Two with a vision

While the National Mourning Day on August 15 probably needs little retelling anymore – of the macabre events corresponding to that date in Bangladesh 39 years ago, the week also marks three years now since a less obviously sinister, yet pervasive tragedy struck, for no apparent reason other than to darken our lives a little.

The loss the country in general and its cultural arena in particular, suffered on August 13, 2011 is potentially irreparable, because giants such as Tareque Masud and Ashfaque Munier (or Mishuk, as he was fondly known to everyone) do not come along often.

Theirs was the sort of partnership that a nation stumbles upon maybe once in a generation, and for a country like ours – burdened as it is with a variety of factors that act to undermine human endeavour – the intervals are even greater.

Indeed, as we have seen, four decades of independence has yielded only one truly world-class partnership in the field of the moving image, and we managed to lose both halves of this winning combination at once. The FIPRESCI for Maatir Moyna at Cannes confirmed this, if one needed such confirmation.

But for those who knew them personally, as I did, merely their presence was enough to confirm that you were not in normal company. The canvas on which their thoughts and ideas and ambitions played out was larger, to accommodate visions that could not be confined within the limits of society.

Tareque dwelled extensively on the past, the present, and the future of the film industry in Bangladesh, finding in Catherine the most perfect partner with whom to wage his battles in their own unique manner.

The last few occasions that I spent with them were spent talking about the possibility of digitally archiving the endangered output from the 50s, 60s, and 70s of the film industry in what were first East Pakistan and then the formative years of Bangladesh.

He drew his wealth of knowledge that allowed him to talk through the night on folk culture from endless travels throughout the length and breadth of the country, his thirst never satiated by the ocean he found.

He made films taking his own sweet time perhaps, but that is why they always had the stamp of authenticity in them. What made him so special was that he was one of those true artists, who you can tell from their work because nothing in them ever feels contrived.

In Mishuk, Tareque found (or rather they found each other) a talent who could do justice to his grand vision. To capture it all with the same profound appreciation of nuance that could be missed by most eyes, and yet was all-important in the overall structure.

Quite comfortably – the most assured hand to operate a camera in independent Bangladesh – he found his calling in journalism (working with organisations such as the BBC and National Geographic) and this perhaps naturally brought us closer together, eventually helping to sustain a friendship with much deeper roots.

A son of the martyred intellectual Munier Chowdhury, who lived in the same lane of the teachers’ quarters at Dhaka University as we did in the 60s, he was a patriot at heart, but never wore it on his sleeve. I still remember his phone call from Canada, in the latter half of 2010, to inform me that he was coming home to take charge of ATN News.

Having known him since he was seven or eight, I knew there could be no better man at the helm for the country’s first 24-hour news channel. His contribution to the field of journalism in Bangladesh is of course incalculable, having moulded “with his own two hands” some of the leading lights in the broadcast media today. The outpouring of grief we witnessed at his demise was not one bit misplaced.

I would rather not get into the circumstances of their death, the tragic state of our communications network, and whose fault it was or wasn’t. It was only a matter of time before one of these daily events on our roads and highways took away the sort of life that draws the attention of the whole nation towards the problem.

Having worked in the news industry over four decades, I have seen firsthand how our indifference towards daily reports of trucks falling into ditches and buses colliding has grown till assuming a disconcerting numbness.

Everyone knows what the problems are. They are immense, but they are hardly intractable. We know what can be done to turn the situation around. The entire transport sector is crying out for sensibly administered regulation.

Let’s not forget, the tragedy that befell MV Pinak on the waters of the Padma falls under the same broad category. As is human nature, near and dear ones tried to find solace amid their grief over losing Tareque and Mishuk (and their three companions, let’s not forget) by leveraging the outpouring of grief and outrage towards lasting, agreeable solutions to the woes, indeed the mortal danger posed by travelling in Bangladesh.

“Let’s hope the deaths of Tareque and Mishuk, so unfortunate, so untimely, so needless, are at least not useless as well,” we told ourselves. Little did we know the compounded grief into which we were letting ourselves in.

And yet, it is a tribute to the gold that resides in the hearts of their nearest and dearest, that they still continue to wage the campaign – and one would expect no different from the two great friends themselves – to which they lent their names, and at least part of the legacy left behind by Tareque Masud and Mishuk Munier.