Symphony of colour

Farida Shaikh reviews Khalid Mahmood Mithu’s solo exhibition titled ‘Sound of Colour’ at Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts

The artist paints in the rhythm of colour. Every colour is the symbol of a tone, a tune, a song, and music which he hears and paints. Like harmony of sound creates music, the artist Mithu is always at peace with himself when he paints. This is how the artist was described by one who said ‘he is my guru, I want to be like him in every way. There is an emotional equilibrium that he maintains when he is at work. Colours combine into a balance and harmony by igniting a range of sensibilities that play on the cord of music and poetry that sooths his soul as he paints.’
   For the artist Mithu, colour is audio-visual. The painting ‘Sound of Life’, presented in bold white, blue and black is an affirmation of this dimension. Colour is much more than that which beholds the eyes of the gazer. It is an experience beyond the visual. Life is a central theme in ten titles. His ‘Still life’ is static and frozen in time. There is ‘Wild Life’ that is free of social bindings, “Burning Life’ is the dynamism of life itself and ‘Hope of Life’ is beyond the present threshold.
   The work titled ‘Broken Moon’ is not only what meets the eyes; the sound creeps in as well. There are also artworks titled: ‘Music in the Mind’ ‘Music of Wind’ and the ‘Song of Nature’.
   There are a total of 61 titles in acrylic on paper and canvas; two titles are in mixed media. Many, nearly 34 titles are Mithu’s recent work 2007 and the remaining were done in 2003 and 2005.The collection titled ‘Sound of Colour’ is presented predominantly in hues of blue, black, white, green that shade into warm yellow, and peeping red colour.
   ‘Power of Black’ is a departure from the traditionally associated grim, and gloomy aspects of life highlighting mourning and groaning of the multitude and composed in blue black, white, hidden red and a soft yellow signifying authority, intensity, strength and solidarity which are determining the global scenario.
   ‘Cat’s Dream’ in strokes of bold blue that shades into lighter blue and soothing green to white depicts the transfer of sensibility of animal to man, an instance of unique interpretation in colour.
   Done in 2006 is ‘Dreaming’ in white with blending yellow , and blue depicts the level of consciousness and the transitory nature of dream symbolized by winged insects that die soon.
   Among his most recent work is the abstract theme of ‘Experience’ in two divided colours black and white depicting the transition from the known to the unknown in large canvas size.
   A canvas titled 32 is a portrait of solitude personified by a bare wooden bench set against the light of mellow and bright yellow that reflect the pastel green , the blue water beyond with young shaplas in soft red wanting to make an appearance. The thought of loneliness and friendlessness strikes the viewer and echoes the strain that man is after all a lonely creature.
   Presented in mixed media on a large canvas in black white and blue grey is ‘Inner Eye,’ that sees the reality, which is otherwise camouflaged.
   An award winning film maker, a gifted photographer, and script writer, Khalid Mahmood Mithu is an artist of exceptional calibre.

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Turbulence and tranquillity

TURBULENCE AND TRANQUILLITY by Azizul Jalil. Published by Mohiuddin Ahmed, The University Press Limited, Dhaka. Price: Tk 500.

Reviewed by Atiqul Alam

[The review was written long ago; just few days after the book had been actually launched. But, inadvertently, it remained in the computer ever since because the reviewer, due to his other urgent and overriding occupations, forgot to turn it over to a publishing outlet. His sincere apology for it; but it is still quite topical, and its contemporary fervour has not waned even by an ounce.]
   
