River

Adwaita Mallabarman’s (1914-1951) Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (1956), translated by Kalpana Bardhan as A River Called Titash (1993), Manik Bandyopadhyay’s (1908-1956) Padma Nadir Majhi (1936), translated by Ratan K. Chattopadhyay as A Boatman of the Padma (2012), and Syed Waliullah’s (1922-1971) Kando Nadi Kando (1968), translated by Osman Jamal as Cry, River, Cry (2015) are novels which portray the identity of the people of Bangladesh who live by the side of the rivers Titash, Padma, and Bakal. The biodiversity of these rivers was once resourceful, but they lost their flow because of the imbalance in the river ecosystems for siltation, drought, and deforestation. The lifestyles and identities of fishermen and people are greatly influenced by the change of river ecosystems. Different writers in Bengali literature have written about the changes of human life in connection with the flow of different big and small rivers. Mallabarman writes about fisherman (Malo) community who catch fish in the Titash; Bandyopadhyay portrays the identity of fishermen who catch fish in the Padma; and Waliullah writes about the farmers and the people who depend on the movement of steamers and live by the side of a tributary called Bakal. These three novelists show beautiful landscapes of Bengal in different seasons and also show how people become victims with the change of biodiversity and ecosystems. This paper explores the change of the ecosystem of the rivers Titash, Padma, and Bakal which change the lifestyle of the people who are dependent on them.