The nineteenth century was coming to an end, when in a small village named Churulia, in the district of Bardhaman in West Bengal, a son was born to Zaheda Khatun, the second wife of Kazi Fakir Ahmed. He was her sixth son - her second, third, fourth and fifth sons had died shortly after birth. The death of several earlier children led to the child's being given the nickname "Dukhu Miah," the sorrowful one, in an attempt to cast off the evil eye. Though the title "Kazi" suggests a certain status and education, the household was impoverished and perhaps barely literate. One of the ancestors of Kazi Fakir Ahmed had perhaps been a soldier of fortune, who had come from Patna during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam and settled down at Churulia. This seemingly unfortunate child, who lost his father at the age of eight or nine, who was obliged to work to support himself very early in life, who had a chequered schooling, moving from one school to another and finally joining the army and then, when the regiment he had enlisted in was disbanded, returning to Kolkata and taking up journalism, would, in 1921, write a poem that would immortalize him as the rebel poet. Exposed from an early age to Hindu legends as well as to Muslim traditions, he would write Islamic poems and songs, as well as devotional songs and poems to Kali and Radha and Krishna. At the same time, he would draw on both traditions to criticize what their "secretaries" had done to the humanity of all religions. He would, as easily, draw upon myths and legends from the world over to call for freedom for India. He would write some of the most beautiful love songs in Bangla - or even a mixture of Urdu and Bangla -- ust as easily as he could write poems and songs celebrating the natural beauty of his land. Drawing upon classical ragas, he would go on to create some new ragas in the process of writing ver 3000 songs.
