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Loko Natyadal to celebrate 27th founding anniv
Cultural Correspondent
Theatre group Loko Natyadal will celebrate its 27th founding anniversary on July 6 at Nilima Ibrahim Auditorium of Bailey Road in Dhaka.
Three factions of the group will celebrate different programmes, including discussion, cultural and drama show, to be started from July 5.
Loko Natyadal (Banani) has chalked out a two-day programme beginning from July 6 on Bailey Road. They will arrange a discussion followed by a cultural programme, including music and dance.
Former adviser of the caretaker government Sultana Kamal will inaugurate the programme as chief guest while president of the Bangladesh Group Theatre Federation M Hamid, its secretary general Jhuna Chowdhury, president of Bangladesh Mahila Samity Selina Khaleque, actor Tareq Anam Khan and adviser of Loko Natyadal Mohina Mohan Chakrabarty will be present as special guest. President of Loko Natyadal Ugine Gomez will chair the function.
The discussion will be followed by the presentation of music, dance and new production 'Mora' by the members of the theatre group.
The group will arrange the 22nd show of its play titled 'Tushagni' at 7:00pm on July 7 at the Experimental Theatre Hall of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy in Segun Bagicha in city.
Another faction of the group called Loko Natyadal (Siddeshwari) will celebrate the founding anniversary on July 5 at Nilima Ibrahim Auditorium of Bangladesh Mahila Samity on Bailey Road and the other faction called Loko Natyadal (TSC) will celebrate the day on July 7 at the same place.
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In remembrance of Maverick
Wadud Khondaker
When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me:
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain;
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.
--Christina Rossetti
It was the summer of 1996 when I first saw Jackie's photo at Ranjit's workshop. I used to work for Ranjit Kumar, a painter and a good friend to Jackie. Then I decided to make a sketch of his photo without taking his permission, and then I thought 'why not make a painting of the photo since I never did an oil painting?'
Subsequently I finished my debut oil painting with great enthusiasm. Then I decided to hang the painting on the side of the wall where I mostly worked because it was my first accomplishment on oil. One evening Jackie paid a visit to Ranjit's workshop, he was amazed at my painting (portrait) as he didn't recall giving any painting order or permission. He was very delighted and contented to see the painting so he queried into who had made the painting. I approached him with confidence. He appreciated my work and asked me how I managed to get his photo, and then he invited me to his house to see a small workshop of art prepared by Dulal. That was my first meeting with Jackie.
After a few days he asked me to join his workshop as he had a few more things on his mind. His sense for the aesthetics of art was unparalleled. When I started to work for him I noticed he was a man with vulnerability for unique thoughts.
He give me two books, Art of the Western World, and The Age of the Impressionists to study. From them I took an interest to paint Manet. The Bar at the Folies, Gauguin. Van Gogh. Sunflowers. Later I did some papier-mâché chars and other painting.
Omar Ali Chowdhury was a man of art, intelligence, literature, and lavish. He was widely known as Jackie to his friends, earned a reputation of being a good writer and journalist in the 1940s and 1950s in Calcutta, London and later in Karachi, and worked for the famous left wing weekly New Statesman in London for several years.
Omar Ali, a close associate of the Weekly Holiday's founder and editor late Enayetullah Khan, was associated with his paper Holiday from the beginning as a casual contributor, but for the last five years he became a regular contributor. His column "As I See It" written in his pseudonym 'Maverick' has arguably became the best-written English-language column on contemporary issues in the country.
Born in a cultured family of repute, he was the youngest son of the Nawab of Bogra and younger brother of former Prime Minister of Pakistan late Mohammad Ali. His grandfather was the Nawab Bahadur of Dhanbari, Tangail, one of the founders of the Dhaka University.
For many years Omar Ali Chowdhery worked for Awami League leader and former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Husein Shahid Suhrawardy as his personal secretary.
Omar Ali was a lifelong bachelor, a versatile talent, newscaster and had a life-long keen interest in Music and Cinema.
I am very proud for having taken of care of Jackie and being with him until the last breath.
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Commemorative volume on Subhan released
A commemorative volume on late ASMO Subban, former Managing Director of Duncan Brothers (Bangladesh) Ltd., was formally released in a function held on Sunday at the National Museum. The book titled 'Abu Subhan Smarok Grantho: A celebration of life has been published by Social Services and Management Trust.
Former Secretary Kafil Uddin Mahmood was the chief guest. Ann Burghard, Monsur Ahmed Chowdhuri, Taslimur Rahman Nahas Khalil, Noreen Hossain, M. M. Alarn and Shyam Narayan Gour spoke on the occasion. The function was conducted by Ramendu Majumdar.
Rebecca Sultana, Mohiuzzarnan Chowdhury Moina and Bulbul Islam rendered songs in the function. The book, edited by Rarnendu Majumdar, Ann Burghard, Millie Subhan, Monsur Ahmmed Chowdhuri and M.A. Azim, has got 74 articles on late ASMO Subhan who was also a great patron of art and culture.
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Thirteen great literary profiles in compendium
Zakeria Shirazi
It is being felt in recent times, with good justification, that literature must not be Eurocentric. The post-colonial world must take a broader and more universalist view of the creative works in different climes and cultures. Edward Said has demonstrated in his epoch making book how colonial interests have distorted the perception of the East's culture and identity. Nurul Karim Nasim's book is not an attempt to rediscover the East or to celebrate post-colonialism; the thirteen include both western and eastern writers, as well as such apologist of colonialism as VS Naipaul. The awards are the only common factor that explains their grouping together. .
