Cultural centre with a defeated purpose

If you visit Old Dhaka's Loharpool area, you'll come across a structure that's quite hard to miss. Its sign reads in bold -- "Zahir Raihan Cultural Center". In the quest to accommodate the cultural practices of the citizens of Old Dhaka, the centre was established in 2008.

But even after 13 and a half years of its establishment, the 400-seater auditorium is yet to accomplish its goal, as it remains empty most days of the month.

The cultural centre's journey started on March 22, 2008, at the initiative of the undivided Dhaka City Corporation, whose mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka inaugurated it.

To mark the occasion, Bangladesh Group Theater Federation along with the city corporation organised a nine-day theatre festival, after which a few more drama festivals were held as well. Butthat was it.

With time, the cultural centre started to lose lustre, as mainstream theatre groups were not interested in staging plays there anymore.

Cultural activists said they don't come to the centre since it doesn't have an environment conducive to cultural activities. They also cited its high rent as a major issue.

According to Dhaka South City Corporation's website, the rent for any organisation within the Bangladesh Group Theater Federation and Sammilita Sangskritik Jote is fixed at Tk 7,000 per day.

For all other groups or organisations, the total rent for each day other than Friday is Tk 8,000 per day. On Friday, the rent goes up to Tk 12,000. However, due to various additional charges, the rent increases by another Tk 2,500 to Tk 3,000.

A person working at the centre said though the rent was set at Tk 5,000 initially, it's now almost double that.

As organisations look away from the centre due its high charge, its authorities are faced with a double whammy, as they have to spend additional money on maintenance to keep the empty auditorium afloat.

Fourteen out of 18 ACs at the auditorium are damaged, while the condition of light and sound projection systems are also appalling.

In August, it staged only one play, five in September, and seven in October, all of them by Old Dhaka-based theatre groups.

During a visit on Monday morning, this correspondent noticed that there was no one inside the centre. One individual standing there said people

had not come in yet as the councillor hadn't arrived.

The correspondent got to know from him that the office of Shahid Ullah Minu, councillor of DSCC Ward-46, is located at the ground floor.

Inside the auditorium, the chairs were in dilapidated condition. An unusual odour had developed as the auditorium hadn't been in regular use for sometime now.

A shopkeeper near the centre said, "Dramas are occasionally held on Fridays and Saturdays. Besides, owing to the councillor's office, the place is crowded with political people all day long."

Contacted, Kamal Bayazid, secretary general of Bangladesh Group Theater Federation, said, "The present rent rate is out of reach for many theatre groups. The environment here isn't exactly appropriate for staging dramas either. The AC is broken, the makeup room is wrecked, the seating conditions are terrible -- all of it makes for an adverse environment."

He also mentioned that other places charge much less (around Tk 5,000 to 6,000).

On this issue, Amaresh Mandal, in-charge of the cultural centre, said, "Whether we stage dramas here or not, our expenses rack up to a huge amount every month."

Acknowledging the AC issue, he said, "We have asked the city corporation to fix them. Hopefully, they will tend to this soon."