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The trustees of Shadhona organised an event to felicitate its artistic director Lubna Marium for being awarded the First Biswaratna Bhupen Hazarika International Solidarity Award by the Assam Sahitya Sabha.Marium received the award on March 28 this year in Guwahati, Assam, from Tarun Gogoi, the Chief Minister of Assam.
At Shadhona’s event, the citation for the award was read out. This was followed by a presentation on Assam, the Assam Sahitya Sabha, Dr Bhupen Hazarika and Lubna Marium’s works. Next there was a presentation on Shadhona and its multi-dimensional work in the cultural arena.
The final presentation was on ‘Agency and Art’ by Lubna Marium. Marium spoke about the role of art in resolving the conflict between the normative structures of society and independent human agency at the programme, ‘Art, inspires a ‘reflexivity’ of consciousness, which helps to break free of the constraints on social structure and makes it dynamic.’ She went on to state that it is this ‘counter-hegemonic’ space of art that inspires human agency to embrace pluralistic cultural practices within indigenous performing arts of Bangladesh.
Shadhona’s trustees – Dr Naila Khan, Rubana Huq and Sadaf Saaz were present at the event among others.
-With New Age input
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The pattern of Eid celebrations has been changing with time. To get a glimpse of the Eid festivity more than half a century ago, New Age talked with four cultural personalities. They had almost the same observation that they do not find that enthusiasm and emotion for celebrating the day together with all relatives and friends these days compared with their days, be it financially a rich or a poor arrangement. Excerpts of these interviews given below:Hasan Azizul Haque
Eid was not celebrated as a major festival in eminent litterateur Hasan Azizul Haque’s childhood in Rarh in India, the birthplace of the write. He grew up in a hostile time in a chaotic place in the early 1940s amid riots, famine and tumult of the World War II.
‘Inhabitants of the remote village in Paschimbanga were mostly poor peasants. Secondly, Muslims were the minority community. Although our family was financially solvent, we could not celebrate the festival regularly. In fact, in such time we used to wear old attires cleaning those with soda,’ Hasan Azizul Haque told New Age.
‘Occasionally we got half-pants and half-sleeve shirt in Eid. If we ever had any new clothes for Eid, we would hold them to our nose to get the smell of new dress for many days. But we never expected to get a new shoe. There was no choice but to use school shoes. I still remember the Eid day when I got a new “naughty boy” shoe.’
Despite all of these odds, Eid festival used to be celebrated together in the villege, he said.
‘On the Eid day we used to take bath in the pond early in the morning. My uncle used to give kohl in our eyes and atar on our dress. My paternal aunt used to offer us to drink water of jamjam,’ he said.
Even the location for the Eid congregation used to be finalised by the writer’s father. ‘The melody of the recitation of verses from the Qur’an by a person, a mason by profession who used to be the imam of the Eid prayer, still resonates in my ear,’ he said.
‘Returning from the prayer, we used to take rich food like vermicelli, polow and korma. Truly, I don’t find foods tasty like those days,’ he added.
Even there was very ordinary menu for Iftar in Ramadan. In fact, there was no other option but to be “sangjomi” meaning self-restrained. “Gurer sarbat” used to be the major attraction.’
Ferdausi Rahman
Renowned singer Ferdausi Rahman had different interesting experiences in Eid. As she was born and grew up in Balarampur in Cooch Bihar in India, she found Eid working as means of communal harmony.
‘People from other communities used to come to celebrate Eid with us. And the Eid celebrations used to start quite a few days before the Eid day since my mother used to make vermicelli in a machine at home. And all my siblings and cousins had the competition to turn the wheel of the machine round.’
‘On the Eid day, all of us used to perform in a play, written and directed by my uncle Abdul Karim on the lawn of our house in Balarampur. Villagers from all communities used to come to enjoy the Eid plays.’
Nature of festivity changed a little when her family migrated to Dhaka after the partition. ‘While living near Victoria Park in Old Dhaka, my father [iconic folk singer Abbasuddin Ahmed] used to take me along with my two brothers to say Eid prayers at the Paltan Maidan. I used to join the prayer wearing punjabi like my brothers did. Later on, I used to go to say Eid prayer with my mother at Fazlul Haque Hall at Dhaka University where women from aristocratic families used to go.’
‘All the renowned personalities of the cultural arena used to gather at our house at noon to take homemade Eid special vermicelli. It was mandatory for us to visit the relatives but there was no tradition Eid time baksheesh. In the evening, we used to render songs in Eid reunion programmes organised in different areas,’ she added.
