The singer's stars are on the ascendant

Jahir Alim rendering a song

Jahir is well travelled. As the member of the team representing Bangladesh, he has performed songs in Japan, Thailand, China, North Korea, Oman and India.

Recently, Jahir visited USA and rendered songs in four states, New York, Boston, Atlanta and Michigan. In Jahir's words, "Local Bangalees in USA arranged the folk programmes on Lalon Shah, Abdul Alim and Hasan Raja. Our presentation was well received."

A lecturer of Government College of Music, Jahir Alim has been teaching folk music for over a decade. Commenting on the standard of music education in the college, Jahir says, "The aim of the Government College is to create quality singers. This explains why we emphasise on teaching classical music. The students of folk music learn different folk genres from the experts. However, I believe that if the college had offered a department of instruments it could have contributed more for the development of music in Bangladesh. Today we face a crisis of instrumentalists in Bangladesh."

Jahir is the son of music exponent Abdul Alim. The special grade singer of radio and TV, Jahir basically sings the popular songs rendered by his father.

However, legendary folk singer Abdul Alim did not encourage his son to enter the world of music. To quote Jahir, "My father insisted that we should join government service. In his view, singers in Bangladesh did not get their due respect. Though he taught us music, he discouraged us to take music as a profession."

His father was his first music teacher. Later he received training in classical music from Ustad Aktar Sadmani. Why are musical talents such as Abdul Alim rare these days? Jahir maintains, "He had a God-gifted talent. Moreover, in present times, we do not practice as rigorously as the singers of those days."

To what extent are younger people interested in folk music? To quote Jahir, "Compared to other departments, we have less students. But, I am optimistic. I am a member of the jury of the talent-hunt initiated by Bengal Foundation. In the folk branch, we have found a good number of promising singers. However, an alarming observation is that some of the participants presented modern songs in folk tune in the audition. That means they have little idea about our traditional folksongs. I believe the Ministry of Cultural Affairs should take a cue from the observation."