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In Memoriu

Recognising Jasimuddin's musical talent

Rishij celebrates Jasimuddin's 100th birth anniversary

Harun-ur-Rashid
Throughout last few weeks, the centennial anniversary of Polli Kobi Jashimuddin has been observed by numerous government and nongovernment organisations at different places of the country. The week-long festival of the poet's birth anniversary at his birth place Ambikapur of Faridpur district ended recently. In the afternoon of the same day, in Dhaka, Rishij Shilpi Goshthi organised a cultural function at the Shishu Academy premises. The programme wore a special significance as the poet's wife Begum Mamtaz Jasimuddin and his son, Khurshid Anowar attended the function.
Presided over by Fakir Alamgir, President of Rishij, the programme presented ,in the first half, some remarkable discussion and reminiscence of poet Jashimuddin and his artistic brilliance. The speakers included legendary Nazrul-geeti maestro Sohrab Hossain, folk singer Indra Mohon Rajbangshi, folk-scholar and former DG of Bangladesh National Museum Shamsuzzaman Khan, and Professor Biswajit Ghosh.
As was expected from Rishij, a very popular group for gono-sangeet, the programme chiefly focused on Jasimuddin's contribution to our the music . Before the programme began, when all the guests had not yet arrived, a recorded cassette of folk songs, by Jasimuddin, was being played on the loudspeaker for the waiting audience.
The programme itself began with presentation of two songs by the Rishij singers. The first song,
Nakshikantharmathey RupailBsjay bansher banshi, was a befitting tribute prom Rishij to the creator of Nakshi Kanthar Math. Written by Anil Sarker and set to music by Fakir Alamgir, the song t showed Rishij's strong adherence to the centuries-old tradition of folk music of our country. The second song was one of Jasimuddin's most subtle expres- sions to the mystery of \ove-Amar harkala korlam re.
In his reminiscence, Indra Mohon Rajbangshi recounted how he used to visit Jasimuddin's house in his youth. One day the poet asked him to sing a particular folksong and, listening to Rajbangshi's singing, Jasimuddin passionately praised him. Rajbangshi complained that the audience of folksong in our country is sharply getting smaller day by day. And a big part of this smaller audience do not even know that many of the folksongs they listen to were written by Jashimuddin. Rajbangshi called for initiatives to immediately record all Jashimuddin's songs on CDs so
that these invaluable treasures can be preserved for long.
Superb Nazrul-geeti performer Sohrab Hossain recalled his first meeting with the poet in 1944. Sohrab's accounts projected the humane part of Jasimuddin's nature. He narrated how Jasimuddin, along with the legendary folk-singer Abbassuddin Ahmed, went to the Gramophone Company of India in Kolkata, to insist on an increase of money it had contracted with Sohrab for recordingsongs.
Professor Biswajit Ghosh described Jasimuddin as one of the major modern Bangla poets of his time. During that period Bangla poetry saw the birth of some powerful poets like Shudhindranath Datta, Jibanananda Das and many others. Kollol, a revolutionary littlemagazine, was also published at the time, and became an ideal platform for these young poets to experiment with poetry. Ghosh informed that even the Kollol published Jashimuddin's famous poem Kobor. With Kollors recognition, no poet can be simply tagged as Polli Kobi, argued Ghosh. He gave another mind-blowing information that at the time Jasimuddin was graduating at Calcutta University, his poem Kobor had been included in the university's curriculum. Surely, Jasimuddin is one of those very rare talented people, if any, to be honoured thus.
In his speech Shamsuzzaman Khan also emphasised that understanding Jasimuddin and his poetry, his songs, his very philosophy, is essential for us. For this would always bring us face to face with our own cultural tradition, which is essentially rural yet national, rustic yet lively and colourful, simple yet naturally passionate. He referred to a number of great people of the time-A K Fazlul Haque, Maolana Bhashani, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Abbasuddin, Abdul Alim-who were all inclined to the original rural trend of the country through out their lives like Jasimuddin.
Fakir Alamgir insisted that an academy be built which will preserve Jasimuddin's works and conduct research into the artistic and aesthetic nature of his works.
The programme ended with a cultural function by the Rishij performers.