   The initial spelling confusion may be overlooked. Tranquility, in our part of the world, comes just with one ‘l’, not two, although the author’s naming the book with double ‘l’ is neither unpleasant nor wrong. Contrary to much disbelief, again only in our part of the world, it is a prescribed spelling.
   Simply put, the book is a good read. It is a reflection of a Bangladeshi Diaspora, choosing Washington as his second home (or first?), trudging down his memory lane. The 217-page hardback is a food for gentle readers, a kind of lotus for the self-indulgent to munch.
   (Another book in Bangla, titled “Smritir Satkahon” (Memory’s seven assortments) with similar nostalgic account authored by Sultan-uz Zaman Khan, another former bureaucrat who served almost about the same time as Azizul Jalil’s, has just appeared. The interesting of the two is that neither has Jalil nor Zaman referred to each other even for a moment in their works, although they were nearly together in their days in Calcutta, as well as their long civil service days in former Pakistan, had many common friends, and met the same group of people in their social contacts. Both however may be excused for this faux pas, but a strange one indeed!)
   The introductory note printed in the cover flap says it all. Azizul Jalil’s book is an “autobiographical account” of his “journey through life beginning with the pre-partition years of India”. It stretches from “stories of his youthful days in Bengal and of the school years in the social and political context of the country”.
   “The communal divide of India, the political negotiations and the terrible conflicts at the time of independence of India and Pakistan are briefly captured,” the note adds.
   The author breaks away from the ordinary; he doesn’t pretend to delve deep into heavyweight stuff, the ostentatious elements of men and matters. His work is a sincere and matter-of-fact testament of a part of his halcyon days – mostly when he wielded some control and standing as a mandarin of the old CSP clan. This he has done in chariotic style, in good and simple English.
   He has indulged in no pompous words. Neither has he overblown the superiority complex that the elite bureaucracy in the olden days, to which he once belonged, used to see as hallmark of authority. He was conscious of the CSP that, as he put it in his own words, “provided an assured career with social prestige and position.” And yet he preferred to stay humble and self-effacing, not giving in to such obsession. That indeed makes him somewhat exceptional.
   Unlike many of his service colleagues, he never claims to be at the spotlight of any given incident that may, or may not, have changed the course of history of our subcontinent. He was a bystander at best, content with just seeing from the sideline the men playing at the centre of political and social stage. And that’s it.
   His story-telling fashion, the uncanny skill to fascinate his readers, is commendable. He begins with a brief account of how he felt in the turbulent years in forties when the subcontinent was partitioned, and then wanders through the cornucopia of events encompassing his student days, his little role in the 1952 language movement; his personal acquaintance with Abul Barkat, one of the martyrs of Ekushey February; his years in the World Bank; his tours and travels; and finally, his days after he finally threw in his towel.
   For space or otherwise, it won’t be proper to try to comment on each of the book’s 47 chapters, the last three being tributes to his deceased friend, Barrister Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed, his revered uncle Dr A M M Khan and his younger brother alike Enayetullah Khan. Also, there is nothing to comment on the travels and tours part of it, as well as his little foray into history, particularly about the Sepoy mutiny, the tragic end of Bahadur Shah Zafar, et al because they were simply culled from the records of history. At best it gives a variety to his book in order to make it attractive. But let’s pick a few of the remainder that might look more interesting.
   The author has given a guarded tribute to Abdul Monem Khan (chapter 12, p59), perhaps the longest-serving governor of former province of East Pakistan under president Ayub Khan. In the majority East Pakistani eyes, Monem Khan was cast as an old-fashioned and home-spun political villain, a hardnosed administrator, a stooge of Ayub Khan, a sort of shrilled-tongued and “half-educated” character who is said to have once encouraged the East Pakistani poets to write poems like Tagore and be as venerated as the great Bard of the Bengalees.
   Azizul Jalil’s comments are slightly at odds with what Monem Khan had been known to be, a fact that he has himself admitted in the course of his pen. He says the former governor was quite conscious of his role as an administrator and a politician. He says Monem Khan had called him to Dhaka while he was the Deputy Commissioner of Kushtia to request him to ensure security protection during the governor’s upcoming visit to Kushtia, not as a governor but as the chief of then East Pakistan Muslim League.
   “I was therefore quite amazed by the reasonableness of his demands and his soft manners, which were contrary to some of my previous encounters with him,” he writes.
   Monem was doubtless a tough administrator with sweeping powers in his hand. Stories still abound on his days as governor. People used to heap scorn on him for his rough, rustic and abrasive exterior. But there were also people, both among the public and the bureaucracy, who used to respect him quite honestly. I wonder how many people know that he was not a “half-educated man” as he was painted. He was the product of the Presidency College of Calcutta, the premier college in the British days where Subhas Bose also once studied. It was a rare chance for any Muslim student to get admission unless he was exceptionally brilliant, sophisticated and gentle. Nobody seems to see this man in that light, probably because of his subsequent role as the East Pakistan governor.
   The author admits at the outset that he didn’t have any notes to expound on; the entire work was from his memory. Anyone is perforce to acknowledge that his memory is quite sharp, much sharper than the ordinary beings like us. And yet some chapters suffer from occasional inaccuracies. In dealing with Malik Rustam Kayani (ch29 p144), an ICS officer who retired as chief justice of Lahore High Court, the author was slightly off-track on the cause that led to his death in Chittagong in 1962. Kayani died of Leukemia, not of heart failure. Our national professor, Dr Nurul Islam, was his physician for as long as he had been prostrate in the house of Barrister Saifuddin Siddiqui, not L A Siddiky. He was on a lecture trip to East Pakistan, and he came to Chittagong from Rajshahi after attending a journalists’ conference.
   His chapter on Subhas Chandra Bose, whom he describes as “the great Indian patriot”, (ch30 p146) is absorbing. It gives not only a fine brush of Bose’s advent in Indian Congress politics and his great escapade to Germany and Japan; it also provides some otherwise unknown persona of him gathered from those who had been close to this dare-devil leader until his death in Taipeh, now Taiwan. The accounts given to him on Bose by Brigadier Raja Habibur Rahman and Col M Z Kayani are precious attributes for those who would like to learn more intimately about Bose. The author has stated the causes leading to Netaji’s death in a Japanese hospital. They are in line with those printed in many encyclopaedias around the world. But, unlike some biographers, he has not touched on questions that Bose could still be alive. Perhaps he also believes that this is a gossip that has no basis at all.
   The author’s expose on Jinnah and Sheikh Mujib (ch 32 p158) is, to say the least, a specimen of chivalry. His efforts to discover likeness in the characters of the two leaders and some parallels in their style of politics are difficult for a great majority to acquiesce. And yet there are elements in his interpretation that cannot be instantly thrown out of the window.
   That’s all about it. Those who are looking for books out of their insatiable appetite for reading, here is one for them.

