The great ceramic tradition of Bangladesh unfolds in the context of geology. From the world's tallest mountains, mighty rivers roll to the sea. Their silt has built the world's widest delta. The earth of the delta is heaped into mounds that hold the villages above the flood. It is planted to rice so that people might eat. It is shaped and baked into vessels so that water can be carried, food can be cooked, and people can get though another long day.

There are six hundred and eighty villages dedicated to pottery-making in Bangladesh, nearly half a million people who use clay to make art because clay is what there is. They dig and mix two kinds of clay -- one white and sandy, one black and sticky -- treading and kneading them together to make a smooth new substance for creation.

 by Piash Karim

A COLLECTIVE linguistic awareness, as experienced and articulated by the Bengali middle class, was a major point of departure around which Bengali nationalism in this territory evolved. The mainstream historical narrative of our national liberation struggle, originating in the language movement and coming to fruition in 1971, testifies to the way the language issue was deployed in the middle-class consciousness. This narrative, of course, obscures, among other things, a plethora of struggles that took place until 1950, including the revolutionary movements carried out by the peasants of Hajong and Santal nations (discussed in volume II of Badruddin Umar’s extraordinary study of the language movement) as precursors to national liberation. The failure to make the connection between peasant uprisings and the national liberation war is not a simple question of textual bias. It is rooted into the actual trajectory through which the Bengali middle-class national liberation sensibilities unfolded. If the language movement and the peasant rebellions, along with other working class movements, could be connected under a radical class hegemony into an organic struggle of national liberation, the history of this part of the world would have been phenomenally different.

 by Salimullah Khan

Article 39(1) of the constitution of the People’s Republic, or the State, of Bangladesh, as everyone knows, guarantees freedom of ‘thought and conscience’. It may be interesting to note that ‘thought and conscience’ is stated here in the singular as a grammatical substantive. This right, as smart lawyers never fail to mention, is absolute in form and, consequently, it is not possible to pass any law curbing this right on any ground whatsoever. That is to say this freedom is admired as inalienable.
   Article 39(2), however, distinguishes freedoms of ‘speech and expression’ and of ‘the press’ as only alienable freedoms. ‘Speech and expression’ is, as a grammatical substantive, is perhaps taken as inseparable but ‘the press’ is again quietly separated from that substance, before assigning pre-eminence of alienability to both. To illustrate what freedom of ‘thought and conscience’ might mean, a wise lawyer has claimed that no action lies against an individual for whatsoever she has written in her diary. Writing in your own diary is not an act of ‘speech or expression’. This is as far as lawyerly wisdom goes.

Government is not a trade which any man or a body of men has a right to set up and exercise for his own emolument, but is altogether a trust, in right of those by whom that trust is delegated, and by whom it is always resumable.
Thomas Paine, Rights of Man

by Nurul Kabir

WHILE the whole world is set to celebrate International Mother Language Day today – February 21 – the Bangladeshi Bengalis, who glorified the day by sacrificing their lives to politically uphold the democratic importance of the recognition of a mother tongue by the state 57 years ago, is now faced with the responsibility of re-living the spirit of the language movement by way of putting up resistance against the scheme of getting ratified two years of anti-people emergency rule of the military-driven government of a few unelected individuals.

 The 3rd International Children's Film Festival began on January 23. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the festival at the Osmani Memorial Hall. Over 240 children's films from 50 countries are being screened at this year's festival. Of these, 61 are Bangladeshi films. Child filmmakers have made 34 films. Children's Film Society Bangladesh, in association with Unicef, is the organiser of the festival.

Everyday films are screened at four sessions starting from 11 am. Films are being screened at several venues including Central Public Library and National Museum. The Central Public Library is the main venue of the festival.

Apart from film screening, a workshop and a daylong seminar as well as few interactive sessions with eminent personalities are part of the festival.

 

Interpretation of the masterpieces through new eyes

As done in the traditional kushan gaan performances of North Bengal area of the country, the choir leader Kripa Sindhu Roy Sarkar enters onstage playing bena, an indigenous single cord instrument that is played like a veena, followed by the other members of the troupe and gives circular movements. Subsequently, the choir starts ashonbandana (a traditional style of beginning a performance in indigenous performing art forms). This time the leading kushan gaan troupe of the country that has attained popularity performing episodes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata in many places in Bangladesh and in India, has not narrated any story from the popular epics. The theme of the performance, however, features problems that common people face: how immoral and illicit acts can destroy a family. The performance titled Adrishya Paap, is indeed, an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's masterpiece Ghosts. But it is eons away from the bookish, middle-class Ghosts, written by a western playwright. This is the people's tales, adapted, textured and layered through centuries of art rooted in common life. The performance does not feature the gloomy atmosphere of the original text; rather it is the vibrant energy along with the outrageously comic elements of the troupe that effortlessly communicates the dark side of human nature to the audience.

