Now as I am a slave out of my own decision and being a brother of Dr. Faustus, have sold my soul to a business firm, so it is someone else that now decides when I am allowed to spend my time in my own way. At the end of last semester they granted us a 3/4 days semester break and as I felt like the nightlong caged chicken of a village farm spending whole night jostling with others, and eagerly waiting for the dawn to spread its wings, I decided to travel a few miles with some ex-don’t-know-whats.
The people of 3000 Miles to Go are my friends but somehow more than that. Comrade is another synonym coming to my mind but I am not their comrade. They are not my heroes either because I don’t want to do the exact work they are doing now. But they are a mixture of memory and desire. They represent some most colorful time I have spent in my life and their physical existence proves that those moments are not mere after-opium-delirium. They do a kind of work similar to what I was once upon a time eager to do. So I keep thinking why I joined them.
I worked with Wildeye in the year 2010 for eight months when we made ten short films along with a one-minute promotional film. The films were about climate change and were funded by British Council, Dhaka. This time the same Wildeye –British Council group with the help of some other financiers was running a country wide screening of the films. They covered 64 districts in 82 days caravanning in a bus-cum-office-cum-store room, screening and explaining Climate Change.
I knew the team but I also knew not. I felt like the culprit who gave up the spirit in hard times and the nostalgic-but-wise sinner who after securing his own happy and hustle and bustle free life visit the team long afterwards to see how they are wayfaring. But they greeted me warmly. I reached Kishorganj before a sunset and by that time Saikat Bhai was ready with his set and Tanjil Bhai was in his meditative mood taking his time for the upcoming speech.
We had a quick tea and just after the sunset the show started. It was an open field adjacent to a famous college, and the district Shahid Minar was at the middle of the field. (I forget the exact name of the place.) Some three to four hundred people were there to watch the program and Tanjil bhai did well. It was an already 45 times given speech and at Kishorganj it was given for the 46th time with perfection. The films were shown in between the speech. The last two things to share about the speech are: 1. It explains Climate Change in a very simple and colloquial way and 2. It is often 3 hours long and most of the people kept standing and listened and watched the entire session.
The show ended at 10pm; we (!) packed and started for Netrokona at 11.30. We had our dinner at 12 and reached Netrokona (district no 47) around 2 am. I was too tired and went to sleep but the next day I learnt that the team usually did not go to bed so early. They worked till they had finished the day’s editing and planning and scripting leftovers.
At 10am still on bed under some worm blankets with a felt-weight body I felt Netrokona wonderful without any particular reason. I took a photo from the balcony of my room and it was the river Mogra. I came to know the whole city is surrounded and crisscrossed by it.
I worked as a volunteer for the production manager Saikat Bhai and we reached the Shahid Minar of Netrokona sometime around 11.30. After teas and initial chatting, slowly Saikat bhai started his work. Giving up my body against the darkened wood bench while sitting cross-legged with a pair of green sponge on my feet, I enjoyed the fresh milk tea in a roadside stall in a very leisurely and contemplative mood. While sipping slowly at my cup, I, almost obnoxiously, observed the overexposed midday world getting busy in its silly daily life. I felt as if I were a local guy living in the house just beside the boundary wall at my back and like the local old philosopher who feels pity for the rest for not knowing the meaninglessness of this world. But my Nirvana mood gave up as suddenly I found a packet of “Glucoze” biscuit waiting lonely in a transparent plastic jar. I collected it almost like a souvenir. Do you get this biscuit?- The once popular glucoze biscuit from Nabisco Company with a branch of grapes printed in green on its pink/purple cover.
I helped Saikat bhai in cleaning the Shahid Minar with a childlike pride and also in arranging the equipments. The bus for ‘3000 miles to go’ was a mini cinema hall that worked like the magic lantern of Allaudin. Besides 8 seats for the team, inside its belly it carries all the equipments necessary to arrange an open air film show within one hour notice. The equipment includes: generator, speakers, amplifier, projector, projection screens etc.
In the mean time Avijit Da and Tanjil bhai were still in the hotel, either sleeping after nightlong editing task or preparing to come out. Sohel Bhai and Ataur Bhai, two full-time camera-persons, were shooting important places and interviewing local people, and finally XYZ (bus driver) and Koel (bus assistant) were giving hand to Saikat bhai. The team lunched around 4 pm everyday (lunch –cum- breakfast) and then took a thorough check of the entire system.
When Tanjil Bhai started his 47th session I decided not to listen to the same speech again… I don’t know how he could repeat it for 64 times. I came out of Dhaka not just to see Shahid Minars and be volunteers. I wanted to regenerate the roots. Often while working in the city I ask myself Do I Belong? Do I Belong to this society? - like ‘Yank’ from the drama The Hairy Ape. Because I frankly have doubts that I don’t know my country, my country people. Living in the capital, leading the same life everyday and mixing with a people who live and lead almost the same life like me often make us forget that there exist other variations. Just at the same time when I am composing or you are reading, people in the world are experiencing life in millions of ways and as long as we are not careful about it we don’t see the transitivity of our own footholds. It’s unlikely that if we go out of the box and be careful about our limitations, we will get rid of this problem; but our efforts can make us aware if not cured.
