Photo Album

Education in Mymensingh

Mymensingh Ananda Mohan College

Mymensingh is called city of education. Many students comes from another district for education. Mymensingh contains many famous universities, colleges and schools. Of particular note are Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh Medical College, Mymensingh Ananda Mohan College, Mymensingh Zilla School, Mymensingh Girls' Cadet College, Mymensingh Muminunnesa Women College,[AMLITOLA HIGH SCHOOL] Vidyamoyee Uccha Balika Bidyalaya, Mymensingh Polytechnic Institute, Women Teachers Training College, Mymensingh Engineering College, Shahid Syed Nazrul Islam College, Agricultural University College, Mymensingh, Mymensingh Govt. Laboratory High School, Mymensingh Premier Ideal High School (Former Pre-Cadet High School), Onnesha English Medium School, Mukul Niketon School, Mymensingh Laboratory High School, Prime Central College, Advanced Residential Model College and Royal Media College.

Media and literature in Mymensingh

Bharat Mihir was one of the oldest newspaper ever published from Mymensingh in British India. Its publication commenced in 1875. After independence in 1971, Habibur Rahman Sheikh published in 1979 the first daily under the name and title Dainik Jahan, following his decade-long trial with weekly Banglar Darpan which had been launched in 1972. He also published a women's monthly under the title Chandrakash for almost a decade. The other newspapers published from the city include Dainik Ajker Bangladesh and Dainik Ajker Khabar. Newspapers published from Dhaka came by train and was available around the noon till 1980s. Hawkers riding bicycle would deliver newspapers from home to home by the afternoon. As the roadlink with Dhaka improved, buses were used for transportation of Dhaka newspapers. Now newspapers from Dhaka arrive Mymensingh by 9.00 in the morning and are delivered to homes by the noon.

Ojonta Movie Theater

Mymensingh Press Club, situated near Ganginarpar is a vibrant hub for the intellectuals, teachers, literature and cultural activists, in addition to media peoples. It hosts literary events, cultural functions and such other activities on a regular basis. Mymensingh Press Club was established towards the end of 1959. It was set up in course of a provincial conference of journalists and editors of the-then East Pakistan, held on 7–8 March 0f 1959. Literary circles of note were Sahitya Sava and Troyodaosh Sammilini. Earlier, in 1960s, a leader of the Ahmadya community, Ahmad Toufiq Chowdhury, had set up printing press in his residence at Maharaja Road to bring out a periodic magazine entitled Writupatra. Poets Musharraf Karim and Farid Ahmed Dulal and writer Iffat Ara are some of the important literary names from Mymensingh. In 1985, Ara set up a press in her own residence to bring out the monthly Dwitiyo Chinta.

History of Mymensingh

Mymensingh is one of the 16 old districts of Bangladesh which was constituted by the British East India Company on 1 May 1787. Being more than 220 years old, Mymensingh has a rich cultural and political history. At the beginning Begunbari was chosen as the headquarters of the district. However the district headquarters was relocated to Mymensingh when Begunbari devastated by flash flood. Earlier Mymensingh was called Nasirabad. During the British Raj most of the inhabitants of the town were Hindus.

From the early 20th century Muslims moved into town. Since then this city has played an important role as a center for secularism. The Vidyamoyee Uccha Balika Bidyalaya and Muminunnesa Women's College have played a great role in educating Bengali Muslim women. A majority of first-generation successful Bangladeshi women have attended these schools and colleges, including the first woman justice of the High Court of Bangladesh, Justice Nazmun Ara Sultana. However, many Hindu families left Bangladesh during the partition of India in 1947. A second spell of exodus took place following the Indo-Pak war of 1965. Many people born and raised Mymensingh have left for West Bengal since the 1960s. The exodus continues albeit at a slower pace.

The nine-month liberation war of Bangladesh started on 27 March 1971. Mymensingh remained free from the occupation army until 23 April 1971. Pakistani occupation forces deserted Mymensingh on 10 December, and Mukti Bahini took over on 11 December, just five days ahead of the victory of Dhaka on 16 December.

