Mollah Sagor and His Arts

Molla Sagor doesn’t strike you as someone more than a student. Young and spirited, what lies behind the simple face and dreamy eyes is a honeycomb of unusual creativity. With the making of three documentaries that have just hit the market, Sagor is definitely on his way to making some subtle differences in our widely provoking media industry.

While the documentaries obviously aren’t your day-to-day popcorn entertainment, it’s something that will perhaps, make you think twice about people around us. An eye-opener and somewhat, ‘philosophical’ and humorous in its many approaches, Sagor’s work is doubtlessly, commendable.

Dudh-Koyla (Coal Milk) is 25-minutes documentary on the struggle of indigenous Saantals to protect their ‘home’ from turning into an open-pit mine yard of coal. The setting is at Bucchigram, a village under Phoolbari upazilla of Dinajpur where the Saantal community have lived on natural agriculture, befriending cattle, local games, trees and birds. Their simple, peaceful lives are suddenly disrupted by the alarming news of the government approving a foreign company to make a coalmine out of their habitat. They are offered compensation for the damages, but could money ever buy the peaceful abode they’ve lived on for years? It is their motherland, and to protect it, uproars of protest are raised. The police and BDR raided the area, taking lives and leaving the locals in fear. This documentary is a depiction of the tug of fear and courage of the indigenous.

Sagor’s other works include Cholo Mon Natok Dekhte Jai (Let’s Go, Watch a Play) and Shironamhiin 23 July (Untitled 23 July), both of which illustrate stories and struggles of people around us. Personally, I felt the documentaries would have been more effective in conveying its message if background voice narration was used; and many features of his work make it perceivable only to a small audience. Perhaps, they would catch attention in larger scale than predicted and Molla Sagor will continue producing such moving pieces in the future.

Published in June 2007 in Rising Stars