Vale SMI: The Literary Luminary Who Hitched His Wagon to a Star

The founder of American Transcendentalism and the father of modern American literature, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), once wrote, calling humanity to its higher self and the pursuit of greater ideals, “Hitch your wagon to a star” (“Civilization,” 1862). My dear friend and colleague, Syed Manzoorul Islam (1951-2025), or SMI, as he is affectionately known among friends, students, and colleagues—a luminous Bengali writer, critic, and academic—lived up to that ideal. He consistently aimed for lofty goals and the transcendent, upholding the principles of truth, compassion, conscience, and creativity rather than settling for the mundane, the conventional, and the practical. He yoked his earthly life to the ever-brighter star of love, fellowship, honesty, and humanity. He was Whitman’s “noiseless patient spider,” who ceaselessly spun and re-spun the world with his shimmering imagination, striving to make it a better and brighter place—of peace, goodwill, progress, and harmony. He discovered his life’s mission of promoting righteousness and morality—his “svadharma” (duty or responsibility)—early on and pursued it with unrelenting conviction until the very end.