অশোক মিত্রের অপিলা চাপিলা

The city's name is Dhaka. “In the early morning of the thirties, I was two or three years old.” Childhood moves forward in that city, with carefree games of hide and seek and tag. Then, one day, it’s the Armenian School. From childhood to adolescence. The final chapters of the independence movement. Riots. Famine. Partition. Meanwhile, “As we entered the upper classes of school, we began to hear about the Soviet revolution.” This is how, from page to page, the story of a multifaceted person's colorful life unfolds.

“Apila-Chapila” tells the story of this person’s erratic and scattered life journey. He detests himself, dislikes his entire life, but hasn’t denied this confession. As a child, he heard a folk rhyme: “Apila-Chapila, coughs in a row, Ram’s hookah, Shyam’s flute…” That rhyme, rising from the depths of the unconscious, seems to have merged with the writer's consciousness and existence. “Now, it seems that the whole life has been like that rhyme. Most of the chapters I've passed through are shrouded in fog, and I remember only some people and events. Much is forgotten.”

This memoir is not a self-centered autobiography, nor is it merely an analysis of a particular time with political context. It is a vast narrative set within the framework of country, time, society, the solitary and collective human experience, the rich, the middle class, the poor, contemporary poetry, literature, politics, economics, and history—all woven into one large backdrop of self-storytelling. Yet, “Apila-Chapila” is also the story of many lives. This is a tale of a wandering man, a soldier, of countless common people from poetry to political marches—those who, despite thousands of hardships, continue to write history through the ages.

Surpassing the limitations of an autobiography, “Apila-Chapila” becomes the voice of a prolonged era. The author's mindset, at first glance, may seem steeped in melancholic atheism, but perhaps within this narrative, a specific worldview seeks to express itself. During its serial publication in Desh magazine, “Apila-Chapila” stirred intense debates among readers. At the same time, it was also cherished for its distinct truthfulness and the deep humanism that evokes memories of lost days and forgotten people. Now, this sharp, candid memoir has been published in book form.