Nurul Momen was a Bangladeshi playwright, educator, director, broadcast personality, academician, satirist, essayist, translator and poet. He served as a faculty member in the capacities of professor and dean at the faculty of Law in the University of Dhaka. He was such a luminary who was the teacher and mentor of numerous other luminaries who later earned national and international fame. The most famous among them was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He also served as a lawyer. He is called "Father of Bangladeshi theatre" and "Natyaguru of Bangladesh". He was awarded the Bangla Academy Award in 1961, merely a year after its inception. He was also honoured by the People's Republic of Bangladesh with the Ekushey Padak in 1978, only a couple of years after this State honor was introduced.
Early life and education
Momen was born on 25 November 1908. His father was Nurul Arefin, a physician and Zamindar in Alfadanga, of the then Jessore district. He went to primary school in Calcutta and was admitted in 1916 into Khulna Zila School. At the age of ten he wrote his first poem, Shondhya, in the same verse as Tagore's Shonar Tory. In 1919 it was published in the journal Dhrubotara. In 1920, he was enrolled in the Dhaka Muslim High School where he resided in the Dafrin Hostel. After matriculation in 1924 he studied at Dhaka Intermediate College. Passing intermediate, he enrolled for a BA at the newly established Dhaka University on 1926. While he was residing at "Muslim Hall" of Dhaka University, the various halls staged the then new play Muktadhara by Rabindranath 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 the Department of Law, University of Calcutta. Upon completing his B.L. examinations in 1936 he started practicing at the Calcutta High Court.
Career
Radio work
After the foundation of All 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 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 yearly Puja issue of the newspaper Anandabazar. While he was in London for higher studies from 1948 on, Nurul Momen and his friend Nazir Ahmed started a BBC Bengali program, a weekly one-hour format called Anjuman where Momen was responsible for the literary content.
Teaching career
Rather than continuing to practice law even before the partition of India, Momen joined the faculty of Law at the Dhaka University in 1945. 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. He encouraged Munier Chowdhury to get interested in theater and become a playwright. Momen encouraged them to read George Bernard Shaw and got many other students interested in theatre. He later translated You 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.
Literary works
Awards
Bangla Academy Award best Playwright and litterateur, 1961
In 1936 Momen married Amena Momen, née Khatun. They had four children - Momena Momen Saara, Ahmad Nurul Momen, Hammad Nurul Momen and Faisal Mahmud Tukun Nurul Momen.
Legacy
On 25 November 2008, his birth centenary was celebrated at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. 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.
