Saving Nazrul's creations from distortion-- Salauddin Ahmed
Nazrul Islam, despite being the country's National Poet has had his work distorted perhaps more than any other of his peers. After Nazrul was incapacitated by neurological illness in 1942, his songs were adapted for commercial purposes by a small group of people with little understanding of Nazrul's work. The end result was that many of Nazrul's original works were nearly lost in the maze of adaptations through the years. Nazrul's legendary popularity, his immense stock of songs and the lack of copyrights were certainly at the core of the problem. By 1968-69 there was an initiative in Bangladesh for authenticating Nazrul sangeet notations by the Nazrul Academy. Later on, in 1985, government-run Nazrul Institute took consolidated efforts to preserve the works through authentic notations. The preservation process started from archives of original gramophone records made before the poet fell ill. There was a minimum of 1500 discs containing songs ranging from classical to folk, ghazal to modern, but mostly in dilapidated conditions. "The concept of following the swaralipi or notations in Nazrul songs is relatively new," says Salauddin Ahmed. "The students need to listen to quality performances. One has to have technical know-how to carry on the task of re-composing the swaralipi," he says. "There is a misconception that to be a good tutor, one need not be a good vocalist. The idea is not totally true, The students need to listen to quality performances and develop a taste for good music through the tutor, he says. "Ironically, Nazrul was in fact very liberal with songs. He allowed the stalwart artistes to make variations in style. But it was never meant to be exploited and distorted according to the whims of a few people, especially at a time when the poet was incapacitated to intervene. "Previously the songs had to be rendered for gramophone records in a time span of 3 minutes 11 seconds. So there are several instances when many songs had to be finished midway. The recording companies did not want to bear the expense of re-recording. Therefore, in many instances it would be the unedited versions that were often released. So following the original records could result in the distorted version being accepted as the original," says Salauddin. Salauddin points to a number of initiatives to tackle this issue. Leading performers who have a good understanding of Nazrul's music can be more involved with the notation restoration process. At present there is a dearth of authentic trainers across the country. Government institutions such as Nazrul Institute, Shilpakala Academy and other renowned private institutions certainly have a critical role to play. The media's role can be central to the whole process, he says. Re-recording of the original songs by talented singers has become a necessity. The role of sponsors is also vital. There are instances where the multinationals sponsor musical ventures. It would be a welcome change if such instances were implemented for preserving Nazrul's work, especially since he is the country's National Poet. Salauddin Ahmed was trained India in classical music by Ustad Mashkur Ali Khan and in Nazrul songs by Pandit Shukumar Mitra . He is a regular performer on TV and radio. Besides being a trainer at Nazrul Academy, BAFA and Ansar VDP Cultural Team, Salauddin is currently engaged in restoring the notations of Nazrul songs.
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