বাংলার ভাষা-সাহিত্য-সংস্কৃতি তিনটে যমজ ভাইবোন | Language, Literature and Culture of Bengal - hard to disentangle

Abstract

Hans Harder is a German researcher and professor. He has been studying and teaching modern Bangla language, literature, culture and religion for many years. For his Ph.D. he worked on Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's Shrimadbhagabadgita. In this interview Hans said: "Analyzing Bankim's Gita I realized that a single text works at different levels or creates diversified meanings. Moreover, there are some big old questions, like what is being said, what's the actual meaning of the words and sentences, in whose mouth should certain utterances be put for greatest effect, through mention of which name or text can we bring a certain argument home to the critics, etc. that is, I have been able to discover the mysterious realm of a complex text." About his translations of Tagore's literary works, he stated: "The most fascinating quality of Rabindranath is his simplicity of language. To render this in other languages may be very difficult, especially in the case of poems." About Bangladeshi Sufism he said: "I will forever remember the four months I spent at Maijbhandar Sharif in Chittagong. Maijbhandar, in fact, is not a usual village. It is a small place indeed, but Maijbhandaris are found in many parts of the country. The foreign scholars who worked on Maijbhandar before me, Dr. Bertocci from America and Dr. Harvilati from Finland, could not pass as much time there as I did. This is why my book on the topic is thicker than their contributions. On the other hand, Bangladeshi researcher Selim Jahangir and Manzurul Mannan have written from a much closer point of view. There are many subtle differences among the writings of these five 'external researchers'. Well many men so many minds!" Hans Harder explained his multidimensional research work by saying that from a distant perspective, the language, literature and culture of Bengal are hard to disentangle. An average German, e.g., would not need to consider cultural differences so much while reading French. But in the case of Bangla, for European readers it is absoutely necessary to know about the culture of Bengal besides its language and literature in order to reach a decent understanding.