The transformation prodigy

Dear son,
   Only the other day I was walking along the street when this really large and impressive looking vehicle stopped right in front of me. A handsome fellow dressed up nicely stepped out and immediately bent down and touched my feet. He informed me that though I may not recall him he was a good friend of my son’s. He was now the district commissioner of Jaipurhat and I burst into tears, both happy for his success and sad at my own predicament.
   Your father
   
   MAMUNUR Rashid bursts into laughter, as he reads out the letter sent to him by his father. ‘Till this day, my father refuses to believe that I am good for anything. He often pesters my son – ‘Tell your father to do something fruitful and worthwhile.”’
   Rashid, at 59, may have failed to live up to his father’s expectations; however, for his fans, well-wishers, the world of Bengali theatre and television, in acting, directing, and scriptwriting, he has left an indelible mark.
   Brought up in a conservative family – his father looked down upon any form of performance art – Rashid nonetheless had a fairytale childhood in Mymensingh. His father was the local postmaster and the family lived at the feet of the Garo hills. The little boy grew up in close proximity with the indigenous culture and amidst sights, sounds, shades and smells of the six seasons.
   ‘I was so out there that I could tell the difference between sarat [autumn] and sheet [winter]. I would ride ox-driven carts and had friends from different social and cultural backgrounds. And there was the hill and the dream landscape,’ he says.
   His mother, unlike his father, was culturally oriented, as was her family, and encouraged her son to let loose his creative self. And there was also encouragement from litterateur Syed Ashraf Siddiqui and poet Rafiq Azad, relatives on his father’s side. Rashid would be a regular feature in all the cultural programmes of his school and the district.
   He was drawn to ‘jatra’ at a very early age. He remembers watching Sohrab-Rustam and being overwhelmed with emotion by the last scene where Rustam kills his son Sohrab. ‘I really believed they were for real. When the play was over, I sneaked a peek at the backstage. There they were – Sohrab and Rustam, without any makeup and smoking away. They looked just like ordinary village folks. I appreciated, for the first time in my life, the beauty of transformation ­– how people can become anything they want the moment they step on stage. I have been in love with it ever since.’
   Rashid came to Dhaka in 1963 and took admission to the Dhaka Polytechnic Institute. ‘The polytechnic institute was the hub of cultural activities back then. Many of the great actors, directors and cultural figures of our time were students there.’
   Rakib Uddin, a teacher at the institute, came to be Rashid’s mentor. He had great knowledge and understanding of theatre and later tried his hand in film making. In his second year, Rashid wrote a one-act play, which was a hit among the students.
   By 1967, still a student, studying political science at Dhaka University, Rashid had started working for television and radio. He wrote scripts for drama serials and also acted in many of them. His adaptation of Shahidullah Kaiser’s ‘Sangsaptak’ earned him critical acclaim.
   In 1971 Rashid spent the early days of the war in Tangail with the famous ‘Kaderia Bahini’ and later moved to Calcutta (now Kolkata) to work for Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra. In 1972 he formed the now famous ‘Aranyak Natya Dal.’
   Interestingly, while most people enter television from theatre, it was the other way round for Rashid. However, the late start only served to make him a more powerful performer. Aranyak made its debut with a bang. It staged Munier Chowdhury’s ‘Kabar’ – the play remains a landmark in the world of theatre.
   Rashid later wrote ‘Paschimer Shiri,’ ‘Ora Kadam Ali,’ ‘Iblish,’ ‘Guinea pig,’ and ‘Ababahika,’ and acted and directed Shakespeare’s ‘Coriolanous’ for Aranyak. ‘Mayur Singhasan’ of Aranyak, in which he plays a Hindu actor in one of memorable performances, has been staged 75 times so far.
   Aranyak has worked on stage, street theatre, puppet shows, workshops, school theatre, physical theatre and free drama. Its latest productions Rarang and Sankranti, both scripted by Rashid, are amongst their most revered productions.
   In 1992 Rashid formed the Bangla theatre for a more professional theatre group and has acted in all the four plays – Manush, Adim, Lebedev and Che’r Cycle – the group has staged so far.
   On March 1, 1971, ‘Abar Ashibo Phirey,’ a drama on Faruq Iqbal shown on television, had an uncanny ring to it, as it prophesied the events to follow. In the 1970s, Rashid worked on television dramas, Iter Par It, Ekhane Nongor, Ekti Shetur Galpa, Sampratik, Somoy Osomoy, a famous television serial, along with Suprabhat Dhaka.
   In the 1990s, with the introduction of package dramas, Rashid came up with first production Biswas followed by serials Shilpi, Shundori and Danab, in which he plays a sleazy social climber working for the wealthy family of ship breakers who severs the bonds of the family, committing gruesome crimes, even murder, to accumulate wealth and climb up the ladders of society. The drama almost serves as a blueprint of the lives of nuveau rich of Bangladeshi society.
   The recently-concluded New Sabuj Opera is the longest running serial on television.
   Committed to the cause of Marxism, all of Rashid’s works have served as a voice against repression in society. ‘Drama is not only entertainment; it is a powerful weapon in the struggle of classes,’ reads the leaflet for Aranyak.
   Rashid has also been an active spokesman in the movement for the rights of the indigenous people.
   Besides acting, directing, scriptwriting and social activism, Rashid is a regular columnist for three leading national dailies and has written a few novels. Every morning he wakes up at six and sits at his table and writes till nine before going out.
   While many local and international actors and cultural personalities including Khan Ataur Rahman, Abdullah Al-Mamun, Mostafa Monowar, Utpal Dutta, Nasiruddin Shah, Richard Burton, Rabindranath Tagore, the Russian masters Tolstoy, Chekov, Gorky, Ostravosky, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams have all played their part in inspiring him, one cannot help notice an uncanny resemblance between him and his favourite Hollywood actor, Dustin Hoffman. ‘Once, outside a theatre in New York, a fellow came up to me and asked me whether I was Dustin Hoffman’s brother,’ he says.
   Having written and acted with equal force, Rashid finds it hard to distinguish and choose between the two forms. ‘Acting is exciting while writing is inspiring. I also enjoy directing immensely – to direct more than forty to fifty people, to create a world from the scratch, is very laborious but immensely rewarding.’
   Mubin S Khan