This is Dwijendralal Roy’s 150th birth anniversary year. Utpal K Banerjee writes on the composer and playwright’s work, characterised by truth, beauty and a sense of joy, that became an enduring part of the Bengali tradition

You haven’t seen such a golden land anywhere on the earth, The queen of all countries, it’s the land of my birth: The land of my birth, the land of my birth…

So sang the poet, playwright and composer, Dwijendralal Roy. The lyric was actually part of a play, penned in the wake of the Bengal Partition in 1905. Based on the raga Kedar, the song was on everybody’s lips. It began: Dhana dhanye pushpe bhara… (Full of wealth, rice and flowers/This is the dear earth of ours/In it, there’s a land that towers/Tall: dream-woven, with memory-bowers…) And then came the repetitive refrain, as above — with three types of musical tempo, imitating the English music pattern! The song almost became the national song of Bangladesh in 1971 and missed its chance by a whisker’s length — facing competition from Tagore’s Amar sonar Bangla….

For Dl Roy (as he was fondly known), this was not the only brush — here posthumous — against Tagore! He was born barely two years after Tagore (his 150th birth-commemoration falls this year) and was overshadowed by the towering genius of the elder poet all his life. Roy died of epilepsy in 1913 — 2013 being his death-centenary as well. In this 50-year life-span, there were many other brushes, making Roy almost infamous: for the gentle sarcasm that he poured upon the globally-known Nobel laureate. But at the end, everything was patched up and the two became genuine friends.

Roy’s genius was no inferior to Tagore. Musically speaking, the 1905 movement saw him (like Tagore) join the cultural movement to re-unite the two new Bengali provinces. It was then that he wrote several patriotic songs, immensely popular till today. He was known also for his commitment to the upliftment of women and his strong stance against Hindu religious orthodoxy and ritual. His collection, Hanshir Gaan (the Humorous Songs) was a satire against upper-caste Hindu dominance of religious practices.

Gifted with an uncommon talent in music, Roy’s Aryagatha I (1882) was composed before the age of 17. Themes of its 108 songs comprised the beauty of nature, romantic agony, devotion to God and patriotism. The songs in Aryagatha II (1893), another 100, included several love-songs, written to his wife, Surabala Devi, whom he lost tragically in 1903. The later songs were mostly composed in Kirtan style, while some combined Western tunes with Bengali lyrics. For instance, the song Kemane Tui Re Jamuna Pulin borrows the tune of a Scottish song — Ye Banks and Braes. Similarly, Jao Jetha Jash Achhe, was based on the Irish tune — Go Where Glory Awaits Thee. Roy’s antipathy towards the colonial rulers was mingled with his musical acumen: reflected in many of his patriotic songs. However, he did not reject the West totally as revealed in his welding Bengali lyrics with Western music. Roy’s songs, characterised by truth and beauty and a sense of joy, have become an enduring part of the Bengali tradition.

His most famous genre of music lay in his plays — almost rivalling the natya sangeet (dramatic music) of Maharashtra stage, which narrated action and took the play forward, unlike Bengal’s prevailing folk-practice of singing about morality and conscience.

These plays were resoundingly popular. There were farces like Prayaschitta (Atonement, 1902) and Anada Bidayi (Farewell to Joy, 1912); successful mythological plays like Sita (1902) and Bhishma (1913); eminently stageable, historical plays like Rana Pratap (1905), Mewar Patan (Fall of Mewar, 1908), Sajahan (1908) and Chandragupta (1911); and a social play like Banganari (Woman of Bengal, 1916, posthumous).

His historical plays were especially imbued with nationalistic fervour and a high pitch of patriotic emotions found expression mostly through characters invented according to the situation. Roy’s songs and music, in particular, lent his plays an extra edge. He was not an insider to the performing world, yet his scripts provided succour to Bengali theatre whenever the repertoire ran short of new works. If popularity is a yardstick, at least half a dozen of his plays belong to the living tradition of Bengali theatre.

Scion of an aristocratic family, he was quite close to the peasants. Always a brilliant student and winning scholarships, he studied English up to Masters level in Calcutta Presidency College. He won a scholarship to go to England for agricultural studies in 1884-86 and got affiliated to Royal Agricultural Society. On return, he had an eventful career in the Departments of Survey and Settlement, Excise, land Records and Agriculture, Administration and Judiciary in different parts of Bengal, Bihar and Central Province, until his voluntary retirement in 1912.

Always a keen observer of his countrymen, his impish humour on the manners, customs, food-habits and imitative dresses of the people yielded many poems and satirical literary works. Here is a translated gem:

We’re brothers a few;

We stiffen our laughs,

We smother our coughs,

Donning foreign dress anew,

Chomping cigars, parting legs askew…