Poetry
আমার ভাইয়ের রক্তে রাঙানো একুশে ফেব্রুয়ারি
Not translated into English
Abdul Gaffar Choudhury · 1952
Synopsis
The poem addresses the 21st of February, reddened with a brother's blood, and returns again and again to the same question: can it be forgotten? It evokes the tears of hundreds of mothers deprived of their sons, calls on the snakes and the summer storms to wake up, accuses those who shot at the country's children and sold its destiny, and turns toward the hour to come, when the people's demand can no longer be stifled.
Context
A student at Dhaka College, the author had seen the body of the martyr Rafiq in the hospital when he wrote the first lines, at the bedside of a wounded man. The poem first appeared in a leaflet distributed at a clandestine meeting in Gendaria, then in March 1953 in the collection Ekushey February edited by Hasan Hafizur Rahman, which the government seized. Abdul Latif set it to music in 1953; Altaf Mahmud gave it in 1969 the melody that is sung today.
Who it is for
A short poem that has become a song; one needs to know what happened in Dhaka on 21 February 1952 to grasp each line.
Prizes and reception
Adopted by the people as the song of 21 February, it is regarded as the most significant song of the language movement.