Poetry permeates the beguile of words; yet there are some poets whose verses both encapsulate the fervour of political dissent and also the nuanced beauty of language. One such laureate was Naushad Noori.
In an era marked by shifting national identities, linguistic upheavals, and fervent political activism, he emerged as a revolutionary voice whose verses resonated across the lines of class and nationality.
Born as Mohammad Mustafa Masum Hashmi on 21 October 1926 in Bihar, his pen name, Naushad Noori, would go on to signify not just a prolific poet but a fierce advocate for the marginalised and a champion of language and cultural identity.
The journalist Kamal Lohani, in his introduction to Noori's anthology “Kabita”, recalls a figure of poignant humility: “Clad in his Aligarhi kurta-pyjama and chappals, there were few streets in Dhaka [Noori] didn’t traverse.”
This image of Noori is not merely a sartorial choice but a testament to the man’s embodiment of the cultural and socio-political currents of his time, reflecting an era when the very act of writing was a revolutionary pursuit.
Naushad Noori sahab’s early years were steeped in the vibrant leftist politics of Bihar.
While a student at BN College in Patna, he became deeply involved in the rail workers' movement and served as the secretary of Bihar’s All India Progressive Writers' Association.
His political activism fused seamlessly with his poetry, and in 1950, his poem “Bhikhari” — a protest against then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s visit to the US — attracted the ire of the Indian government, earning him an arrest warrant.
Rather than bow to the pressure, Noori went underground, eventually fleeing to Dhaka with the aid of leftist leader Ranesh Das Gupta.
The early 1950s were a tumultuous period for Noori.
Dhaka, still under Pakistani rule, was no safer for his radical ideas, especially after he penned “Mohenjo-Daro”, a poetic indictment of West Pakistan’s linguistic oppression during the 1952 language movement.
The choice of the poem’s title was symbolic; Mohenjo-Daro, a relic of a past civilisation, became a metaphor for the looming cultural extinction threatening the Bengali people under the imposition of Urdu as the state language.
Naushad Noori’s refusal to retract the poem led to threats from his military job, but he resigned instead of surrendering his beliefs.
Despite the political maelstrom that surrounded him, Noori sahab never strayed far from his roots as a man of letters.
Laden with both the lyrical beauty of Urdu and the fiery rhetoric of leftist politics, his works captured the pulse of a generation struggling against imperialism, capitalism, and linguistic hegemony.
He was a poet who stood at the intersection of literature and revolution, with his writings serving as both cultural preservation and acts of defiance.
A member of Maulana Bhashani’s National Awami Party and a steadfast supporter of leftist causes, Naushad Noori’s political involvement was mirrored in his poetry.
His body of work, much of which is collected in the volume “Mononrekha”, earned him the reputation of being a "poet to the deprived," as fellow poet Saiful Islam Saif described him.
Contemporaries recall him as a constant presence in Dhaka’s literary circles, from mushairas to underground political gatherings, embodying the ethos of a poet-activist whose words were as much about beauty as they were about resistance.
Naushad Noori’s life, though often marred by hardship, was also rich in familial love.
His son, Haikal Hashmi, who is also a poet and a banker, recalls a father who, despite his political engagements, remained devoted to his family. While his daughter, Shabana Naveed, a poetess, remembers a father who enjoyed the warmth of familial bonds and the fineness of good cooking.
The image of Noori arriving home at midnight, rousing his children to share sweets, provides a glimpse of the man behind the public persona—a bohemian who balanced his ideological commitments with simple joys.
But Naushad Noori’s simplicity belied a complexity that only grew with time.
His notebooks, meticulously preserved by his son, reveal a poet in constant dialogue with his work.
Drafts of poems were revised, crossed out, and annotated, often written alongside instructions for mundane tasks.
Even in his later years, stricken by cancer, Nausahd Noori’s communication with his family took the form of written notes, turning his illness into another chapter of his life documented in his ever-present notebooks.
Naushad Noori sahab’s legacy is not just one of literary brilliance but of resilience, principle, and an unyielding dedication to the cause of the oppressed.
When Faiz Ahmad Faiz visited Bangladesh in 1974, he made it a point to meet Noori—a recognition of the latter’s stature in the world of Urdu poetry and leftist politics.
Yet, for Noori’s family, the true essence of the man was in the small, quiet moments, like his insistence on repaying a mango vendor’s Tk350 debt before he left for medical treatment in Kolkata.
Naushad Noori’s life came full circle with his support for Bangladesh’s self-determination, culminating in the raising of the first Bangladeshi flag in Mirpur at his home in 1971.
For a man once branded as “wayward” by Yahya Khan’s government, it was a fitting tribute to his unwavering belief in the power of language and the rights of the marginalised.
His passing in 2000 left a void in the world of Urdu poetry, and yet his words continue to echo - a testament to the enduring power of a poet who refused to bend to the winds of conformity.
For all his revolutionary spirit, at his core, Naushad Noori was a man who loved words—words that could inspire, words that could challenge, and words that could heal.
