Blast from the Past!

Lyricist Shahan Kabondho
Talks to
Salman Rob

Courtesy: Shahan Kabondho

We never realise how sad life would be after school, do we? I actually get emotional at times talking about it or even thinking of those moments when we had nothing to worry about except going home on time. I was more of a regular student back in my school days at 'Amla Para High School' in Bagerhat. Not that I didn't bunk, I did, but maybe a bit less than how much I did in my college life at 'Dhaka College'(DC).

I have lots of good and bad memories of school. One of them was regarding my hand writing. We were giving a pre-test before our Bangla paper-1, HSC exam and after we were done the teacher called me and said, “I have never seen such neat and beautiful hand writing before”, and after that he showed it to the whole class room and told everyone to try follow how I write and keep the answer sheet so clean. And that wasn't it; he also asked for my permission to keep and preserve my answer sheet at school so that he could show it to other students in future. I'll never forget that moment, because it was something that made me really proud. And he still has that answer sheet!

Other than this, there were two other teachers who were always a great inspiration for me. Mokammel Hossain, the English teacher, was not only a great teacher but a greater person. The other teacher was M.S Shofik Shohag, and he was an amazing person. He also had a very cultural mindset, and was in charge of the school theatre club. He inspired me to a point which I cannot express with words and not just that, he also pushed me a lot to be the person I am today.

I studied Management at Dhaka College. The memories were mostly of all the addas since I barely attended my classes and mostly roamed around with friends looking for new places where we could just sit, have tea and joke around the entire day. Life became so different then-- living in a hostel, fewer restrictions and more responsibilities. My all time 'crime buddies' were Rabbi, Rupon and Babu. There isn't anything that we didn't do, starting from stealing coconuts to fooling around everywhere. One of our favourite hangouts was the Shahid Minar. We used to go there every now and then and just sit there for hours.

I gained experience in the field of writing when I joined Ajker Kagoj as a reporter and later on also worked at Bhorer Kagoj. This proved invaluable for my writing. Two of my books are already published and, hopefully, many more are to come. My dream is to write throughout my life - if Javed Akhter can still continue to write, why can't I? He is an exceptional icon for everybody. What I would like to add for students who are interested in writing songs or poems is study a lot, read more and you will learn a great deal. It is a passion that you should have and to succeed and reach that level you must be knowledgeable.