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Robab Rosan

The premiere of the play, ‘Ebang Ashwamedh Jagna’, based on the great Indian epic, the Ramayana, was held on Monday at the Experimental Theatre Hall of Bangladesh Shilapakala Academy in Segunbagicha.
   Eminent actor Ferdousi Majumdar inaugurated the play as chief guest.
   The play, written by Alok Basu and directed by Debashish Gosh, was staged by the theatre group Natyadhara.
   The play presented Rama’s story of his offerings called ‘Ashwamedh Jagna’ to the supreme god. Rama arranged the offerings to atone for the sin committed during his war with Ravan.
   The playwright tried to present the pathos of Sita, wife of Rama. The war with Ravan was waged to save the captive Sita from the fort of Ravan and the residents of Ayadhya criticised the king Rama complaining Sita was an unfaithful wife.
   Though the playwright in his speech at the inaugural session of the premiere said that he had focused on the flight of Sita, the play unfortunately remains confined to the myth.
   The audience did not find Sita vocal against the punishments which were unjust to her.
   The play started with the narration of the story described by a sutradhar, a traditional character in the plays of Bengal.
   In many scenes, the performers of the play transformed as the sutradhar but the audience got little gap between the speeches of a performer and the speeches of the sutradhar.
   The playwright also tried to present the play in a narrative way or in a blank verse.
   In many scenes, particularly in the scenes of Rama, the audience heard that Rama tried to speak in rhymes. This did not match the narration of the play.
   The set of the play was designed by Kiriti Bishwas.
   Thandu Raihan worked for lighting and Kazi Shila for costume.
   The choreography, done by Saju Ahmed and Litu Sakhayat were not going with the spirit of the play.

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