by Mohiuddin Alamgir

Scoring blockbuster hits in the music circuit through the songs of films such as Bachelor, Mad-e- in Bangladesh, Aha and Monpura, playback music seems to be recapturing the somewhat lost essence of its glorious past.

The trend is likely to be bolstered following the music release of the film, Nomuna, which has already drawn a range of opinions amongst its listeners. The film, directed by architect turned filmmaker, Enamul Karim Nirjhar, has been at the hands of the censor board for the past couple of months, perhaps due to the theme it depicts.

The film is a satirical depiction of the power-struggle between two egocentric, power-hungry women, Julekha Begum, who inherits a piece of land from her late husband and Nur Jahan Khanoum, whose late father leaves behind a good sum of money for her to construct a school named Matribhumi.

The eight songs in the film, written by the director himself, appropriately complement and to an extent further the theme with its playful and sarcastic lyrics, castigating the current social norms that are prevailing in the country. This is best exemplified by the last track of the album entitled, ‘No where to run 1 and 2’, with the verse, ‘no where to run, please don’t make fun, babhishater lejer mathaye dinko tan, shapnagulo bartamaner hoitese khan khan’.<!--break-->

Although on the face of it, the lyrics may appear to carry elements of a typical nursery rhyme, it does nonetheless provide a critique of the current social structure while forecasting a grim future ahead.

The album, distributed by Laser Vision, features similarly clever lyrics sung to catchy tunes by artistes such as Meherin, Fahmida Nabi, Sajeeb, Milon Mahmood, Wakil and Proma, starting with the title song ‘Nomuna’ and continuing with ‘Eksho matha’, ‘Besur o sur bandhu’, ‘Din ultay paltay’, ‘Lukochuri aligali’ and ‘Misena misena’.