Dhaka
International
Film Festival

Ershad Kamol

The Dhaka International Film Festival (DIFF) is one of the most prestigious festivals of its kind in Bangladesh, which has helped shape an increasingly healthy film culture. The festival creates opportunity for local film lovers to watch contemporary films of the world. Since many internationally reputed filmmakers and critics come, the festival works as a bridge between local filmmakers and foreign delegates.

The Festival is organised on a regular basis by Rainbow Film Society, which has been dedicated to the promotion of a vibrant cine culture in Bangladesh and in celebrating the global mainstream in film and its social relevance since 1977. In the short span of seventeen years, DIFF has attained international recognition with ten festivals.

The upcoming 11th session of the festival is expected to be inaugurated by the Prime Minister on January 14 at the National Museum. The theme of the festival is “Better Film, Better Audience, Better Society” that will continue till January 22. Approximately 100 films with participation from 50 countries are expected to be screened in the festival. The festival will have a competition section for Australian and Asian cinema and segment categories for: "Retrospective", " Tribute", "Cinema of the World "," Children's Film "," Focus "," Bangladesh Panorama ", Women Filmmakers "," Independent Films Section" and "Spiritual Films Section".

"Fiction films from Asia and Australia with a minimum length of 70 minutes are eligible for entry in the competition section," informs Festival Director Ahmed Muztaba Zamal, " An international jury board will adjudicate the section. The award will include a crest, certificate and a cash prize of Tk. 100,000/- for the best film. The international jury committee will also select one Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Music Director and Best Cinema tographer. These awards will consist of a crest and certificate."

Syed Zain Al-mahmood

But for the vagaries of fate and fortune, pianist and composer Kishon Khan could be sitting at his workstation preparing econometric models. Instead, the 38-year-old British Bangladeshi musician is making waves with his Afro-Cuban-Bangla Jazz bands Motimba and Lokkhi Terra. Through sweet yet fiery performances at venues ranging from Queen Elizabeth Hall to the Kew Gardens, Kishon and his group have become one of the hottest properties on the World Music scene.

When Kishon Khan led Motimba out onto the stage at Radisson Water Garden Hotel for their first concert in Bangladesh on 30th October, no one knew quite what to expect. Bangladeshi audiences have not had much exposure to Afro-Cuban music, and the island is better known for its cigars and Fidel Castro. Kishon has never performed in public in this country, and had no idea how the music would be received. The ambitious tour to Bangladesh, a country dominated by pop and rock, itself took courage. But courage is something Kishon Khan has in abundance.

 

Photo by David Barikdar

"Watching my performances on stage and TV, the then French Ambassador to Bangladesh offered me a scholarship to study mime in Paris. It was the first scholarship on mime offered in an Asian country. In 1981, I moved to Paris to study mime with Etienne Decroux. While studying under Decroux, I was introduced to the legendary French mime artiste Marcel Marceau. Marceau offered to train me. From 1982 to 1985 I studied at Marceau's mime school and became a member of his touring company," said world-renowned Paris-based Bangladeshi mime artiste Partha Pratim Majumder.

Dyuti Monishita joins a crowd of both old and young for an all-nighter of classical music on the last day of the three-day festival at Chhayanaut that revives a tradition of the Indian subcontinent which goes back centuries

                                         

                                              photo by Al-Emrun Garjon
In an attempt to revive an old tradition, Chhayanaut, the famous music academy, and BRAC Bank jointly organised a three-day long classical music festival. The festival started on Thursday, January 15, and went on till Saturday, January 17.

The programme started with speeches from Khurshid Khan, a well respected guru of Chhayanaut, and co-founder of Chhayanaut, Sanjida Khatun. The inaugural programme started from 5:30pm on Thursday with their speeches.

It was their sincerest regret that no one is willing to learn classical music nowadays, and that those who learn classical music move on to sing different genres of music. ‘People are more inclined towards modern music nowadays as it is better accepted by the general public,’ says Sanjida Khatun.