There is a dearth of patronage for Nazrul songs--Sujit Mustafa

Sujit Mustafa

Recently he spoke to The Daily Star about his musical career spanning 30 years. He is particularly vocal on the dearth of government patronage for Nazrul songs.

A major grouse of Sujit is that BTV does not telecast music at prime times or opt for quality in selecting artistes and making music programmes. In his words: 'It is the responsibility of the media to identify the promising artistes. The established singers should be called on by the media to perform rather than the singers developing contacts to participate in shows. The media has failed at this task.'

Sujit is likewise disappointed with the functioning of the National Nazrul Institute. As he says, 'We are very lucky that we have such an institute. However, we are unfortunate that the institute could not fulfill a single expectation--as, for instance, promoting Nazrul effectively.'

The Nazrul songs could be given the pride of place by the institute. However, this did not materialise. Says Sujit:' The institute makes a manual notation of Nazrul songs from the old records, which is very outdated as well as time consuming.' Sujit suggests that this whole process can be done with software.

Research work on Nazrul also has its shortfalls. 'The institute's publications are mainly Nazrul's biography, research works and notations,' says Sujit, 'But very little research work has been done on his prime treasures, his songs, which displays so much versatility in music and lyrics.' sujit thinks that the idea of preferring the music and tune of Nazrul songs found in the old records is not right. The leading people in this field always take these records as the original tunes by Nazrul and discard the other versions. But, according to Mustafa, it is a crime to discard these songs without proper research.

Sujit says, 'Nazrul has so many unrecorded and unpublished collections in his life, because he led a bohemian life. So, there could be popular songs, which have no records. This does not mean that they are not the originals of Nazrul. There were a number of music composers who composed Nazrul songs by taking his permission. These songs are not available in the records.' Sujit poses the question of what will happen if it is found in future that a particular tune discarded by these people is, in fact, original.

He also expresses regret that the institute only organises programmes on special occasions like the birth and death anniversaries of Nazrul. His opinion is that 'The institute should arrange such programmes throughout the year ' Another of his complaints is that the institute does not have a website so that people have ready access to information about Nazrul Sangeet.

Sujit has had a long innings in music. He began as a classical singer because he had immense interest in classical music in his childhood. He recalls listening to old songs on a spool tape recorder. He had his music lessons in Shantiniketan and later in the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra and Gandharba College in Delhi where he learned ghazal, thumri and other classical songs. Among his gurus are master singers like Sohrab Hossain, Anjali Roy, Mohan Singh Gura, Pandit Amar Nath and Pandit Binod Kumar. His father Professor Abu Hena Mustafa Kamal, a towering figure in the cultural field, also deeply influenced Sujit. It was however through the Influence of his mother, that he chose the music arena and began to sing Nazrul songs on his return to Bangladesh.

In his words: 'If music can be an optional or mandatory subject in schools and colleges, many of the singers can earn their living through teaching music. They will live their lives with music and never take to the path of terrorism.'