Ferdausi Rahman still remembers an Eid in her life when she did not get any new attire. ‘Father decided to donate the Eid budget to our poor relatives. Such decision of not giving us any new attire in Eid made me very sad. Sensing our sorrow, father said, “Come, I teach you a new song”. He taught me a Nazrul song “Nai holo ma bashon bhushan”. While teaching the song, he frequently looked on my face to see whether there was any change in my emotion. But, I had no change actually. In the Eid evening at a programme, he told me to sing the song and I rendered it with full emotion and received tremendous response from everyone’, Ferdausi Rahman told New Age.
In later years, Ferdausi Rahman had even a different emotion about Eid since BTV and Bangladesh Betar still play ‘O mon ramzaner oi rojar sheshey,’ rendered by her, just after the announcement of Eid.
Aly Zaker
Eid, however, had always been a great festival in renowned actor Aly Zaker’s childhood days. All his family members used to spend the time together with enthusiasm and festivity.
The festival, indeed, used to begin many days before the Eid. His mother used to take all of his siblings in a car for shopping in Patuatuli in old Dhaka. A tailor named Abdur Rashid used to make new attires for his siblings. ‘Mother, however, intentionally kept a few goods to be purchased in the “chand raat” [the night before Eid day] and we together went for shopping in the night. Usually she used to purchase spices from Kunjolal Preetambar Saha’s shop on Nawabpur road in chand raat,’ Aly Zaker said.
‘Like others, we used to take bath early in the morning. I still remember that we did not want to get down from the bed considering new clothes would become dirty. Father, however, use to force us to go the Eid prayer at Gendariya Play Ground,’ he added.
‘It was the family tradition to visit relatives to show respect to the elderly people and the relatives and friends used to visit our home on the Eid day,’ he added.
Aly Zaker, however, considers his Eid celebration a special one when he was allowed to fast for the first time. ‘Then I was 11 and I was allowed to fast on the 27th Ramadan. In fact, for the first time I and my sister observed fasting. Subsequently, like my elder brother, I was given a blue punjabi for Eid, though I used to get half-pants and half-sleeve shirt in Eid,’ Aly Zaker told New Age.
‘I was so excited on the Eid day that I took more food than normal. Ultimately I had a stomach upset and suffered afterwards, he added.
Lubna Marium
Seasoned dancer-choreographer Lubna Marium used to celebrate Eid in a joint family ambiance. Whenever the Eid approached, she along with her family used to go to her maternal grandfather’s home in Chittagong to celebrate the Eid with her relatives.
‘Usually we went to Chittagong two weeks before the Eid for the appropriate preparation. And this period was really exciting and I don’t see a touch of such enjoyment these days,’ Lubna Marium told New Age.
‘It was the tradition that new attires used to be made in home and guests would be entertained with homemade foods. All of my siblings and cousins used to plan together for the Eid celebration. And the Eid appeared as the greatest source for family entertainment for which we used to wait for the next year,’ she added.
-With New Age input
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Lubna Marium — aesthete, danseuse, dance pioneer, teacher, choreographer and impresario is a pioneering figure in the contemporary South Asian cultural scenario. Daughter of illustrious parents Colonel Quazi Nooruzzaman and Professor Sultana Zaman, Lubna Marium has dedicated a lifetime to the promotion of culture, particularly dance and other performing arts. She is the director of Shadhona — a center for promotion of South Asian performing arts, and principal of Kalpataru — a school of dance, music and arts in Dhaka. This interview provides an insight into the fascinating mind and work of this creative personality.I understand you had planned to train as an architect, but somewhere you changed course. Who or what inspired you to dedicate a lifetime to the arts, particularly dance?
Lubna Marium: As a child I was a bookworm, nose dipped deep into volumes I could barely hold, and thus an introvert. Fortunately, both my parents were liberal and progressive Bengalis who wanted their children to understand and love their culture. We siblings were therefore enrolled into the dance and music classes at BAFA. Dancing gave me wings and transformed me. Subsequently the Language Movement came to us as a great cultural impetus. It made us aware of our cultural roots, helping us delve deep into our creative consciousness. Then 1971 (the Liberation War) happened, which opened up yet another horizon.
A friend of mine and I visited Kalakshetra and Kalamandalam (two pioneering centers for revival of dance and performing arts in south India) in search of dance. Those were however not times in Bangladesh when girls consciously chose to take up a career in the performing arts. Following the conventional career path, I therefore started studying architecture. However by then the dance-bug had bitten me already. So mid-way, abandoning my plans of becoming an architect, I went off to Kalakshetra to learn dance — primarily Bharatnatyam. Subsequently, there were personal problems, so I came back to Dhaka, got immersed in raising a family and earning a living. In those days there weren’t any opportunities in Dhaka and one had to go to India to train in classical dance; my dance lessons came to an abrupt end.
