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An artiste, some movies and quite a bit of poetry

Syed Badrul Ahsan goes through a few books, in languor
KANON Devi died on a July night sixteen years ago. That has not, however, diminished the legacy she created in an era where beauty and grace such as hers defined art. Devi was (he quintessential artiste in the sense that she brought to music and acting that particular striving towards perfection which leaves an impression on minds. Ask anyone who has seen Kanon Devi's movies or has experienced the mellifluous quality of her singer's voice. The answer will be instant and insistent: in Devi sub sisted a world of images, a canvas that could well be taken as symbolic of what life ought to be.
In this delightful little collage of Kanon Devi tales, almost all of them dealing with her life once the life went out of her in 1992, Ramjan Ali Khan Majlis traces the long story of Devi's rise to stardom from humble beginnings. Nothing is left untouched, not even the matter of pri-vacy. After all, when Den herself did not have any reservations about her parentage. indeed about the fact of whether or not her mother and father were legally married, there is little reason why anyone else should worry on that score. What matters is something larger. And that is the legend that Kanon Devi turned out to be in life and the heritage she remains in death. You could suggest, if you like, that Devi was a precursor to the era that would in time throw up the likes of Suchitra Sen. Devi was as much a beautiful woman as Sen would be. And that beauty would blaze through such movies as Shesh Uttor, Vidyapati, Shathi and Jogajog. The actors opposite whom she played her lead roles were themselves a statement of the age they inhabited: Pahari Sanyal, Kundan Lal Saigal, Promothesh Barua. Jyotiprakash and Ashok Kumar.
Move on to Kanon Devi's music. Songs like ogo shundor moner gohone tomar murtikhani and tar bidae belar malakhani once left the foundations of her artistry strengthened. And. yes. there is the immortal aami bono phool go. Oldtimers will recall akashe helan diye paharh ghumaye oi, rumjhum nupur paaye, lagukdola and toofan mailjaaye.
Majlis, an avid film buff in his youth, certainly cannot resist the temptation of quoting a Kanon Devi dialogue from the movie Vidyapati: Vidyapati thakur. jara
bhalobeshe shukhi tarai jothartho shukhi / ar jara bhalobasha peye shukhi hole chaaye loader dukkho loader hahakar kono din ghuchbe na. There is hardly any need for a translation. Feel the essence.
Talk about movies in Bangladesh and chances arc you will go back to the 1960s. For that was the era when quality films, movies that appealed to families, were made. That age is sadly not around any more. You only have to walk by a movie
house, look up at the billboard there and shake your head in disbelief as you walk on. Something's the matter with the name, the title of the movie. And not just that movie in particular. The outlandish about names is what you get about nearly every movie these days.
That said, there are still people around who recall the times in which a certain
sense of the aesthetic went into the making of movies. Abdullah Zeyad was not around when movie pioneers went Into action in what used to be East Pakistan (he was born in 1976), but In this rather good exposition of what goes on behind the making of a movie, he throws revealing light on how far the nation's movie industry has travelled since the early 1950s Quite naturally, he begins with Abdul Jabbar Khan’s Mukh () Mukhosh. a challenge that the father of the Bengali
film industry took up when men in West Pakistan served the clear warning that the East Pakistani clime was unsuited to movie making. Well, Khan did end up proving them wrong. But there were other problems he faced as well, one being the reluctance of cinema house owners to have the film released in their halls. It was a long night Khan spent trying to per-
suadc them into accepting Mukh O Mukhosh. Miraculously, one of them did. And after that, there was no turning back, lhe Bengali could after all make movies and people were willing to secthem. Even Shcr-c-Bangla A.K. Fazlul Huq was impressed.
It is a long story of movie making Zeyad comes forth with. The travails that Zahir Raihan went through with the production of Jibon Theke Neya are brought out In graphic outline. The rea
sons were obvious. The Yahya Khan military regime, having just replaced the disgraced government of Ayub Khan, was not however willing to portray the country's vested interests in a bad light. And yet Raihan was unwilling to step back from his endeavour, given that Jibon Theke Neya was essentially a presentation of as well as a commentary on the mass
upsurge that had galvanized Bengalis between the end of 1968 and the beginning of 1969 Sinister were the moves to prevent a release of the film; and many were the scenes the Islamabad authorities thought should not have been there in it. And yet Zahir Raihan turned out to be a fortunate man. Jibon Theke Neya was eventually released, to public acclaim. It would soon serve as a catalyst for a greater cause - -- Bengali national sovereignty.
Zcyad's list encompasses fifty two movies, not all of which will appeal' to readers. But then, it is not so much the scripts as it Is the methods of production he focuses on. The work ought to keep movie enthusiasts riveted to it.
This happens to be an old production. Never mind that, though, for it handles a subject that has had a perennial quality. Love cannot be love when it alteration finds. And so what you have in these pages is a celebration of love poetry that has characterised Scotland for generations on end. The poetry will give a lilt to your soul. Love constantly does that. And it does not matter where you are, how young or aged you might be. All that matters is the heart.
Dwell on this Laughton Johnson poem: Thinking of you I thinking of a bird / that is tied / by the appearance of the seasons / thinking suddenly I that I may be embarrassed I to say this to you / that we may be becoming too familiar strangers..
Fraser, by now a well-known chronicler of history, goes searching for all the poetry that has defined romance among the Scots and comes up with a remarkably good number of gems. Here is a thought from Galina V. Ogilvie-Laing:
I saw the light yesterday/a long time ago I saw him I when he bathed in the spring/ summer came, berries sang, he loved me...
Or think of these pearls from Joseph Macleod:
Soft as the wind your hair / gullgleaming your breasts / I hoard no treasures there /1 do not grope for rest /1 seek you as my home / that all your sensitive life / mayfuse in to my own...
Shall we let it be, for now?
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor, Current Affairs, The Daily Star.