Google Doodle celebrates Shamsur Rahman’s birthday

Staff Correspondent: The world's most-used web search engine Google has created a new Doodle on its homepage celebrating the life of Bangladeshi poet, Shamsur Rahman on the occasion of his birth anniversary.

According to the Google Doodle, in the final stanza of his poem, “Shadhinota Tumi” (“Ode to Freedom”), the Bengali poet Shamsur Rahman defined freedom as:

“A garden room, the koel-bird's song

The old banyan tree's gleaming leaves

My notebook of poems written just as I please."

Born in Dacca, British India, (now Dhaka, Bangladesh) on this day in 1929, Rahman was a poet, journalist, columnist, and advocate for human rights and democracy. While studying English literature at the University of Dhaka he joined a student group known as the Progressive Writers and Artists Association, reading his verse at Madhu’s Canteen and staunchly supporting the movement to retain Bengali as the official language of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

After graduating with honors in 1953, he went on to make his living working for Radio Pakistan and editing the daily newspaper Dainik Bangla, he is remembered as the “unofficial poet laureate of Bangladesh.” Rahman published more than sixty books of poetry, ranging from love sonnets to patriotic verse to whimsical lines about his cat. His well known 1971 poem, “Shadhinota Tumi” (“Ode to Freedom”), was written in the throes of Bangladesh’s battle for independence from Pakistan.

Rahman’s life and work earned him numerous accolades including the Bangla Academy Award, Ekushey Padak and the Shadhinota Award, the highest honor given by the government of his beloved homeland. 


risingbd/Dhaka/Oct 23, 2018/Hasan/Nasim