Feature

A Journey to Media…

Umme Wara Mishu

LIKE every other teenage girl, I was also used to standing in front of my mirror and copying the two great presenters in Bangladesh; Samia Zaman and Samia Rahman during the first golden phase of the Ekushey Television. At that time, I had never dreamt that after a few years I would be a part of the second journey of Ekushey Television on 31st March 2007. And in this one year celebration I want to share some of my wonderful experiences as the presenter of the daily live program “Ekushey'r Dupur” and the weekly sculpture based program “Protikriti”. From 31st March 2007, we four presenters took the responsibility of presenting “Ekushey'r Dupur” where we have to present information about daily events, birth and death anniversary of eminent personalities, appeal for any serious patient and lastly we conduct an interview of a renowned and successful person from any field. As it is not only an entertainment program but also a social communicative program, generally our guests are not the so-called celebrities, rather we prefer those personalities who compliment the intellectual weight of “Ekushey'r Dupur.”

As it is a live program, many funny and peculiar things happen almost every day. In the first part of the program when we give details , we have to read out from the auto cue and sometimes it happens that during that time if we mistakenly read a wrong word we have to smile the next second as if to make a mistake is something very interesting, again sometimes there occur some technical faults and again we give a lovely smile as if sometimes technical faults are good for presentation. I can remember the funniest experience I have had in this matter that the renowned sculptor Rasha was my guest one day and the moment I thanked him at the end of our conversation for coming to our show, suddenly he stood up because he thought the program was over. I froze inside but as usual I was taking leave of my audiences with my great smile and at the same time I was gesturing at Rasha with my hand to sit down on his chair! I want to mention another thing that maybe the audience do not know.

During presentation we put a tog belt in our ear so that we can hear the instructions of our producer from the panel. Many times it so happened that producers told us to end the show but guests continue to talk as its not possible for them to know when to stop. Neither can we tell the guest to stop nor can we stop responding to him. But we, the presenters take all these difficulties as challenge as to communicate with our audiences more and to improve our program in every possible way. And I feel that the challenge as a presenter of this show is to meet and converse with such personalities that I doubt I could ever meet. I had the proud privilege of interviewing Mahbubul Alam Chowdhury, Kalim Sharafi, Kamal Lohani, Asad Chowdhury, Dr. Zillur Rahman Siddiqui, Farhad Mazhar, Syed Shamsul Haque, Nirmalendu Goon, Justice Golam Rabbani, Sultana Kamal, Mamunur Rashid, Ali Zaker, Shubir Nandi, Bari Siddiki, Subhash Dutta, Chashi Nazrul Islam, Ferdousi Priyobhashini, Partha Protim Majumder and many other national and international personalities that I cannot mention right now as I have done more than 120 episodes in one year. And in this one-year, we, the presenters of this show, proved that a great deal of inner knowledge is required for conducting this program. I am saying this because many people have a conception that any good-looking person can be a presenter, which is not true at all. Before our final on-air, we have to rehearse for long hours we call “dry run”! And during all the rehearsals, our producers correct our faults. And when they think that a presenter is ready for the live show, only then we can start the live program. Besides, I always try to prepare myself by studying about my guest whom I am going to interview and for that I have to give efforts to collect information about that person.

So, it is not a matter of glamour with which anyone can make this program and conduct a live program. A good presenter has to be confident, witty, smart, spontaneous and communicative. And we try to develop these qualities in us every day. And for all our success, I am grateful to our two producers Sumona Siddiki and Masodul Hassan for their wonderful direction, support and encouragement to all of us. Besides “Ekushey'r Dupur” I also conduct another sculpture based weekly show “protikriti” as I have mentioned here and the producer is Sumona Siddiki. This program is totally an informative program where in every episode we focus on a sculpture situated in our country. We go there where it is situated, we talk about the history of the sculpture and meet the audience with the sculptor, as maximum people know the sculpture but not the sculptor. Already we have done 13 episodes on Jatio Smriti Shoudha,Shahid Minar, Oporajeyo Bangla, Mirpur Buddhijibi Smritishoudha, Rayer Bajar Boddhobhumi, Jagroto Chourongi, Shangshaptak, Amar Ekushey and some other important sculptures. This program is very close to my heart as most of the sculptures are related to our Language Movement and Liberation War. And when I talk about the history that makes me proud again and again in every episode of “Protikriti” though we have to take lots of pain in doing this outdoor program. Because we have to do all the programs at daytime, especially when the sun smiles fully! And for one perfect take, sometimes I have to give 5-10 takes for side noise, crowds and sometimes I forget my script as my producer makes very standard script in accordance with the demand of the program. But after all these, when I watch the program and get so many phone calls as appreciation I forget all those pains during shooting and I never forget to thank Sumona Apa. So, these are the two programs that I am doing right now and I think that I am fortunate enough for getting opportunity to conduct these two wonderful programs. And Last but not the least, I must mention someone's name who is the creator of the presenter in me, that is Mr. Parvez Chowdhury. He is the one who took my audition, selected me and trained me by each and every small technique of communicating with audience. I am indebted to him for his guidance, which makes my path easier to become a good presenter in my one-year career. But I know I have a long way to go to live up to everyone's expectations and I will definitely make it happen.

(LL.M. Student, Department of Law, University of Dhaka)