Friends, Fusion and Brine Pickles
                                                               

Sabreena Ahmed        

                                                               
The raindrops on the window panes of Kozmo Lounge, Dhanmondi, Dhaka had made the atmosphere cozier than the usual, on the eve of 11 August. The performance taking place on the stage of Kozmo Lounge was supposed to be “Brine Pickles featuring Ayaz Quadir”. The initial trial was to bring Brine Pickles’ creative writings in English and Ayaz’s jazz tunes together.

Picture: Ayaz

Born in Bangladesh and brought up in Philadelphia is a performance pianist, music composer and arranger based in Montreal, Ayaz is currently completing his bachelors in music from McGill University’ prestigious jazz performance program under the tutelage of Montreal jazz masters Jeff Johnston, Wray Dawnes, and Andre` White. He is two times consecutive winner of Cavalcade Soloist award at regional American Jazz competitions.
In a small chitchat with Ayaz, he mentioned that this was his first visit to Bangladesh and he was overwhelmed to see such bunch of young people of Brine Pickles working together only for the sake of art. Ayaz’s field of jazz music keeps him busy with working with people senior to him and also who are career oriented. He was amazed by the friendliness and natural spontaneity of the Pickles and recently worked on a demo of their songs. Ayaz was moved by the friendliness of Bangladeshi people and he says, “I definitely need to come back here”. He has not known much about his country and he has been inspired to know more about while reading Rabindranath Tagore’s own translation of Gitanjali. 
Ayaz believes that jazz is a music that can connect two people together spiritually even if their language or cultures are different. While working with Brine Pickles, the improvisations of music and lyric or poems helped in exchanging a energy between both sides. Jazz music has this universal quality of connecting someone spiritually with others. Ayaz mainly loves this genre of music as it helps a taciturn person like him to unlock his inner expressions like the Cathersis effect of the theatre. He accepts the fact that he is just a novice in learning music and still has a long way to go.
In future, this little maestro wants to come up with a unique Bangladeshi jazz music which would be recognized all around the world. This will accommodate fusion of contemporary music trends of the country. He says, “Brine Pickles has given me an idea of creating this new genre.”
      Unfortunately Ayaz had fallen sick at the last moment on 11 August and Brine Pickles had no other way but to render the musical performance without his compositions. By fusing guitar and drums with the melodious deshi flute and tinkling mandira – this group of Bangladeshi creative writers in English showcased their 19th performance and first musical evening with a new name- “Brine Pickles and Friends”. Bart Areng Narinda, a regular bassist playing with some of the happening groups in Dhaka like Ajob and The Grass Hoppers, is on the bass;   Jonathan Gomes was on the drums, Soumitra Nokrek played the flute, Simon S. Mazumdar was on keyboards, and I was helping with the mandira while Ramananda Sarker played the khol. Theotonius Gomes and Hasan Ameen sang songs and played the strings with this fabulous line-up to enthrall the audience with a unique blend of contemporary literature and music. Munasir Kamal had also amazed the audience with her first ever performance of Rabindra Sangeet- Eparey Mukhoro Holo in public. The performance started off with a brief introduction by the senior most member of Brine Pickles, Theotonius Gomes on how he had written his poem Brushes of Boishakh to say goodbye to summer. After his recitation of the poem it was my turn to recite the English translation of Rabindrasangeet Eparey Mukhoro Holo. The piece was translated by Soumya Sarker and Munasir Kamal. Munasir  sang the original Bangla song and also recited the “Your Swirling Breeze” which was a  translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s Tomar Khola Hawai done by Dr. Fakrul Alam, Professor of Department of English; University of Dhaka. Right after this, Theotonius Gomes came on stage with the original Bangla song of this piece.  Hasan Ameen’s poem “Journey” helped to take the chain of performance to moor towards the English segment. The poem talked about the journey of life while the following song “0Hearing Myself Think” performed by Theo talked about a person thinking alone in the Heathrow airport’ lounge. The singer told the audience that once he had read a story by Richard Beard in the New Writing anthology volume 15 published from the British Council and composed it into a wonderful song.

            Rubaid Iftekhar recited a poem Without a Guitar written by  another member of Brine Pickles named Fatima Tuz Zahra. The poem showed aspects of flimsiness and falsity in modern human beings As soon as the poem had been recited; I accompanied Rubaid as his partner for the poem “Us” written by Hasan Ameen. The poem was about the typical confusion about relationship in a couple. Idrak Hossain’s poem Wish You Were Here was a monologue of a drug addict who is missing his girl friend and thinking of committing suicide. Theo intensified the protagonist’s loneliness by singing Pink Floyd’s-
         “How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year”
Hasan continued with the aspect of lonliness by singing his own song See Me Cry followed by a peppy song  “Dhakar Tokai” composed and performed by Theotonius Gomes.  The two songs Coffee Shop and Carnival performed by both of them accompanied by Munasir Kamal have been written by another Brine Pickle-Sabrina F. Ahmad and composed by Hasan and Theo respectively. The second last song On My Knees moved the audience away from the catchy tunes of tow of the previous songs and sets a somber mood. While this song focuses on a man struggling with his inner conflicts in becoming a better human being, the last tune of the last song of the evening “See the Star Shine Blue” written, composed and performed by Hasan softens everyone’s heart.
            Perhaps in this second appearance of Brine Pickles at the Kozmo Lounge, it would have been a wiser choice for them not to use the drums in such a small place as it seemed to create disturbance in understanding the wordings of the songs properly. Moreover, in a café a lot of people come to sit and have little chat with friends. They do not seem to be bothered to show  the minimum respect to the performers by not talking loudly. Indeed, it had created distractions for other audience in enjoying the songs and poems being performed on stage.
 Brine Pickles has been promoting “performance literature” in English among the Bangladeshi youth since its inception in 2003 under the Connecting Futures project of British Council. This project established mutual understanding between Brine Pickles and young writers from UK through two consecutive creative writing workshops conducted by Liverpool’s jazz poet and short story writer Mr. Dinesh Allirajah. The workshops culminated in the publication of Maps and Metaphors.
Besides British Council, Brine Pickles has also performed at  BRAC University, Independent University of Bangladesh (IUB), University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB), Words n’ Pages, Omni Books among others. This group of published writers      also performed in Norwich, UK, and in Chittagong during the Connecting Futures project. Brine Pickles has successfully organized workshops in Dhaka with Dr. Fakrul Alam of Dhaka University, Dr. Patrick Dougherty of Hyogo University, Japan,   and Mr. Shibli Ahmed Khan of Presidency University.  Some of the members have been published in the anthology titled Deshi Dreams edited by Dr. Patrick Dougherty.  
            At present the group of creative writers are working on their upcoming compilation of writings and also looking for a new place to hit in order to sow the seed of their love of literature and performance.