Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW
Vol. 5 Num 446 Sat. August 27, 2005  
   
Culture


29th Death Anniversary
Remembering our National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam
Sujit Mustafa

A devoted Nazrul singer


Sujit Mustafa, a popular Nazrul singer, has a music career that spans over two decades. The son of veteran lyricist and literary personality Abu Hena Mustafa Kamal, Sujit is actively involved with the Nazrul Sangeet Shilpi Parishad (NSSP) since it was formed three years ago. On the eve of the death anniversary of our National Poet, Sujit shared his ideas, observations and suggestions on the present state of Nazrul songs in Bangladesh.

Sujit says, "We are very fortunate that we have a national institute for our National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam. However Nazrul has not been given his due as the National Poet. The only mentionable activity is the observation of Nazrul's birth and death anniversaries by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, the national media BTV, Bangladesh Betar and Nazrul Institute. Unfortunately, most of these programmes are stereotyped. Most of the organisations have failed to produce and stage analytical, educative, informative and entertaining programmes on Nazrul."

According to Sujit, the media has a very limited interest in telecasting Nazrul songs, because electronic media gives preference to financial returns over art and culture. "Against this backdrop, there is very little effort to promote the Nazrul singers, extend financial support and patronage for these genres of music. Although media exposure is a prerequisite to promote an artiste, the media is reluctant to promote new artistes."

As Sujit observed, the institutes and senior artistes took very little interest in promoting fresh talent. To quote him, "Some orthodox artistes are unwilling to leave the privileged position they have held for years. They are reluctant to make room for the new generation." Sujit points out that aspiring artistes have to struggle to get the attention that they deserved.

NSSP has several programmes to promote promising singers. Apart from Dhaka, the organisation has founded branches in Barisal, Chittagong and Khulna. Sujit adds, "We have organised workshops and training programmes in these locations. We got immense response from the local people. Eminent artistes MA Mannan, Fatema-Tuz-Zohra, Yakub Ali Khan, Shahin Samad and I conducted these workshops attended by hundreds of youngsters."

Sujit says, "NSSP has organised several stage shows to showcase the talented aspiring singers. These artistes are given the chance to render four or five songs in one show to establish their capability of singing Nazrul songs belonging to different categories." NSSP also has plans to release albums of the promising artistes from all over the country.

About the achievements of NSSP, Sujit says, "The NSSP artistes display immense unity and devotion. NSSP has arranged a three-day nationwide conference this year and the member artistes produce popular programmes on national and private TV channels. Sujit thinks that making music mandatory in educational institutes would be a very effective step to promote Nazrul songs.

A devoted Nazrul singer Sujit says, "No other composer has created so many diversified tunes on so many different themes. He has used about 50 type of tunes in his music. So, naturally it is very difficult for one single artiste to render all type of music that Nazrul has created. Different artistes should specialise in different categories of Nazrul Sangeet."

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