Early life achievements

                                   Earlier life activities and achievements

          As he told me, during his high school years, he was known as“Syed Mohammad” likely when he was captain of the field hockey team. Later during his twenties, he was addressed as “Abdus Sobhan”.During this time, he is said to have had an acting role in a silent-movie in one of the first movies filmed in Dhaka– a fact that was barely known by me, but discovered  in Wikipedia by one of his grand-daughters. I am grateful to Naela for bringing this to light.  

Sukumari

Nasrullah, Abdus Sobhan (a male playing the female role)

A silent short film and the first film venture of this region. The screening was private.

The movie was filmed in 1928 and S.A.Sobhan, then known as “Abdus Sobhan”

played the leading role of “SUKUMARI” – the Good Girl. There also were no

females in the movie business, so remarkably, he played the female role. The

production of this movie was sponsored by the-then Nawab family of Dhaka.

(Read more on WIKIPEDIA   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bangladeshi_films )

Sukumari –The first short film of Bangladesh
At that beginning of the 20^th century Calcutta was the bastion of film production with full facilities of artists, technicians and studios. Dhaka was lacking all these facilities. The first film-making process in Bangladeshstarted under the financial help and patronage of the Dhaka Nawab family. In 1927-28, a group of young men of the Dhaka Nawab family stepped forward .As a test case the young boys produced a short film named'Sukumari' (The good girl).  

 

A shot from Sukumari

Sukumari was directed by Ambuj Prasanna Gupta, a high profiled dramatist and an instructor in physical education of Jagannath College. Nawabzadah Nasrullah played the hero role. interestingly, at that time, it was impossible to find an actress. A young man, Syed Abdus Sobhan was chosen to play the heroine. Shooting was done in Dilkusha Garden. Khwaja Azad, a graduate from Aligarh University and Khwaja Ajmal, a noted sportsman, who studied photography, rolled the camera. Those who helped to make this movie were Professor Andalib Sadani of Dhaka University, Syed Abdus Sobhan, Kazi Jalaluddin and others. Their movie was completed by 1928-1929. The test was successful. Upon completion, this was a silent movie of  four reels. Unfortunately the copy of the film was never made available for public viewing. There were a few private screenings.

(More to be added if and when other information is found. Requests are being made to

living relatives and acquaintances who may shed some more light on S.A. Sobhan's

life before the partition of 1947).