A versatile artiste
Ruxana prefers to call herself a professional newscaster. Till last year she was a newscaster on BTV. After a span of 25 years she has parted ways with the TV channel. Now she only reads news on Bangladesh radio. In this persona, she believes that her confidence, good presentation and pronunciation stand her in good stead.
How she staged an entry into newscasting is an interesting story. In 1974 she accompanied her aunt for the latter's audition as a newsreader on BTV. There an acquaintance, Rezaul Karim, a TV producer, requested Ruxana to do an audition as well. Luck was on her side -- she was the only one selected out of 30 aspirants.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Ruxana is a graduate in economics from Eden College, Dhaka. She also studied music (Nazrul Sangeet and classical) at Chayyanaut, However, she couldn't finish the course because her father got posted out of Dhaka.
Ruxana had other teachers in Nazrul and classical: Anil Talukdar and Ustad Aminul Islam Sangeet Prabhakar.
As an amateur singer, she goes for modern songs and Nazrul Sangeet. She has several CDs to her credit: An album of Tagore songs, called Amar mon mane na, another called Ghum ghum chand (old Bangla songs), Projapati mon amar (old Bangla songs), Abhimaan (new modern songs), Ogo mor geetimoy (old Bangla songs), Rahein na raahein hum (old Hindi songs), Shajanigo (folk songs). In Rahein... she has done songs such as Main to kabse khari is paar and Ayega aanewala.
Ruxana has also given performances in Lahore (1993), a Bangkok architectural conference (1989) and several times in Dhaka. Next on her agenda is doing two more albums -- one on Nazrul and the other on Bangladeshi old modern songs.