সুরের জন্য শহীদ – কবির সুমন

A song for Shahid Altaf Mahmud, the Bengali musician who put the great Ekushey February song “Aamar bhayer rokte rangano ekushey february” to tune. He was murdered in Bangladesh during the Liberation War. The other day, I came to know from Mr. Anjan Ray, a television journalist who is a Bangladesh citizen and who has been covering the Shahbag Movement, that Shahid Altaf Mahmud’s body was never found. Therefore he could not be accorded a proper burial. My friend Anjan sent me a message about Shahid Altaf Mahmud’s daughter who had told him that since her father could not be buried properly in Bangladesh she saw no reason why the Rajakars should be allowed to be buried in Bangladesh. Anjan wrote that for a while he was nonplussed and he didn’t know what to tell Shahid Altaf Mahmud’s daughter. But soon he found the words and told her: ‘She just needed to touch the soil of Bangladesh to know that her father was lying somewhere under it’. As I read Anjan’s words I couldn’t hold back my tears. Finally, Anjan wrote: ‘Sumanda, are we not getting a song for Shahid Altaf Mahmud on this Ekushey?’ And here is that song. Joy Bangla!