The New Nation - Internet Edition

Bushra Rahman

Brine Pickles, the performance literary group organized a literary performance show on 1st November at the British Council auditorium. They performed poems, fictions and translations from renowned writers of the sub continent side by side from New Writing 14 and 15, the annual anthology of British Council.

The theme of the program was to bring the eastern and western culture together. It is the first literary evening organized by them at the British Council since the Connecting Future project ended in 2006. Before this, they performed at British Council, Omni Books, Word n' Pages, IUB, BRAC University and organized workshop with Dr. Patrick T. Dougherty and Professor Fakrul Alam.

In the program, Dr. Nurul Islam, Dean, Faculty of Arts, Eastern University was present as the chief guest and delivered the inaugural speech while Dominic Hudson, Deputy Manager, Teaching Centre, British Council was present as the Guest of Honour and delivered the welcome speech.

The program started with recitation by Professor Khandakar Ashraf Hossain, which was followed by reading from translations of Tagore by eminent Indian writer Rasha Chakravarty.

Brine Pickles group performed two dramas titled The Autopsy' by Sarrina F. Ahmed adapted from 'Write at your Peril' by Ursula Holden and ' Jalchobi Pradarshani' adapted by Idrak Hossain from 'In the National Gallery' by Doris Lessing taken from New Writing 14 and 15 and performed few translations and poems written by Dr. Nuzhat Amin, Professor Fakrul Alam, Rumana Siddique and Professor Syed Manzoorul Islam.

A song was performed by Theotonius Gomes who adapted the lyrics of the song from the short story Hearing Myself Think from New Writing. He composed it as well.

The program concluded with Ms. Rumana Siddique and Professor Kaiser Haq's recitation from their own publications.

Sheikh Arif Bulbon

"I always remember my childhood. For this reason, I have expressed my childish thoughts in my works where my nostalgic emotions are expressed in artistic way," said Nahid Rokhsana Ananya, a 3rd year student of Institute of Fine Arts (IFA), Dhaka University and one of the young artists whose art works were displayed in the week-long exhibition titled 'Sharobarno' at Zainul Gallery-2 of the said institute.

The exhibition was inaugurated on November 1 by Prof Abdus Shakoor, Director of IFA of Dhaka University, as the chief guest. Artists Abul Barq Alvi and Shishir Bhattacharya, among others, were also present on the occasion.

Six young artists who are studying at different departments of IFA organized the exhibition. Some 40 art works were exhibited in the exhibition. The show ended on November 7.

The six artists were Nahid Rokhsana Ananna, Ratnashwar Sutradhwar, Shashanka Moni Chandra Rinku, Sumon Kumar Baidya, Tamim Bin Imdad and Zahid Sagor.

Artist Shishir Bhattacharya said, "It is very important to sit together and to attend an exhibition. There is no significance in separation. For this reason, I appreciated their attempts to organise and attend the exhibition."

"I think, at present, unity is very urgent not for only artists but also for all desiring the welfare of the country. This exhibition could open a vast and wide angle and vision for these budding artists," he added.

Ananya said, "Basically our aim was to express our works to all. This is our first group exhibition and we welcomed all kinds of criticism from the visitors and the critics in order that we can improve our works in the long run. From this realisation, we have organised the exhibition."

She was the student of Oriental Art so that her worked reflected that criteria. But her other works were on mixed media where a true reflection of collage were found tremendously.

While replying to a question, she said, "In my work, I showed the nature of child characters where vivid picture of childish images took place. In my work, I showed horn of a three-wheeler cycle of a child. In my childhood I was fond of playing with toys which were made of clothes. For this reason, I also showed toys of clothes of various colours."

"I want to establish my style of art work on characters of children. I think this would a different mode of attraction for the art lovers where they could get immense feelings of childish nature," she added.

She further said that her all kinds of emotions could get space in her works through various colours. Sometimes this could be of mixed media.

Ratnashwar Sutradhwar, another budding artist and a 3rd year student of Drawing and Painting Department, said, "I like to express my thought process through imagination of dream. But there must have true reflection of nature."

In his works, he showed a true reflection of light and shade and also expressed his maturity through using colourful tones where rhythm and natural beauty were closely mixed in various angles.

He showed his skilful performance by his portrait drawing where his maturity also showed to the art lovers and critics.

He showed how to draw emotional thoughts through lines and forms. He said of all of his works one was incomplete, which he was asked to his teacher artist Shishir Bhattacharya was that would be completed. But his teacher suggested him to attend it for the exhibition.

Zahid Sagor, 3rd year student of Print Making Department of Fine Arts Institute of Dhaka University, expressed his skilful works on his subject matter.

Shashanka Moni Chanda Rinku, 3rd year students of Fine Arts of Chittagong University, presented his sculptural philosophies by his works. His metal works reflected the original atmosphere to all.

Though the exhibition could show a little bit of tasks by some young hands in one hand, but on the other hand this could help them to promote and express their works through their works in the long run. Because in case of creative field, only work could not be all things. There should have criticism and appreciation for the artists so that they could feel that either how their works would be going or are they losing their tracks?

Cultural Reporter

ATN Bangla will start a new mega serial titled 'Swapna Mongol' from the 12th November. The central idea of the serial is to uphold the ever-flowing culture of this country and to project the evils of the western culture that has been damaging our ethics and morality. Blind imitation of the alien culture destroys the values we uphold and our talent. The drama is directed by Kamal Khan, and produced by Paplu Khan. Saiful Bari has written the story while Nasir Ahmad prepared the script and Anwar Hossain was in charge of photography.

Zahid Hasan, Fazlur Rahman Babu, Rumana, Shams Sumon, Sajal, Prova, Nisho, Saberi Alam, Arefin Shuva, Mishti, Ussel O'Neel, Tushar Mahmud, Lina Ahmad and Mahmoud Sajjad.

The story begins with a self-confident and idealist youth named Murad having Masters degree with Honors sauntering in the city of Dhaka. He took refuge with industrialist Ayat Ali, one of the closest friends of his father. But there he met an environment totally different from that of his family. Ayat Ali's eldest daughter Pallabi, a craft artist, was married to a physician Dr. Haider by name but the relations between them were not at all good because Dr. Haider always suspected Pallabi of otherwise relations with co-artist Rajat. Suspicion at one stage drove Haider Ali to kill Pallabi. Ayat Ali's second daughter and only son Sejan, the students of a private university, were so ultra-modern that bemused Murad at the very first introduction.

Industrialist Ayat Ali loved Murad very much and it created one kind of suspicion in the mind of his wife Zubaida. She became so upset that she began to smell a so-called illicit relations between her husband and Murad's mother Rekha. Being dismayed at the behaviour of her husband, Pallabi returned to her father's residence and met Murad, younger to her in age. Yet she felt one kind of weakness for Murad. On the other hand, Ayat Ali's second daughter Aishi and son Sejan gradually were plunged into many unwanted situations from which way out became so hard. Just at that time, Aishi fell in love with Murad who had another woman in heart, Obonti. Aishi became desperate for Murad.

Audiences will enjoy the serial every Monday at 8:00pm.