Though it is being constantly dinned into our ears that this is the age of free flow of information, as far as literature is concerned, the global interactivity in this field has not been impressive. This is specially true of Bangladesh. Books are not available in Bangladesh market and the budget has made foreign books more expensive. The libraries of some important foreign missions, which once served as an important resource centre for updating one's knowledge of literature, have now ceased to be of use to non-students. Perhaps the champions of present-day globalisation want only free flow of information (read publicity), not learning or wisdom. This lends an added importance to Nasim's pioneering work - that is, pioneering in our context.
Although discussion on each writer is of cursory nature, the value of this book is great, both for literary critics and common readers. In some cases, for example those of the Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare and Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa, the writer has also discussed the socio-economic background that fostered the growth of the novelist. It is interesting to note that the two women-novelists included in the list of thirteen were both members of the communist party for certain periods in their respective countries. If the Austrian Elfriede Jelinek, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize, and former communist, was unknown in this country, we need not be apologetic, for she remained unknown beyond the German-speaking world till the Nobel catapulted her to world fame. Of course, two years before being awarded the Nobel she had won Franz Kafka Prize. She was given the Nobel Prize for 'musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjecting power.' She was a political figure and often at the centre of controversy. Her political career stretched beyond the seventeen years during the seventies and eighties when she was a communist party member. The dominant themes of her writing are a pronounced degree of feminism, sexuality and the battle of the sexes. Her novel Lust, due to its overload of sexuality, was deemed to be pornographic by some critics though others read a moral message in it.
Another controversial act of hers was to indirectly support the Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milosevic by defending her disgraced contemporary writer Peter Handke over the Milosevic issue. This was unbecoming of a Leftist intellectual.
Mario Vargas Llosa was a writer, politician, academic and presidential contender. Among Llosa's most famous novels are The Green House, and The War of the End of the World. The Green House is the story that evolves around a brothel, exposing the exploitation of brothel inmates by military officers. The War of the End of the World is set in the background of the late-nineteenth-century Brazil when a conflict of the national government with settlers known as war of Canudos took place. Llosa was deeply influenced by William Faulkner, his characteristic dissolution of time-sequence and grammar.
Ismail Kadare is an outstanding name in Albanian literature. He began his career as a poet but achieved most durable fame as a novelist. Kadare was harassed by the autocratic regime of Enver Hoxa although he was not openly a dissident. His Palace of Dreams (1981) was a political allegory in denunciation of totalitarianism and was suppressed. 'The writer is the natural enemy of totalitarianism', he said. The British literary critic John Carey who is noted to be a foe of elitist culture and who chaired the 2005 Man Booker Prize, called Ismail Kadare a 'writer who maps a whole culture - its history, its passion, its folklore, its politics, its disasters'.
Although books are being published in Bengali in ever greater numbers, few books of essay and criticism on a wide cross-cultural canvas are coming out. That way too Nasim's book deserves a distinctive place. But there are also a few inaccuracies and marks of inattention to details. Was the writer in haste to meet the Ekushey deadline? For example, he writes 'Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1958 (Page 61). The year was 1954. Another howler appears on page 20 when he refers to Graham Greene as the writer of The Ugly American. The title of Greene's novel is The Quiet American, set in the background of Vietnam. The Ugly American was written by William J Lederer and Eugene Burdick. Discussing Ismail Kadare, Nasim says that the Albanian language does not belong to any European language family. This conclusion will not be borne out by experts. The nineteenth-century German linguist Franz Bopp classified the Albanian language as Indo-European. Others have also said that because Albanian evolved from the extinct Illyrian language, it is the only modern representative of a distinct branch of the Indo-European family. In page 26, 35 and 36-37 the same paragraph appears twice.
It is surprising that the writer omitted to mention some interesting episodes in the careers of the writers which should not have been excluded even in a brief overview. For example Nasim does not mention that Elfriede Jelinek had been a communist, which is an important phase in a writer's life. He does not say that Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel Garcia Marquez were great friends, but at one point a bitter feud ensued between them and hostility reached such a pitch that in 1976 at an opera house in Mexico city they literally came to blows and Llosa gave Marquez a bloody nose, after which they parted permanently.
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Abbas-Mustan to give Indian twist to Italian Job
Agencies, Mumbai
After years of adapting Hollywood thrillers, director duo Abbas-Mustan is now all set to Indianise the Hollywood flick Italian Job. But they are adamant on revamping the story.
'Whenever we've adapted a film, we have completely Indianised the story. Though Studio 18 has bought the rights and we can use every frame from the original, we don't want to do that. We're going to Indianise 'Italian Job',' Abbas told IANS.
'We'll add roles for two heroines. We might even have an American actress in the film. And the villain will be played by one of the top heroes. We want to make it better than the original,' he added.
The director duo says that Studio 18 offered the project to it after seeing the latest thriller Race.
'Studio 18 thought of us for Italian Job after seeing how we shot the chase sequences in 'Race'. Two years ago, to execute the intricate action scenes in Italian Job would've been tough.
'Today, we can comfortably pull it off. Our producers are willing to go all out. No expenses will be spared to make sure our Italian Job is as good as the original,' said Abbas.
Abbas-Mustan are besieged by Bollywood stars who want a part in it.
'It seems every major hero in Mumbai has always wanted to do the 'Italian Job'. It has got everything - from a heist to comedy,' laughed Abbas.
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