Home ›› 20 Oct 2022 ›› Show Biz
Renowned Indian musician Kabir Suman performed his 2nd show, titled ‘Suman’s Bangla Khayal’ on Tuesday at the Engineer’s Institute in the capital.
The event marks the first time Suman sings Bangla Khayal in Bangladesh.
Suman was accompanied by three of his fellow musicians. Indrajit Pradhan played on tabla while Dhrubo Basurai was on bass guitar and Raka Bhattacharya on tanpura.
The show started at 5:00 pm in the evening with the welcome speech of Mir Arif Billah, one of the members of the organising committee.
Before starting, Kabir Suman himself introduced his fellow musicians and also mentioned Acharya Satyakinkar Bandyopadhyay and Acharya Azad Rahman, the pioneers of ‘Khayal’ who are not among us anymore.
“Elderly entertainment artistes don’t have many places in this industry unless they are senior actors or actresses. But I’m talking about singers as when they grow old they start to lose voice quality. I might live for 5000 years with the blessing of the Almighty, but my voice won’t be the same,” said Suman.
“I think the people of Bangladesh listen to my songs more than the people of West Bengal. Though I don’t know the exact reason behind this, one thing can be that Bangladeshi people care about the Bangla language,” he added.
Kabir Suman then asked the audience how many of the audience present before him had attended any programme of Khayal before. Interestingly enough, only a handful of people went to a Khayal show before.
After this insight, he said, “I don’t see any good reason to attend a Khayal show as nobody actually made a close relationship with classical music. If music doesn’t go toward the audience, for people that really don’t matter at all. The straightforward fact is that classical music never reached mass people.”
Then he described the history of Khayal to give a little bit of an idea of it to the audience and to make it easy for the audience to understand.
He also joked about his own works and how mischievous he was, mentioning that once he wrote a song and labelled it Rabindra Sangeet, although no one realized it wasn’t a song written by Rabindranath Tagore, but by Kabir Suman.
He started his song with a Rabindra sangeet. Later, he just started to sing with the words of a poem written by Samar Sen. Then he said that it was he who mixed the lines yet none actually caught the fact.
However, Kabir Suman performed Khayal based on Raga Yaman, Raga Durga, Thaat Purbi and sang ‘E Moho Abaran Khule Dao’, ‘Dariye Acho Tumi Amar Gaaner O Pare’, ‘Shei Je Choya Sondhe Baake’, ‘Bonero Chamili Fere Ay’, ‘Kichu Nei Tobu Ache Eka Nil Tara’, and many more.
In between the songs, he talked about the legendary musician Azad Rahman and said, “Azad Rahman wrote so many Bangla Khayal. I never met him. However, after his death, I made a Raga in his name.”
He then sang Raga Azad. The song was ‘Astachale Seshtai’. Later, he also sang a Khayal written by himself ‘Din Furiye Geche’. The show carried on for more than two and a half hours, and his last song for the evening was, ‘Dekhechi Koto Sara Dile Na’.
At one point, e requested the Bangladesh government to stand beside Bangla Khayal. “Bangla is the national language of Bangladesh. So I request to Bangladesh government to stand by ‘Bangla Khayal’. If you need me, I will always be there.
“I really hope, the Bangladesh government will do something about Bangla Khayal. If it happens then, I will be very happy. Please let the old man die with this joy,” he added.
Bangla Khayal has now reached more than 600 in numbers. Kabir Suman’s last show will be on October 21 at the Engineer’s Institute at 4:30pm.
Organized by Peephole, the event titled, ‘Kabir Suman Live in Dhaka’ which will also mark the 30th year of his popular solo album ‘Tomake Chai,’ was sponsored by Bengal Classic Tea and Paramount Group.
