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Rummana's books, Taslima's courage and Ershad's tome

Published : Friday, 24 February, 2017 at 8:05 PM  Count : 426
Syed Badrul Ahsan
This year's Ekushey Book Fair, or Boi Mela in common parlance, made a difference for me. Simply stated, for the first time in three years I made it a point to visit the mela, the last two years having been a time when I was abroad when the book fair got underway. The many friends you meet, the variety of books you come across, indeed the general ambience of the place, have become part of life for Bengalis.
One of the highlights of the boi mela this year, for me personally, was the launch of three new books by my very dear friend Rummana Chowdhury. It was a quiet and cool afternoon when we --- and by that I mean myself, our good friend Nashid Kamal and a lot of others --- joined Rummana in celebrating her as well as her new books. Rummana, for those of you who may not quite be aware of her reputation as a person, was a meritorious student, especially at Dhaka University, where she studied public administration. She was my batch mate, I being in the English department. She was a champion debater, a national badminton champion four times in a row and a presenter on the World Music programme of Bangladesh Betar.
For the last thirty-plus years, Rummana Chowdhury, nee Ahmed, has been a citizen of Canada but has made it a point every winter to travel down to Bangladesh and stay here till at least the end of the Ekushey Boi Mela. She is a frequent visitor to Kolkata, where she is regularly feted on her intellectual accomplishments. I might add here
that my links were re-established with Rummana a few years ago when I received a review of one of her new books on my table. Since her e-mail address was given in the book, I wrote to her, wondering if she remembered the late 1970s and early 1980s when some of us came together in a youth organization called Centurion International. To my happy surprise, she did.
We have been in touch ever since. It was all these thoughts which came roaring back at Rummana's book launch. Nothing can give one greater pleasure than to be present at the Creation, in the words of Dean Acheson, of literary works by a close friend. You agree with me, don't you?
***
I have not always agreed with Taslima Nasrin, but I have always been an admirer of hers for the boldness she brings into her expression of thoughts. Back in the 1980s, when she first began writing a column for Kagoj, a weekly magazine of the daily newspaper Ajker Kagoj, I have been impressed by the bare knuckles approach she has consistently taken on the various issues we have faced, and continue to face, in Bangladesh. Her positions on women's rights, on fundamentalism, on intellectual hypocrisy have been an eye-opener for many in our society.
Taslima Nasrin continues to arouse intense passions among people. There are people who remain critically dismissive
of her writings; and there are others, among which group I happen to be, who believe she adequately throws light on some of the more pressing of issues that block our path to the future. It is just too bad that she has been out of the country for more than two decades, that indeed she has not been permitted to return only because the fury of fanatics will be aroused if she does. Taslima Nasrin is our own, part of this country. What is intriguing, in fact embarrassing for all of us is that no one, not in the government, not in civil society, not in the literati, has ever considered it necessary to initiate a move to have this powerful writer brought back home.
It is our collective shame that Taslima Nasrin has been condemned to remain out of the country only because she has been forthright in expressing her views on the society we are part of.  Last week, it was such sentiments which came into play at the launch of her new book, Shokol Griho Haralo Jar, published by Shrabon Prokashoni, at the Ekushey Boi Mela. Robin Ahsan, the courageous young man behind Shrabon, brought some us --- and the group included the very cerebral Gitiara Nasrin of Dhaka University --- together on the occasion. Taslima Nasrin was not present there, as you can imagine. But, then again, she was all over the place.
On a personal note, Taslima Nasrin was a very shy young columnist when she dropped by at my office at the New Nation more than three decades ago. She was there to see our venerable Waheedul Haque, our Waheed Bhai. We had tea. Something about her, in those early days, conveyed the thought that here was a woman, a person, who had steel in her. The years were to show that steel in her writing, in her refusal to be cowed.
***
On Wednesday I made my way to the boi mela again, basically in search of R.C. Majumdar's memoirs, brought out in a new edition by Shuchipatra. I did get hold of a copy. From Aakash, I came across a copy of Hussein Muhammad Ershad's memoirs, Amar Kormo Amar Jibon. It is a huge tome of a book, published last year, which I certainly will have pleasure reading.
At the Mawla Brothers stall, it was a pleasure being in the company of our very respected Nuh ul Alam Lenin and my journalistic colleague Pavel Rahman. And, of course, the very active Mamoon, always brimming over with ideas of new books to be published, was around as well. And then Mujtoba Ahmed Murshed, the poet-novelist-journalist, and I ran into each other. We took a rickshaw ride to Pathak Shamabesh, where we spent some time over tea offered by the charming young book-loving women who manage the place. Good old Biju turned up too. His first question, hurled at me, related to when I thought I could give him the manuscript of my next book. I have asked him to hang on till mid March.
***
Why must ministers visit the Ekushey Boi Mela with an entire retinue in tow? It will be very pleasing to the eye if our ministers and other leading politicians were to dispense with the trappings of power at times and tried to move around like the rest of us.
On Wednesday, a posse of policemen was suddenly spotted at the boi mela clearing the path of visitors to the fair --- because the minister was walking down that path. The disrespect for citizens was all too obvious in that attitude of the police. Not a single citizen seemed to matter to the police. Making things worse was the crowd of followers, or you could call them hangers-on, with the minister. They were elbowing people out of the way --- because they wished to be in the front of the procession with the minister. After all, the television cameras were all focused on the minister.
That is not the way to visit a book fair, not by a minister, not by anyone.r
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Associate Editor,
The Daily Observer




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