Melody on migrant crisis

Atiqur Rahaman

In the midst of his hectic professional duties, bureaucrat Atiqur Rahaman finds time to follow his passion for writing. He pens lyrics for meaningful songs, his latest one speaking of the migrant and refugee crisis, ‘Sometimes Somewhere’.

Currently posted as director in the foreign ministry, Atiqur created a four-minute video for this song which was supposed to be screened during the ninth summit of Global Forum on Migration and Development, held in Dhaka in December, 2016.

“It took around seven months to finalise the music video. I’m happy because it has won a lot of appreciation,” said Atiqur.

Financed by the foreign ministry, the video could not be screened during the main event of the GFMD summit due to lack of time.

However, the music video was screened in between other sessions of the summit. Channel i also aired the video during the summit, Atiqur told Prothom Alo.

The video is now available on YouTube.

Atiqur said, “The harrowing death of Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi inspired me most to pen the song.”

“Encouragement from foreign secretary M Shahidul Haque and high commissioner of Bangladesh to Sri Lanka Riaz Hamidullah helped me find my words for the song,” he added.

“To be specific, some days ago I attended a thematic workshop on migrant issues in Bangkok where I found the first stanza of the song, ‘sometimes somewhere/we’ll need to stand together/to raise our voices again/for the generations of the future’,” he added. 

Speaking of people’s right to move across the world and the role of migrants in global economy, the song has been sung by a group of young singers including Asif Riyadh Lodi, Yeasmin Ali, Atiya, Dipwannita, Robert Nelson Sircar and Samuel Adhikary.

Samuel Adhikary composed the music for the song.

Talking about his future plans as a lyricist, Atiqur hopes to pen a song on autistic children.