Jisu: Man with a thousand faces

Photo: Collected

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," or so I've heard; and one individual bit really hard into that proverb and has perpetuated it.

Sheikh Jisan Ahamed, a third-year student of the Drama and Dramatics Department at Jahangirnagar University (JU), loves remaking his favourite scenes from movies and photos. His Facebook handle is called Jisu Entertainment. 

There he enjoys quite the celebrity status and I got a glimpse of it when some school-going kids interrupted our conversation held in JU, professing their fanhood for the 26-year-old youngster and self-styled actor.

At the time of our conversation, his most viral content was a remake of the iconic scene from Rajkumar Hirani's '3 Idiots' when Rancho entered Imperial College of Engineering (ICE).

"It wasn't easy to remake a scene where I had to convince around 40 boys to reveal their underpants publicly, just for the sake of a remake. We did it in broad daylight and some girls even laughed at us!" said Jisan.

To add to the authenticity of the remake, Jisan carefully hand-picks faces closely resembling the original cast from JU. "We watched '3 Idiots' one and a half decades ago. We had to make it look as close as possible, only so that viewers get to relive that moment they experienced all that time ago," he added. 

Jisan has already successfully recreated scenes from other fan-favourite films like Giasuddin Selim's 'Monpura' (2009), 'PK' (2014), '96 (2018) 'Chhichhore' (2019), 'Joker' (2019), drama 'Lal Kham Bonam Neel Kham' (2019) that saw upwards of millions of views over various social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. 

He has done all this since he joined JU not long ago in 2019, defying some 11,000 applicants in his department. We both laughed at this quoting Dr Viru Sahastrabuddhe (Boman Irani) from '3 Idiots': "Remember, life is a race. If you don't run fast enough, someone will outrun you!"

It was not, however, luck that got him into his dream department. 

"I used to be a mousy little boy in school. I never competed in anything, not even in any kind of sport. When I entered college in 2016, I got busy with acting groups around Gopalganj. I decided instantly that I'll be an actor someday," he said. 

But as soon as he got into university, the pandemic happened, halting his passion in its tracks. 

Or did it? 

"During Covid-19, I signed up for an acting reality show on ATN Bangla titled Agamir Taroka in 2020. I placed second! Due to a nationwide lockdown, we had to send our recorded videos of our performance and judges marked us based on them," he said, who secured second place among 7,000 contestants.

The habit he grew of making videos of himself acting on screen during the pandemic caught on, bringing him to where he is now.

"During Covid, I watched Chanchal Chowdhury in his most famed movie Aynabaji and wished that I could act like him. I didn't have to be as good as him, I just had to imitate him as best as I could. [And] I did," he said with a smile, recounting the beginning of his self-propelled acting career.

The video went viral on the first night. A lot of people shared Jisan's performance mentioning Chanchal's official Facebook ID. The sheer number of shares and views caught Chanchal's attention and he too felt the urge to appreciate the good work. 

This accolade or applause, in essence, coming from his revered actor boosted his morale beyond words. 

In between his work, he created a photographic remake of acting maestro Humayun Faridi, which performed well. Faridi, in his stark youth, took that photo 50 years ago in front of the same corridor of the Drama and Dramatics department that Jisan now calls home. Starting with the dress and down to the hair, Jisan did a fantastic job at recreating the photo.  

Jisan's fame was spreading like wildfire.

After some time he turned back to Chanchal Chowdhury and recreated scenes from 'Monpura.' This time, it was the famed director of 'Monpura' Giasuddin Selim who applauded him for the performance.

Chanchal, again, shared it and this work was what got Jisan featured on national television. The remake was shown on TV.

"Then I went to remake a Tamil film called 96. I was trying out the different flavours of acting from different parts of the world. I remade this movie, followed by '3 Idiots' and 'PK,' both of which were greatly loved by the netizens," he said. "All these were also funded by me."

Each production would cost him around a range of Tk30,000 to Tk40,000, which came exclusively out of Jisan's pocket but after '3 Idiots' Jisan started getting calls from sponsors. 

But going commercial cost him some freedom of creation. "I worked on Chhichhore right after PK and I had to work within certain bounds set by the sponsor," he explained. 

He also had to collaborate with his fellow students who acted in these videos. He played the simultaneous role of an actor and director in them. This is also where Jisan developed a liking for direction. 

"The Drama and Dramatics department prepares us to tackle every aspect of acting and direction. However, no department or institution can teach how to manage a team. It has to come from you. I had to manage a team of 300 people for Chhichhore," he talked about how direction is growing for him at this stage.

At this point, I was itching to ask him if becoming a director holds more prestige than being or becoming an actor. 

"An actor only works with his performance whereas a director has not only to direct the actors, they also have to hold the reins on the entire location, crew, costumes, cinematography, editing, etc. They start long before shooting begins and work until the final production is out. 

Of course, a director has more weighing on him," he replied.

Currently, he is working on a remake of scenes from 'Daruchini Dwip' (2007).