Zainul Abedin; World Famous Bengali Painter

Zainul Abedin

Zainul Abedin was a Bengali painter. He got the break through in 1944 with his Famine Series paintings of 1943. After partition he moved to Pakistan; and finally when Bangladesh was created in 1971, he was rightly considered the founding father of Bangladeshi art. He was an artist of exceptional talent and international repute. Like many of his contemporaries, his paintings on the Bengal famine of 1940s is probably his most characteristic work. In Bangladesh, he is referred with honor as Shilpacharya (Great Teacher of the Arts) in Bangladesh for his artistic and visionary qualities.

Early life and education

Zainul Abedin was born in Kishoreganj, East Bengal on December 29, 1914. Much of his childhood was spent near the scenic banks of the Brahmaputra river. Brahmaputra would later appear in many of his paintings and be a source of inspiration all throughout his career. Many of his works framed Brahmaputra and a series of watercolors that Zainul did as his tribute to the Brahmaputra river earned him the Governor's Gold Medal in an all-India exhibition in 1938.This was the first time when he came under spotlight and this award gave Abedin the confidence to create his own visual style.

In 1933, Abedin was admitted to Calcutta Government Art School in Calcutta. Here for five years he learned British/ European academic style and later he joined the faculty of the same school after his graduation. He was dissatisfied with the orientalist style and the limitations of European academic style and this led him towards realism. He was the pioneer of the modern art movement that took place in Bangladesh. In 1948 he, and with the help of few of his colleagues, founded an art institute in Dhaka. That time there were no art institute present in Dhaka and he was the founding principal of that institute.

After completing his two years of training from an art school in London, he began a new style, "Bengali style", where folk forms with their geometric shapes, sometimes semi-abstract representation, the use of primary colors were the main features. But in all his drawing one thing was prominent that his lack of idea in perspective. Later he realized the limitations of folk art, so he went back to the nature, rural life and the daily struggles of man to combination of art that would be realistic but modern in appearance.

Zainul Abedin Meuseum

Famine paintings

Sculpture at Sonargaon Folklore Art Museum based on painting "The Struggle" by Zainul Abedin. Among all the contemporary works of Zainul Abedin, his famine sketches of 1940s are his most remarkable works. He created his famine painting set, which, when exhibited in 1944, brought him even more critical acclaim. The miserable situation of the starving people during the great famine of Bengal in 1943 touched his sensitive heart very deeply. He made his own ink by burning charcoal and using it on cheap ordinary packing paper, he depicted those starving people who were dying by the road side in search of little bit of food. What Zainul did was not just documented the famine, but in his sketches the famine showed its sinister face through the skeletal figures of people fated to die of starvation in a man-made difficulty. Zainul depicted this inhuman story with very human emotions. This drawings became iconic images of human suffering. This sketches helped him find his way in a realistic approach that focused the human suffering, struggle and protest. The Rebel crow marks a high point of that style. This particular brand of realism combines social inquiry and the protest with higher aesthetics.

He was an influential member of the Calcutta Group of progressive artists and was friends with Shahid Suhrawardy and Ahmed Ali of the Progressive Writer's Movement.

Liberation movement

Abedin was involved in the Bangladesh liberation war movement. He was in the forefront of the cultural movement to re-establish the Bengali identity, marginalised by the Pakistan government. In 1969, Abedin painted a scroll using Chinese ink, watercoloor and wax named Nobanno. This was to celebrate the ongoing non-cooperation movement.

Post-independence era

In 1975, he founded the Folk Art Museum at Sonargaon in Narayanganj, and Zainul Abedin Sangrahashala, a gallery of his own works in Mymensingh. Abedin developed lung cancer and died on May 28, 1976 in Dhaka. Two faces was his last painting, completed shortly before his death.

In 1982, 17 of the 70 pictures housed in Zainul Abedin Sangrahashala were stolen. Only 10 were later recovered. His famous painting "Study of a Crow" (Ink Wash) in the collection of Professor Ahmed Ali is listed in the book 'Arts in Pakistan" by Jalaluddin Ahmed, 1952, including an exclusive monologue on him published by FOMMA, Karachi, along with his many Famine Series paintings of 1943.

Honours

In 2009, a crater on the planet Mercury was named Abedin after the painter.