A musical career of distinction

Selim Ashraf

Going back to1964, Selim was a common face on BTV as a singer in the children's shows along with other prominent artistes of the present time. Shahnaz Rahmatullah, Sabina Yasmeen and Nilufar Yasmeen were his co-child artistes at that time. Selim recalls, "Popular radio announcer Hena Kabir was the director of our programmes. It was so long ago that I don't remember the name of that programme any more."

Selim was a scriptwriter and planner for different musical programmes. However, it was only after 1976 that he began to work on music composition. Selim says, "The TV station was then shifted to Rampura from DIT Bhaban. I composed the music for the song Shimahin shagorey bhashiey bhela, which was rendered by popular singer Abdul Jabbar. This was a big hit at that time."

Among the popular songs that he has composed so far are Samina Chowdhury's Ei jaduta jodi shotti hoyey jeto, Syed Abdul Hadi's Tumi na thakley and Nargis Parveen's Mongol grohey gorechhi prashad. According to Selim, the last one was one of the most popular songs of BTV.

Right at the beginning of his career Selim composed soundtracks for various Urdu films, including Samundar, Aarzu, Bandhan and Love in Singapore. However, as he points out, "When the blatant plagiarism from Indian film songs began after our Liberation War, I quit composing playback songs."

Selim has fond memories of the first magazine programme on TV, Jodi Kicchu Money Na Koren, which is one of the most successful programmes in the history of our television. He says, "I used to compose songs for the programme. Sometimes I used to play the popular and brilliant numbers of that time, which include Torey putuler moto korey shajiey and Mon shudhu mon chhueyechhey."

Selim has other fond memories of BTV, "When the then President Ziaur Rahman initiated colour broadcasting of BTV, the first programme to go on air in colour was produced by me, Desher Gaan."

At present Selim Ashraf is busy planning programmes and composing music for different TV channels. He calls himself a freelance musician. Although, he has the freedom to work with any TV channel, he still prefers to work for BTV.