Online Desk: Ahmed Rubel’s sudden demise on Wednesday (February 7), left the entertainment industry in shock. As his colleagues continue to mourn his untimely death, veteran actress Aruna Biswas expressed her rage for sidelining Rubel when he was alive. According to this actress, Rubel was a victim of an industry syndicate.

Earlier this morning (Friday), she posted on social media. Her post read, “You are forcing inferior-quality content and claim that it’s due to the audience’s taste. Under the guise of a syndicate, all skilled artistes are being kept idle at home, slowly being pushed to death, while there is silence on the stage. The birth of artistes like them does not deserve such disrespect and negligence.”

After that, in an interview with Daily Prothom Alo, she cleared the air by stating that Rubel’s unexpected passing deeply affected her.

Rubel started living in his own house in Joydebpur, Gazipur, leaving Dhaka for over a decade. Throughout the mid-’80s Ahmed Rubel spent over 24 years of his life there after which he came to Dhaka for his education.

Due to a decrease in acting engagements, he used to come to Dhaka only when he got a call for new projects. Apart from this, he used to stay in Gazipur. According to Aruna Biswas, artistes like Rubel were marginalised by the industry syndicate, which is why many talented artistes have fallen apart.

In the context of her Facebook post, Aruna Biswas explained in the interview, “Ahmed Rubel is no longer with us, while many are expressing deep sorrow. Many are also saying that he used to appear on the sets late, I have heard similar things about Faridee bhai too.”

Adding to this, she said, “Well, creative and talented artistes tend to be like this, they sometimes fail to maintain punctuality. However, in my opinion, this should be considered because their quality of work is extraordinary.”

Regarding the matter of syndicates, Aruna Biswas commented, “Razzak uncle, Shibli (Shibli Sadik) bhai, Mahfuz (Mahfuzur Rahman Khan) bhai— they never said, ‘You won’t work there. You won’t be accepted.’ Whereas, nowadays, these have become a common practice. Also, most of the contemporary projects are filled with obscene conversations. I once watched a much-talked-about film that day, where husband and wife were hurling insults at each other! I was shocked to see it. We’ve never been like that.”

She also highlighted that talented artistes don’t get good offers anymore.

“There are many senior artistes who have only learned acting. Acting has been their lifelong pursuit—yet they too are being hindered from work day after day. Several senior artistes expressed their sorrow to me. They, the artistes of such great stature, are not protecting their dignity. I don’t even receive calls for good work in that manner.”

Aruna believes that acting is not just for livelihood and that true artistes have a deity of art. It’s not always about money here. “Today, Amitabh Bachchan, at his age, is he working just for money? Soumitra Chatterjee acted until the last moments before his death. Was all this for money? — All of these are the deities of art. We haven’t learned to respect one another properly. After Ahmed Rubel’s death, all these thoughts are troubling me,” said Aruna Biswas.

She further added, “Yesterday, director Amitabh Reza said that Ahmed Rubel was lonely. I will say that Ahmed Rubel has been ignored. He hasn’t been given work for a considerable amount of time. If he had been involved in work, he would have been happy. If even half of the importance he is receiving posthumously had been given to him while he was alive, he wouldn’t have left Dhaka for Joydebpur. My opinion is that he has been ignored a lot. It’s wrong to ignore someone, which happened in this case. Although Rubel never spoke about this, I think it is high time for us to think about our other talented artistes.”