Zeyran Mehrnush Juhie quit her job as an aeronautical engineer and walked the odds of society to finally pursue her career in music and she would not give it up for anything…writes Neebiir Kamaal
SOURAV LASKAR
She had lost enough until she thought enough has been compromised for her to live a life she wishes for herself. Zeyran Mehrnush Juhie, 25, is an aspiring singer. But the story of how she stumbled across from singing only for her friends and family to singing for the public is an interesting one.
Juhie had sung Chaite Paro, a song of noted Bangladeshi rock band Aurthohin at a halud ceremony. Someone had videoed the entire performance and uploaded it on Facebook. The uploader tagged Aurthohin vocalist Sumon in the video, and after he saw her performance, Sumon contacted her and offered her to collaborate in a track. Later, Sumon collaborated with Juhie and rerecorded the Aurthohin song Epitaph, which was released on Youtube in April this year.
Although singing has been Juhie’s undying passion, professionally she was trained as an aeronautical engineer at Military Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) in the capital. Engineering, especially the aeronautical division of it is not a field that women usually tread in Bangladesh. However, to add to the oddities and challenges that Juhie has had to face so far, the decision of pursuing a degree and career in aeronautical engineering is not what she originally wanted, it was rather imposed on her by her family.
‘I never really wanted to study engineering in the first place. I would have been more comfortable studying business administration and really wanted to study at IBA. However, my parents valued engineering more, a subject that is traditionally seen by Bangladeshi parents as one of the few quintessential “prestige” subjects. When I understood that I had no other way but to give in to their demands, I rebelliously made it doubly difficult for me by choosing aeronautical engineering, a field that is very challenging for the level of difficulty. This field is also very testing for women to succeed in, especially in the Bangladeshi context,’ says Juhie. ‘It was kind of a weird way of getting back at my parents.’
MIST is the only institute in Bangladesh that offers aeronautical engineering and Juhie was one of the 11 girls out of the 65 students in her batch. Although she had to make the ‘adjustment’ with what she wanted to study, she did not give up on her singing. Juhie participated in every cultural show that was organised at MIST, and through the years always clinched the first prizes in Rabindra Sangeet category. Juhie did her schooling in Viqarunnisa Noon School in the capital, and her musical training had started as early as when she was a kindergartener at Shishu Academy. Later on, she studied music at Hindol Sangeet Academy in the capital and was majoring on Nazrul Sangeet, until she had to stop her training at the seventh grade due to added study pressure for taking up sciences at school.
After graduating from MIST in 2013, Juhie immediately found a job at a local airline company where she worked in the planning division for a year before getting transferred to the Maintenance Control Centre of the company, where her work challenges multiplied. ‘When I was transferred to maintenance, I had to work at the airport. And the working environment there is not easy for women. I faced discrimination firstly because I was a junior at the company and secondly because I’m a woman. The discrimination came in the form of not getting the facilities that other employees were allowed to have. Sometimes I had to report at the airport at 4:00 in the morning, and my company would not even provide me with any transportation. It is needless to say how unsafe it can be for girls to commute in those hours given our current law and order situation,’ Juhie tells New Age Youth.
After struggling with her job at the airport for seven months, Juhie quit her job and took up a job as a marketing executive at GaanBangla TV station. It was while working here that her desire to pursue a career in music was solidified and she left the job after three months to dedicate her time solely to music. ‘This is for the first time in my life of 25 years that I’m not studying or working at the moment. I have always done either of the two or both. It’s for the first time I have found a bit of room to really think about what I want to with my life,’ Juhie adds.
Juhie wants to publish music on Youtube in the near future. She wants to cover her favourite tracks from the vast collection of Rabindra Sangeet in such a manner that the younger generations take more interest in this timeless genre of Bangla music. Speaking of her recent endeavors, Juhie presented folk songs at the historic Beauty Boarding at Old Dhaka on December 4 at a cultural show titled Envisioning the Concealed that was organised by Lenzkraft. Apart from singing, Juhie also likes to scribble poems every now and then. She is also an avid reader of Bengali literature and identifies herself as a huge fan of legendary author Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay.
Juhie’s dream of pursuing a career in music however, already faces major obstacles. She is among only two in her neighbourhood who has not been married before 25. As Juhie buys time, the pressure is only mounting from family. ‘My family thinks quitting a job and pursuing music is madness. I also don’t want to get married before I’m 30. In fact, sometimes I wonder that does a girl have to get married at all!? What if she didn’t want to?’ Juhie asks.
No matter how grave the pressure is, Juhie vows to not give in to marriage before she really felt like. Millions of girls in Bangladesh would know what she feels like to varying degrees. Juhie is also determined to be a vocal artiste and travel the world. Only time will tell whether Juhie’s audacious adventure, of thinking for herself and taking her own decisions in a male dominated society see the light of day or she would be yet another girl who ultimately ‘adjusted’.