Although years later I once again started training in dance, this time in Manipuri with Shantibala Devi in Bangladesh, I realised I had missed the bus and it was too late to take up dancing as a career. So, I thought of ways in which young people could train in Bangladesh without having to leave home. Thus, ‘Shadhona’ was born. Alimur Rahman, our chairperson and a very inspiring individual, showed us how beautiful our classical arts are. Since then, the scope of our work has increased manifold.
One of the things that come across consistently in your works is the strong element of aesthetics. Most of the dance productions that one sees now-a-days have a lot of grandeur but lack the element of aesthetic refinement and restraint. The productions of Shadhona are noted exceptions in this regard. How did you imbibe this rather rare sensibility?
Lubna Marium: We need to understand the purpose of art, literature and music. If these are revelations of our inner consciousness, then the mediums of art are mere vehicles of expression. I feel, what we ‘need to express’ must take precedence over ‘how we express’ it. In fact the artiste too is an instrument of representation. Once we understand the fundamental purpose of art, aesthetic refinement or restraint as you call it will come naturally. For example even if you write Shakespeare in gold, it’s the words that will always matter more.
I, however, don’t think aesthetics is a rare sensibility. I think it is innate to nature and humans. Nature is near perfect. Folk art and music are simple, but beautiful. This faculty gets destroyed when the purpose of art is other than the joy of creation. Once there is genuine joy in creation, aesthetics flow naturally.
No two Shadhona productions have been similar and you have always presented something new. There’s also a sense of creativity, experimentation and innovation (introducing jazz, aerial and western contemporary dance in Bangladesh) that sets Shadhona apart. Can you tell us something about this?
Lubna Marium: I do have the ability to recognise talent and giving it its due to the maximum extent I can. Having myself, withered away opportunities in my early life, I keep urging young talented artistes to make use of their abilities and push their own boundaries.
Also, I keep myself abreast of artistic ventures the world over. Presently there is a great meeting of artistic minds and genres taking place all over the world. And, that is how it should be. The arts have to be a reflection of the times in which they were created. In dance ethnography, we learn that ‘movement’ itself is ‘cultural knowledge’. Our world has changed. We live in urban jungles, we communicate through the ether-net. Our arts too must reflect the times we are living in. Fifty years hence, connoisseurs should be able to recognise the era in which a piece of art was created. However, at the same time I am also a great admirer of tradition. If our foundation is strong, we increase our potential to branch out. South Asian arts are definitely ‘mytho-poetic’ in nature — dance with its entire language of hand-movements; the raga system expressing moods of time and season. We need to build on the strong foundation of tradition and then move on to claiming new frontiers of art.
Shadhona has done some pioneering work in reviving almost extinct dance/martial arts forms — Lathi Khela and Charya dance for example. Could you elaborate on this?
Lubna Marium: At Shadhona, we have been working on a folk-narrative, and needed movements that better express the narrative. That started me off on a search for indigenous dance forms. I was astonished to find, in Bangladesh, some beautiful performing traditions which included vibrant dance forms — Padmar Nachon, Lathikhela, Jari. We couldn’t just learn these traditions and ignore the practitioners who have nurtured and preserved them with almost no patronage. Thus the ‘Robi Cholo Lathi Kheli’ project started. Similarly, we are working on a Buddhist narrative, which incorporates the ancient “Charyapada” lyrics. Again, I went a-searching and found Charya Nritya — a Tantric dance which has its own set of hand-gestures. This led me to researching into the origins of our language of hand-movements. In fact, my interest is in the entire gamut of work dealing with the body-mind connection, on which practices like ‘yoga’ are based. Lets see where this search takes me.
Your latest institutional initiative has been Kalpataru — the centre that you have set up for teaching and learning dance, theatre and other creative arts for children. Can you tell us something about that?
Lubna Marium: I feel sad with young people putting so much importance in knowing the sciences, and giving the arts a secondary role. I get frustrated with so much resources being spent on material wealth and so little on art. I get frustrated with the millions being spent on cricket and football and so little on our own arts. But, I’m an optimist. I think human beings are far too intelligent to self-destruct this world.
I would like Kalpataru to grow into a creativity centre. An integral part of Kalpataru (at Banani, Dhaka) is ‘Mancha’ — a small auditorium that is used by students of the school, as well as other artistes for their performances. It is aimed at providing residents of Dhaka, particularly in the Gulshan-Banani-Baridhara areas, a forum to experience and enjoy performing arts. Regarding Kalpataru, I firmly believe that the arts should be an integral part of a child’s education as Tagore had said, time and again. This world is “true” and we understand its truth through science, but the world is also joyous and beautiful, and we can learn to appreciate its beauty through the practice of the arts.
Courtesy of The Daily Star
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