In October 2011, Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad, Pakistan, invited me to present a paper on Rabindranath Tagore at their conference on "Redefining Paradigms of Sustainable Development in South Asia" to be held in Islamabad in December that year. I am not a Tagore scholar and I informed the organizers accordingly. There were, of course, Tagore scholars in Bangladesh and I would be happy to pass on the invitation to one of them. However, the organizers said the invitation was for me. I had been specifically invited by Mr. Ahmed Salim, one of the organizers, a poet and short story writer, who had been jailed in 1971 for his support for Bangladesh.
I didn't see how a paper on Tagore would fit into the conference theme, but I was assured that there would be other papers on writers and my paper would be quite in place. In other words, a paper on Tagore was expected from me.
What could I write on Tagore that would be of interest to a Pakistani audience? In the sixties, the central government had attempted to ban Tagore songs on East Pakistan radio and television, but the people of Bangladesh had resisted. During 1971, Tagore's "Amar Sonar Bangla" had been the tune that reverberated through every Bengali mind. And, in 1972, the song became our national anthem. Tagore is the only poet whose songs have become the national anthems of two nations. How does "Amar Sonar Bangla" represent the Bangladeshi? And how does Tagore's "Jana Gana Mana" represent the Indian? The invitation thus resulted in my paper "Rabindranath Tagore and the Creation of National Identity."
My interest in Kazi Nazrul Islam dates from 2011 as well. Of course, like every Bangladeshi, I had been inspired by his revolutionary songs, especially in 1969, by his "Karar e Loho Kopat." And whenever I taught John Donne's love poetry, I would direct my students to other love songs, specially Nazrul's.