A legend among us
Mamunur Rashid, an unparalleled theatre artiste, actor, playwright and director, visited University of Asia Pacific as the guest of an event titled “Celebrity Footprints” at our university on March 18. The event was organised by our university and is an initiative of The Daily Star. As students, we were really proud that this programme started from the University of Asia Pacific and we owe to our Vice Chancellor Professor Jamilur Reza Chowdhury for this achievement.
At the event, editors of a number of sections of The Daily Star were present, but the main focus was on Mamunur Rashid, and members of his theatre troupe Aranyak. The event got in groove with a song by his team from the play “Shangkranti”, which is a story from Mymensingh, about a group of “shong” (a musical group) and how they got trapped by a rich man who took away all their instruments -- and their struggle to get them back. One of the most notable plays of the troupe, it has been performed more than 100 times, both in the country and aboard. Then one by one, he discussed about his other plays for stage and TV; he said to portray a character, he did not eat rice for 20 days to bring the perfection on his expressions of a poor hungry man.
The story of one of his plays about the Santal communities touched my heart. It was based on a true story of a man who was fighting for his land rights, and was burned to death in his own house. This play also acted as a message to many people about the rich culture that the indigenous community possesses. The songs that were played by his team on this particular play were mesmerising. The songs were collected by Mamunur Rashid himself with the help of his music director from the indigenous culture.
He shared his experience about his first act in a play in school where he portrayed the character of a prince. He did not wash the make-up marks on his t-shirt for 15 days! He also got the National award for his first film acting in “Monpura”.
To him, art depends on the artiste's practice. He thinks these days acting has become cheap as it focuses on the glamour rather than performance. He never forces his actors to memorise lines, rather giving them time to adapt the character themselves. He thinks about general people and gets inspired by them; therefore his scripts are mostly from general life. He shows empathy to people to get in their heart; that is why he is what he is today.
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