Opening inaugural ceremony of the International Cricket Council’s 2014 ICC T20 World Cup spawned a rumbling reaction among the Bangladeshi masses that showed up on 13th March, 2014 at Bangabandhu National Stadium. Promoting the event as a BCB (Bangladesh Cricket Board) celebration concert yet brazenly endowing the floor to the foreign artists despite the country flaunting enough local musicians. The Academy Award winning composer and crooner, A.R. Rahman got paramount attention of the organizing team, which led to scant scope for local legends. Even the focused local band ‘Miles’ went unperformed due to sadly lacking time-management.
By Aziza Hena*
The bulk of the event was ruled by Indian performers, including A.R. Rahman, Javed Ali, Udit Narayan, Sweta Pandit, Neeti Mohan, and Hriday Deepak Guttani with the choir group. Senegalese American R&B and Hip Hop artist Akon additionally drew attention from the gallery. The legendary singers of Bangladesh onward – Runa Laila and Sabina Yasmin, Kumar Bishwajit and Momtaz only received enough scope to perform a single track each, as part of main exhibition alongside foreign songbirds. It was heartrending that Bangladeshi bands Arnab and Friends, LRB and Soules couldn’t be part of prime moments. After completion of a subsidiary chapter by these bands, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina arrived on the spot.
Singers of Chayanat (renowned Cultural Organization of Bangladesh) revived the gallery with some national spirit by belting out the national anthem. A mind-blowing audio-visual presentation named ‘Dekhen Valo’ (Watch Well) came up next to the BCB Welcome song calling for universal unity. While flashing fireworks ended that juncture, speeches from the honorable Prime Minister, the Chairman of BCB, the State Minister of Youth and Sport, and the Finance Minister took some time. The major celebration, as announced by BCB, was inaugurated through A. R. Rahman’s efforts. The theme song was performed at the last moments of the show and put glee into the audience’s lit up faces.
In a well-formulated background set-up and a quality audio system, A.R. Rahman and his troop executed almost 25 performances counting Classical, Rock, Sufi, Instrumental and film scores from Bollywood. The Bangladeshi audience fell under Rahman’s illusions for almost 4 hours, more than half the time of the total event that led to negligence of local crooners. Simply put that, the show arrangement this way hurt the audience’s feelings inside and outside of the gallery, as the social media communications on such as Facebook verify, plentifully. Some youth groups blamed BCB, mentioning the concert as a one-sided show of Hindi songs, while others stamped the show with ‘usualness’. Since Bollywood-addiction has received escalation in all grounds of Bangladeshi culture, some in the crowd were heavy hearted and ironically spoke out about the matter.
Young bystanders brought out the issue of audio-piracy in their discussions just after experiencing BCB’s negligence towards the mellifluent voices of the country. So far, even the oldest bands of the country had to struggle because of dishonest dealings of recording companies. Lack of patronization from government and any co-operation from recording companies coupled with an immoral attitude of audiences has hit the audio chart figures hard. Amid the modern technological options, the Internet is providing an open approach of free-downloading of songs. Easy accesses to DVD-R and MP3 have prepared the audience too as reluctant to spend cash for an audio CD costing a minimum of 80 taka. Thus, royalty crisis becomes a rocklike reality for artists.
The shabby parade of Bangladeshi music industry has been continuing due to promotion of invasive Indian culture via satellite privileges, as one unique causes. It is a sad note that Hindi music as an enticing element has attracted a large audience, especially the youth of Bangladesh. Considering this perspective, the dominance of Hindi songs emerged in the form of ‘usualness’ in the ICC T20 opening ceremony. What the shocking bit is though, is the thoughtless demeanor of BCB that could so mis-represent the cultural heritage in front of the globe through not evaluating the native jewels.
About 18 crore expense for the event made a benchmark in history for Bangladesh. Undoubtedly, BCB’s deliberate determination to extend profits has been caught in ticket-prices ranging from 2,000 to75, 000 taka. The plebian suspicion is that, BCB has tried its level best to utilize the season of the T20 world cup as profit-making ground. The opening ceremony, in the name of a celebration concert is the starting point so gifted popular cultural presentations to be viewed overseas was deprived for our local artists. The invited international stars A. R. Rahman with his group and Akon’s professionalism was indeed as per contract. As guest performers, they deserved the roar of the masses to some extent whereas BCB will be stigmatized for ill-management. In a sense, the program was true crap, attended by elitist groups, to experience the constant Hindi melodies they enjoy on a regular basis every day at home!
“Aziza Hena is a Master of Social Science student at Department of Women and Gender Studies, University of Dhaka.
