economical and ecological development' processes in the region. The region should be eventually characterised by 'sustainability', with
a. verdant and fruity homesteads that are attractive to birds
b. self-reliant livelihoods for village communities
c. pro-ecological agriculture and agro-forestry practices
d. traditional ecosystems/biological diversity
e. carrying capacity and optimum use of renewable resources
f. surface and underground water management, especially the upkeep of surface and ground water-level 'normal' (as in 1950s, according to village elders) round the year.

I am told that setting up of an eco-village in the developed nations of the North means an undertaking of a new project of environmental infrastructure development requiring huge amount of capital and efforts. In contrast, it is a matter of doing it (initially for demonstration) in Bangladesh on the country's existing natural infrastructure . Transformation processes of Chandrapara toward an eco-village would reveal the shortest possible route to 'socio-economical and environmental sustainability' of Bangladesh villages. A holistic approach to setting up of eco-villages are currently being sought after globally. Chandrapara region, thus, can be made a spot that would attract global eco-tourism.
Chandrapara village has diversely manifest households and homesteads. Mia Bari homestead has a historic mango tree of massive size while many households do not have fruiting mango tree at all. Diversity, though in scarcity, applies to other aspects of ecology - fruit trees, plants and household animals.

The villages in the Chandrapara region are also apparent with
a. low levels of environmental awareness/understanding
b. lack of using lagsoi prajukti (লাগসই প্রযুক্তি)
c. increasing disrespectfulness to cultural tradition/traditional culture, and local wisdom
d. community inaccessibility to manage common property (such as local watersheds) and harvest from it
e. lack of food and livelihood security
f. growing inclination toward superfluous consumerism

The actions that are required to overcome the barriers and to initiate setting of a model ecovillage are:
a. to enhance the villagers' understanding about environmental norms and reprisal
b. to enabling villagers with renewable resource optimisation skills and technologies
c. to repair/regenerate the degrading environmental resources to replenish the degrading
ecosystems
d. to improve village growth centre(s) installing the lacking services as to the villager's daily needs and health security
e. to demonstrate renewable energy technologies for household productivity, and ecosystems and environmental benefits
f. to provide facilities to attract eco-tourists from home and abroad

Though the above listed actions may sound a capital intensive venture, in fact it is not. If the existing development activities in the region of Chandrapara are evaluated and costed in terms of capital expenditure together with the social and environmental costs/damages, it would reveal that 'ecologically sustainable development' in Bangladesh through setting and maintaining ecovillages is still cheaper, and possibly the cheapest means of 'sustainable living'.

Scientists see the solution of environmental problems in more scientific knowledge and better technological fixes. Pundits see in socio-economic morality. Baul Fakirs see solutions in the cultivation of spritual value. Integration of these three is the present concept of Baul's ecovillage.

Baul Vijay Sarkar composed this song, possibly during the 1950s, indicating the ethics of 'sustainable development'.

সুন্দর এই পৃথিবী ছেড়ে চলে যেতে হবে।
এই পৃথিবী যেমন আছে তেমন ঠিক রবে।
Sundar ai prithibi sere chale jete habe.
Ai prithibi jemon ase temon e thik rabe
(We will leave this beautiful earth. The earth will remain as it is now).

The spirit of this song reveals that one generation should leave this beautiful earth environmentally unchanged for the next generations to come. The 'Green Revolution' (GR) and NGOs have violated the Baul's prophecy about the law of the Nature. Combinedly, GR and NGOs have robbed the environmental inheritance of the villagers, just as Hazrat Abu Bakr (r.) and his fans disregarded the clear instructions of the Prophet (sm.) as to 'succession' and deprived Hazrat Ali and Fatima (r.) from the Prophet's small amount of property and political succession.




Dated 19/04/2001 www.bangladesh-web.com

Md. Amzad Hossain

1 comment:

  1. ভাই,
    মহাত্মা লালনকে নিয়ে লেখা তথ্যবহুল চমৎকার ব্লকগুলোর জন্য অসংখ্য ধন্যবাদ । উদ্ধৃত তাত্ত্বিক গানগুলো প্রচলিত শিল্পীদের কন্ঠে খুব কমই শোনা যায় । এ ধরনের গানগুলোর ভক্ত হওয়ার কারনে বিশেষ করে- "স্রষ্টা গড়াইছেন ধরণী কি সুন্দর করিয়া, যেখানে যা লাগে তাই দিয়া।"---গানটি মেইল করলে / ডাউনলোড করার জন্য লিংক দিলে ভীষন ভালো লাগতো ।
    ধন্যবাদান্তে,
    মোঃ গিয়াস উদ্দীন চৌধুরী

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