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Special Feature |
An artist expresses their internal expression in canvas. The success in creating their work is the main urge in them. They don’t believe in over-publicity. But they do believe in reaching the people through their works. Rafiqul Alam and Abida Sultana is of that nature. They are the leading artistes in the field of Adhunik Song and are known by their own renounce in Bangladesh. And they are brightly ablaze in the media line standing on their own musical fits. What do they say, about it? “Actually I am not against publicity but you must agree I am an introvert by nature. That’s the reason of my infrequent appearance in the media. Nor do I believe in tall-talks about my own quality .” Says Rafiq. But Abida does not agree with it. She says “I am not against publicity too. I do love publicity, but not the way the present show-boys and girls tends to do. I always wanted to do something basic, something built on my own talent not entirely depending on media mechanism."
The Past Days:
Rafiqul Alam is the product of his own musical family. He says "Our family being of high cultural background led me to be a professional singer. My elder brother, Sarwar Jahan is a very qualitative singer, composer, lyricist and a Phd.in Bengali Literature, while the younger one Khalequzzaman is a first-grade Guitarist. My father and uncles were genuine music lover and patron of music. They were also well acquainted with the change in music technology. The Gramophone was soon replaced by turntable and finally they bought tape recorder. So musical scenario was well-guarded even before I was born. Rajshahi, where I was born and educated right from school days to Masters degree , was blessed with a legacy of high cultural-musical tradition. Barons & Jaminders of this small city truly patronized Music in many ways to keep up the socio-economic life of the Ostads like,Pandit Horipado Das , Ostad Abdul Zabbar, Abdul Aziz Bachchu from whom I have been taught Music methodically.Then came the Rajshahi Radio Station. Here I got ample scope to know how should I use Microphone. Having finished my Master Degree educations in Political Science with honors I was offered to serve as a teacher in Rajshahi University. I worked there for only two months and decided overnight to flee from this job and joined in Bangla Academy the other day in Dhaka. Other giants in the cultural circle of Rajshahi including my elder brother Sarwar Jahan supported this decision to settle in capital city, Dhaka with a logic that central place is always congenial for cultural life."
A Music conference in Dhaka stadium was my debut concert in 1973. Manobendra Mukharji, Dijwen Mukharji, Shyamal Mitra, Ustad Ali Hussain KhanDagor Brathers and many other Musical giants from India were there to perform in this conference and I was the lone artiste to represent Bangladesh. I remember it was a breakthrough and I really cut a good figure there and was highly applauded by the Dhaka musicologists. The result was, next day I was offered to sing in a feature film.Satya Shaha, the famous Music Director, called me for a playback singing in the film named,” Atithi.” This is all about how I started music and took off in the professional singing career.”
The career of Abida Sultana in is not unusual. As she says " Probably I am a singer by born. May be I could listen music even while I was in my mother’s womb. My father used to learn music & sing in an amateur way. He was an actor too. He formed a group- theatre with a continual production on the stage. My mother was a short story writer for which she was awarded by many literary organizations. So cultural environments were well built in my family, which launched me to be a basic singer”.
The Ustads of national and international recognition, used to teach my elder sister Rebeka Sultana especially the classical-music. They used to hear me casually and praise my musical talents to my parents. In a fine morning I realized that I have started learning classical music from those ustads even when I couldn’t speak well. So it’s very heard to trace back the starting time of my music. But I would say the starting lessons were given by Pandit Ramgopal Mohanto. Later on I took basic trainings and “talim” in classical music from Ustad Ful Mohammad Khan, and then from Pandit Barin Mojumder as a regular student in Bangladesh Collage of Music where I obtained the Bachelor Degree in Music. I have taken plenty of Talims from Ustad Sagiruddin Khan, a legend musician of Calcutta which has enriched my singing style to a great extend.”
Abida Sultana started appearing in Television and Radio since her childhood in the children’s program. “I got optimum fulfillment of my career by singing in few notable playback songs."- Says Abida Sultana. 'Bimurto ae ratri amar, ‘Hridoyer Ochena Duti Nodi’- are of those songs which people of Bangladesh many decades to come.
Familiar by singing:
The year 1973 was an special year for Rafiqul Alam. In this year he find himself as a singer and first met with his life partner-Abida Sultana.Abida Sultana says- "I first met with Rafiq in that program held in 1973. We first saw each other in that program. That was the starting of knowing each other. We actually understood ourselves in the early 1976. Thus, we fall in love and we got married.
When asked - "How you are pulling on your present life along?" ‘Fine’- Both of them replied at a time. "Actually we can understand each other deeply."- said Rafiq.
The couple:
They can easily made up themselves as a popular couple singer. But both of them are not interested about building them as couple performer. Abida said-"We often reject many offers as a couple singer. It’s meaningless that we get married so we have to sing as a couple." Rafiqul Alam says more clearly-"If we sing as a couple then all will say we are copying Jagjit-Chitra and this will deeply hurt our personality."
Rafiqul Alam dreams for different types of albums. One of the titles he plans to be ‘Oprem Gan’. There will be no songs of emotion and love. I am also working on it.
We all pray for their success.
Source: The Daily Bhorer Kagoj, 6th January, 1997