Nurul Momen | |
|---|---|
নুরুল মোমেন | |
| Born | (1908-11-25)25 November 1908 Alphadanga,Jessore District,Bengal Presidency, British India |
| Died | 16 February 1990(1990-02-16) (aged 81) |
| Other names | Natyaguru |
| Citizenship | British Indian (1908–1947) Pakistani (1947–1971) Bangladeshi (After 1971) |
| Alma mater | University of Dhaka University of CalcuttaUniversity of London |
| Occupations |
|
| Notable work | Nemesis · Rupantor |
| Spouse | Amena Momen (d. 1993) |
| Children | 4 |
| Awards | Bangla Academy Literary Award (1961) Ekushey Padak (1978) |
| Website | tukunmomen |
Nurul Momen (25 November 1908 – 16 February 1990) was a Bangladeshi playwright, educator, director, broadcast personality, orator, humorist, dramatist, academician, satirist, belletrist, essayist, columnist, translator and poet.[1][2][3] He served as a faculty member in the capacities of professor and dean at the Faculty of Law in theUniversity of Dhaka. He also served as a lawyer. He is called "Father of Bangladeshi theatre" and "Natyaguru" (or Natyo Guru or Natto Guru) of Bangladesh (The Grand Teacher of Drama and Theatre).[1] He was awarded theBangla Academy Award in 1961. He was also honoured by thePeople's Republic of Bangladesh with theEkushey Padak in 1978.
 | This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(November 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Momen was born on 25 November 1908. His father was Nurul Arefin, a physician and Zamindar (landlord) in Alfadanga, of the thenJessore district. (After the partition of India, from 1947, Alphadanga is inFaridpur district.) He went to primary school inCalcutta and was admitted in 1916 into Khulna Zila School. At the age of ten he wrote his first poem,Shondhya (Evening), in the same verse asTagore'sShonar Tory. In 1919 it was published in the journalDhrubotara. In 1920, he was enrolled in theDhaka High School where he resided in the Dafrin Hostel. After matriculation in 1924 he studied atDhaka Intermediate College. Passing intermediate, he enrolled for aBA at the newly establishedDhaka University in 1926.
While he was residing at "Muslim Hall" of Dhaka University, the various halls staged the then new playMuktadhara byRabindranath Tagore. After some initial resistance, Momen received the main role of "Botu". This ignited his passion for drama and even earned him the first prize, but it was also the first time that he performed as actor himself.
After receiving his B.A. from Dhaka University in 1929, he studied law at theDepartment of Law, University of Calcutta. Upon completing hisB.L. examinations in 1936 he started practicing at theCalcutta High Court.
| This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(November 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
After the foundation ofAll India Radio in Dhaka, 1939, Momen picked up on the opportunity of the new medium and became its first Muslim author. In 1941 he wrote and directed the comedyRupantor (Transformation) for the radio. With its progressive plot and a female main character it differed vastly form traditional Muslim plays and was actually the first modern drama of Bangladesh. Upon initiative of the critic, the poet and literary criticMohitlal Majumder, the play was also published in the yearlyPuja issue of the newspaperAnandabazar.
The second play written by him was the epoch-makingNemesis (Momen play).In fact, the two plays Rupantor and Nemesis by Nurul Momen, ushered in the modernism of theatre ofEast Bengal, subsequently calledEast Pakistan and finally becoming the independentBangladesh.
While he was in London for higher studies from 1948 on, Nurul Momen and his friend Nazir Ahmed started aBBC Bengali program, a weekly one-hour format called Anjuman where Momen was responsible for the literary content.
Rather than continuing to practice law even before thepartition of India, Momen joined the faculty of Law at the Dhaka University in 1945.[4] There he was known for including elements from literature and music into the law classes.Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was one of his favourite students, who enrolled in that department in 1948. Nurul Momen encouragedSheikh Mujibur Rahman to read the works ofGeorge Bernard Shaw andBertrand Russell. He encouragedMunier Chowdhury to get interested in theater and become a playwright. Momen encouraged him to readGeorge Bernard Shaw and got many other students interested in theatre. He later translatedYou Never Can Tell. From 1948 until 1951 Momen was on leave from the university, undergoing higher studies in England and graduating in law from London University. Upon his return, he found thelanguage movement at its height. He encouraged the students to demand for the Bangla language. On 21 February 1952, Nurul Momen and his studentMohammad Toaha was in the DU playground, when the shooting took place & martyrs were fired upon. When the secondShaheed Minar was constructed in 1954, Nurul Momen was the prominent intellectual, who inaugurated the monument.
In 1961 he, along with his friend Justice Syed Mahbub Morshed, celebrated the birth centenary ofRabindranath Tagore.
In 1964 he organised the quarter centenary or, in other words, quadricentennial birth celebration ofWilliam Shakespeare.
Natyaguru Nurul Momen sometimes contributed two articles for the same newspaper at the same time using the penname "Magus".
His editorial "Lest We Forget" as Nurul Momen, spanning 5 years for The Bangladesh Times while he wrote for the literary magazine the series, "Forbidden Pleasure" under the pseudonym "Magus".
Nurul Momen has written theory of dramaturgy.
In the introduction his 1944 one character play,Nemesis wrote, "In this play a fourth Unity is added to the traditional three unities of The Greek Tragedies -- Time, Place and Action. A new experimentation has been done by introducing a new unity --- "Unity of Person" despite maintaining the format of The three unities."
In 1936 Momen married Amena Momen, née Khatun (died 1993). They had four children – Momena Momen Saara (died 1995), Ahmad Nurul Momen (died 2009), Hammad Nurul Momen and Faisal Mahmud Tukun Nurul Momen.
On 25 November 2008, his birth centenary was celebrated at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy (BSA).[1] His 102nd birthday was celebrated in November 2010 with a week-long festival, organized again by the BSA together with the Aurony Mohona International Foundation (AMIF).[6]
A TV program on Natyaguru Nurul Momenhttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ki69H8j9hoI