Day one of Hay Festival 2013, started with a full programme and fascinating discussions and panellists. Several new books and publications were also launched.
“Chasing Paradise” is a book of photographs by Ihtisham Kabir, on birds and flowers of Bangladesh, with stunning photographs and background information on 39 species of birds and 34 flowers.
Ihtisham Kabir said his interest in Bangladesh’s natural beauty goes back to his childhood. “My parents and two maternal grandmothers lovingly taught me about trees, birds, flowers, fish, etc - and also taught me to respect and love nature,” which stayed with him and he was also motivated by the fact that we live in a very beautiful and biologically diverse country but “the outside world knows little about this side of Bangladesh. So I wanted to bring that out. I had to learn the names as I went along - the Internet is a great help, but identification is a huge problem. Birds are easier to id than flowers because we have 640 species of birds but over 5000 species of flowering plants.”
For thirty years photography has been a passion for him, but this is not just an album of photographs. He explained: “I felt that, no matter how wonderful, just photos would limit its utility, so I researched each species and came up with short caption, around 100 words for each bird or flower that tell you a little more. For instance, I learned that the Purple Swamp Hen was a favourite ornamental bird in Ancient Rome, and that the Candlestick flower gives off sweet nectar to attract ants - because otherwise caterpillars eat the flowers - and the ants attack the caterpillars and drive them away. And so on...”
With a B. S. and an M. S., both in Electrical Engineering, from Cornell University and University of California, Davis, respectively, for three decades he lived and worked in the USA before returning home to Bangladesh.
He said most of it was spent designing and writing imaging software in Silicon Valley or teaching black and white darkroom printing at the University of California Berkeley Extension, but he also found time for research, published a book on digital image processing, and is the author of several patents.
A short story by him, accompanied by a series of photographs is included in the latest edition of the English literature journal “Six Seasons Review” edited by Dr. Fakrul Alam, was also launched on the last day of the literary festival.
He launched another book of photographs, “Sundarban: A Photographic Journey” last year at Hay. It was very well received. He writes a weekly column combining photography and text for the Daily Star. An archive of his column can be found at www.facebook.com/tangents.ikabir
We learn that this multifaceted man is a perfectionist when he mentions that he had to leave out one really pretty flower from “Chasing Paradise” - because he was unable to identify it positively.
“Chasing Paradise” costs Tk2000 and is available at Book Worm on the Old Airport Road, Dhaka.