A popular destination on a public holiday, the Amar Ekushey Book Fair assumed a festive look yesterday as thousands of visitors from all over the country walked into the fair.
The area from Doel Chattar to TSC was abuzz with visitors queuing up in front of the Bangla Academy premises. The entrance of Suhrawardi Udyan, the other beholder of the fair this year, also remained crowded.
Shoriful Islam, a class 11 student of Junab Ali College in Comilla came to the fair with his friend Forhad Hossain. With packets full of books in both hands, Shoriful said: “I along with six of my friends have opened a youth club together back in my village, called the Social Work House. We have planned to build a library there for young people. So we have come here to buy books for the library.”
Both of them came to the fair from Potnoi village of Chandina upazila under Comilla district.
“We have collected money from the villagers. We have bought novels, poetry and religious books. If we can collect more money then we will visit the fair again,” he added.
A total of 173 new books came in yesterday, the seventh day of the fair, including Mohit Kamals “Poth vroshto ghurnir krishno gohobor” from Bidya Prokash and Biswajit Ghos’s “Oshesh Rabindranath” from Nandonik publishers.
A total of 463 books have been published during the first week of the fair until yesterday.
According to the previous announcement of Bangla Academy, the fair opened at 11am. Although the number of visitors remained sparse during the first few hours, by evening the air inside the fair premises became heavy with presence of a large number people.
Helal Uddin who came to the fair with his family was finding it difficult to move amid the crowd. However, he said: “As it is a public holyday, all of us came together. This is a great opportunity to hang out.”
Syed Zakir Hossain, publisher of Ador Prokashoni said: “We became frustrated to see thin presence of visitors at the beginning of the fair. We thought as the area has been extended this year it might take a while for the fair to gain momentum. However, seeing such huge presence of visitors today we feels relieved.”
Noted author Imdadul Haq Milon who came to the fair yesterday for the first time this year, said: “I am overwhelmed to seeing presence of thousands of readers.”
A discussion titled “Gonotontrer tin shotru: durniti, shamprodaikota, dhormio” was held at the central stage with Mejor General (retd) Abdur Rashid and Masuda Vatti as keynote speakers.
Presided over by Professor Borhan Uddin Khan Jahangir, the programme was attended by Professor Imtiaz Ahmed, and Mejor General (retd) Mohammod Ali Shikder among others.
Yesterday a painting competition for children was also held at the Bangla Academy premises, participated by 691 children in three sections.
