Almost World-Famous

Ten years ago, during one of my visits to Bangladesh, all of us expats and foreigners were invited to participate in a television show. Not just any show. Ityadi (ইত্যাদি). A prime-time evening programme with something like thirty million viewers. In Bangladesh, that makes it less a TV show and more a national ritual.

Our segment was a recurring format in which foreigners play Bangladeshi characters in a well-known folk tale or popular story. We were asked to learn a few words of Bangla, dress in traditional clothes, and act out our assigned roles. It was presented as light entertainment — slightly humorous, slightly absurd.

There was something quietly delightful about it. For once, the rules were not ours — and that was exactly the point. We were invited into unfamiliar settings, spoken to in a language we barely understood, and asked to play along as best we could. It wasn’t uncomfortable; it was generous. A kind of good-natured role reversal, full of humour and trust.

It was a very hot day. Like all television productions, every scene had to be recorded again and again. The director — a famous one — ran the production from his house, set on a vast landscaped garden. Within its boundaries, you could find almost every typical Bangladeshi rural scene: village paths, open fields, shaded corners. Everything the story required could be filmed without ever leaving his grounds.

The recording took the entire day. Lights. Retakes. Instructions. Corrections. Singing. Dancing. Very Bollywood.

Because my role was so small, I spent much of the day doing very little. Waiting. Standing just out of frame. Hiding wherever I could find some shade. The singers and dancers had a much harder job. Their scenes had to be filmed over and over again — sometimes because a step was slightly off, sometimes because a face did not look happy enough.

As the temperature kept rising, smiling on command became increasingly difficult. Sweat ran, makeup was adjusted, and the same joyful movements were repeated once more. And once more.

What this looked like is probably easier to show than to describe.

The story itself was simple and set in a rural village. A young girl is taken hostage by a criminal, who forces her to marry him. She is clearly very young. The villagers respond by organising a series of village meetings, debating what to do. Eventually, the hero arrives: a good-looking young man with the right connections — governance, police, authority. He rescues the girl. Justice prevails. Music swells.

After the rescue, he asks her to marry him.

This, too, is treated as a resolution. The proposal folds neatly into the story, carried along by singing and dancing, and the episode moves towards its festive ending.

My own contribution came and went almost unnoticed. I played the servant of the criminal — the one who warns his boss about the village meetings that will eventually seal his fate. I overplayed it shamelessly. Dramatic gestures, exaggerated fear, the whole thing.

It didn’t matter. My role was so small that no one really noticed. Still, when I returned home, I liked to joke that I should be world-famous by now. After all, thirty million people had seen my face on television. Apparently, fame — much like my role in Ityadi — is mostly a matter of screen time.