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Photo: Anu Pushkarna

Making a difference Baharul Islam: ‘Without sponsorship, no creative work can flourish’

“Our people need entertainment more than anybody else. Living in a strife-torn society, it is important that people get enough opportunities to laugh. Both theatre and cinema producers have a huge responsibility in this regard,” he says in his baritone, popular back home.

Creativity without respecting the needs of the times fails to find takers, feels this National School of Drama alumnus and now a member of its visiting faculty. “Today is important for me. I have always tried to go with the present,” he states. Proof of this is his much-appreciated comic play “Akash”. It is adapted from a short story penned by noted Assamese novelist, playwright and National Award winning filmmaker, the late Bhabendranath Saikia.

“We staged it first in Guwahati last year and it was very well received. That made me realise how apt the play is for the present times. People respond positively if you give them something good,” he says. A subtle comedy infused with situations from the life of an everyday character called Jogen Choudhury, the play also featured in the Satellite Festival in Mumbai this month. Sitting on the lawns of NSD, nodding to the compliments pouring in from fellow theatre directors and students passing by, for his ability to cross the language barrier to put across the gist of “Akash” to a wider audience, the popular actor of Assamese cinema wryly adds, “It seems our Government wants to see us tense all the time, and talk only about militancy.” Citing examples from ancient times, he points out how promotion of art is the ruler’s job finally. “Our Government doesn’t have any policy on culture. Without sponsorship, no creative work can flourish.”

The responsibility of a community to keep its culture alive though can’t be overlooked.

“Shakespearean plays are living because the scripts have been successfully moulded to fit the times. Sankardev, the greatest Assamese social reformer, lived before Shakespeare, but not much is known about him outside the State. We are responsible for this,” he says. Quite often he feels like staging Sandkardev’s ‘Ankiya Naat’ (one-act play) with a few changes. “But I restrain myself because people might not be able to accept them.”

Islam, who says he was always fired by the zeal to do something for his own people, left Delhi for his home State after completing his course here in the late 1990s.

He formed his theatre company, Seagull and has now an auditorium on the first floor of his house. “Every Sunday, we stage a play and charge Rs.10 per ticket,” he says.

Married to National Award winning Kannada actress Bhagirathi, Islam also works with spastic children besides teaching the nuances of play-acting to other children.

Though he acted in three Assamese movies last year, he says filmdom there is in a nosedive. “Even if you do good work, who will buy it? Where will you show them? Very few cinema halls are functional. For the last so many years, the Government has not sanctioned any licence to set up cinema halls,” he says.

Many Assamese films are now canned only in CD format.

Islam however adds, “ I do have a plan to make a Hindi movie for the multiplex audience along with Irfaan, the film actor and my senior in school.”

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