Tareque Masud and multicultural transformations.
Tareque Masud is an independent filmmaker. He completed his formal education in Bangladesh in the Department of History at Dhaka University and went on to make a documentary film on the artist S M Sultan. On a trip to the US to meet his in-laws he ended up staying for five years before returning to Bangladesh and pursing his film career.

I am a good case study on how society and multicultural transformations can make an individual’s life meaningful, and in a way, productive and successful. The story of my transformation is also the story of my exposure to different cultures and in the process of knowing my own culture better. My own process of transformation began when I moved from my village to Dhaka city. I was born in a village in Faridpur and spent 14-15 years here until 1972-3 when I moved to the capital city of Dhaka. For me it was quite a daunting experience. I spent my childhood in a Madrasa dormitory so coming to Dhaka and enrolling in a co-educational institution was somewhat of a culture shock.

I never planned to go abroad. During the production of my first documentary on the famous artist S M Sultan I got involved with an American woman who was also interested in Sultan’s work. We got married here and two years later I decided to visit my parents in law in the US. I was supposed to go for just a three to four month visit and ended up staying for five years. I really learned to love it, particularly New York, which is so cosmopolitan, multicultural, and multiethnic. So this was my first experience. Getting to know the outer world exposed me to knowledge that I could never have gained if I had not gone abroad. I took advantage of staying in New York. I attended a number of courses and started working as a filmmaker. It was a very enriching experience. On the top of everything it was during my stay abroad that, for the first time, I developed some important perspectives on my country and my culture.

Scripting the film ‘Clay Bird’ abroad had a kind of interesting impact on the nature of the script. The target audience was broader and through the experience of targeting a wider audience, as Habib mentioned, it is possible to succeed in doing much more when you come back and make films for a local audience.

Apart from learning the art of filmmaking, I also faced numerous challenges while staying abroad. I came back with various kinds of enriching experiences and I became more skilful in facing new adversities. Staying in an alien environment provides one with certain strengths to face challenges. The art to negotiate in such an environment is perhaps one of the lessons that one learns while staying abroad.

We also know that people are getting inspired by seeing other Bangladeshis in New York working hard. When I was there I saw the difficulties and the toughness of the immigrant Bangladeshis and other South Asian Diaspora in the United States particularly in New York. There I think we build a kind of strength. What we can say about ourselves is that we do have problems here, but we can turn these problems into a big challenge and inspiration.

As with my going abroad I did not plan to come back, I never thought I was coming back, but it was a whole series of events that allowed me to and I discovered myself in New York as I discovered myself in Dhaka. After more than ten years I eventually came back and through this process I eventually felt at home. So it was not a black and white way of going abroad and returning in a very narrow world. I think when we return, just a little bit of us returns. Eventually we are here and also there. That’s the beauty, that’s the diversity and that’s the strength of return – you are not the same person.

Coming back was an extremely rewarding experience for my career in filmmaking. For example, I could make films in America but the kind of feedback I would get would be very minimal. Such films will most likely be shown in different film festivals and to an audience that may vary between 300-3000. I completed the whole film ‘Muktir Gan’ (The Sound of Freedom) in the US and when we came back to Bangladesh we were amazed by the response. When I see the impact of my film, I get the satisfaction that I never could get anywhere else. It is true that here we do have to make films under rather difficult circumstances, but when we finish them, the appreciation and the feedback that we receive - nothing can match that. That is ultimately the reason why I came back.

During the time he spent abroad Tareq Masud was able to mix with different people from diverse backgrounds, widening his cultural outlook, learning various techniques of film making all of which contributed to the development of his finer skills of filmmaking that has now placed him as one of the top film makers of the country who have made it in the international film circuit.
http://ctmasud.web.aplus.net