So one reason of my joining the team was I wanted to get connected; to tell myself not to lose your way in illusions. You must explore the multiple layers that exist under the guise of a single society. Only by knowing the same story from different angles one can try to discover a philosophy that is applicable to all.
The time I spent with Wildeye in 2010 was financially poor but spiritually enhancing. We travelled a lot, interviewed a lot and documented a lot. In our office we discussed Climate Change, I saw how a film was given birth after long months of nurturing in the womb of a computer, or to be more specific, in the womb of the maker’s brain, and also how a film becomes a group work and how things automatically arrange themselves and finally how a script becomes the last thing to be finalized. It was not filmmaking but being one with the process of filmmaking without anybody’s knowing who is making the film.
Netrokona is a lucky town for having such a promenade like street beside its river. I don’t know its day beauty as I walked beside it in the evening, but I enjoyed myself being a Prufrock. I was an alien to the local lifestyle before going there and I left it as an alien too, because nothing can be decidedly explored within one day. Only what one can do is enjoy the light fresh air, which even a rhino-skinned guy like me can feel, study the cityscape or the shots of the roads. I tried to study that. What did I notice…1. Less complicated people …. Less complicated considering their less expensive/stylish dress up, their less smart/shrewd facial expressions…..2. Traffic free city…. 3. Most shops or bazaars one-storeyed so you can see the sky at wherever direction you look….4. And beyond centers, solitary residential areas which to my city-ridden eyes seemed too peaceful.
This illusion of sophistication free country life and fashion of thinking I wish I could live here always -are like teenage passions for me; so adjusted with it that I felt tired of myself but I also felt happy because still my mind could produce such romantic idyllic escapes. It suggests probably I have accepted reality but did not totally give up.
When I was working with Wildeye I was in a dilemma to choose my career. On the one side, it was my long cherished passion of giving my entire life to the ‘brotto’ of filmmaking. I dreamt of a life without cars, bank balance and so called ‘career’; of becoming someone who is given to truth and good deeds and who will keep exploring Bangladesh from every nooks and corners and document those discoveries on the pages of celluloid. But soon my dreams gave way. I could not fall in love with the lifestyle of a freelancer. Sometimes it appeared too relaxing, sometimes too tiring, sometimes it was too silly and sometimes it was too uncertain. I longed for a routine life under an established banner with a fixed salary. I longed for a seat where after doing my duties I would sit for the rest of my day reading and thinking and no one else to disturb me. I wanted to make film but I did not want to embrace the chaotic and hectic life of a filmmaker, which is a byproduct of the creative process. I had two more reasons for giving up. One is I found intellectual preparation more important than technical preparation, which was even truer for me. And second is, a doubt whether market based artistic practices can finally reach the height of an art work. …But filmmaking is predominantly a capital based art form….
I murmured all these while walking in the light cozy night of Netrokona. I tried to convince myself that I did not give up or run way, it was just that I realized it was not my game, not my cup of tea; I just realized I was not happy. Dreaming a lifestyle and passing a life in that lifestyle are two different things and it is very human to make mistakes by assuming these two similar.
From the tour I learnt how Wildeye was executing its new project and studied the organizing skill. Beyond everything it is your instant intelligence and your work spirit and determination that can make things happen. I saw another man. Tanjil Bhai, one who in this age of disbelief (my generalization) was fighting for his beliefs. He believes Climate Change is true, that it should be our top most concern, he believes in the need of nature, in the need of natural life and he believes he has a role to play to stop all kind of pollution. So he is working for his beliefs. In an age when we can’t decide what we want and even if we can, we can’t stay on it for few days and give up as soon as we face the third challenge, Tanjil bhai is an example of how to stand behind one’s dreams, how to stay glued to one’s plan and how to win over all that vices that now seem inseparable to our personality like our body parts.
Questions like British Council’s authenticity behind doing such awareness program in Bangladesh and ultimate outcome of such campaign considering the vastness of our need also came to my mind. But the answer I found is that at least some people are trying practically, some people will become aware if not many, so a few steps will be moved forward. It’s much better than idle talking. You start good work from anywhere in the world at any time.
Two days are nothing to visit 3 places. So, I actually saw nothing, no extra experience to share, only the learning that ‘less is more’ is equally applicable for travelling, you visit less number of places with more number of idle sittings at tea stalls, then probably you own a little bit of the place.
I accompanied them upto their next destination Mymensingh where I helped cleaning another Shahid Minar and left for Dhaka just before another sunset.
