TANGENTSBy Ihtisham Kabir
<i>First Book </i>
Buyer at Boi Mela 2011. Photo: Ihtisham Kabir
I took this photo at the Ekushey Boi Mela (Book Fair) as the boy walked away from a bookstall with his loot of books, purchased by his mother. When I look at his face I see myself several decades ago celebrating a new book. I started reading Bangla books long before English books, thanks to the larger-than-life adventures of Kuasha, Bonohur and Bomkesh. But my father disliked detective stories and so I had to exercise discretion when reading these books. Abbu liked the classics, but to his credit, he realized that I could not swallow them whole. Thus, the “comics” versions of Doctor Jekyll, Mr Hyde, and Captain Nemo held me spellbound. However, Wells' War of the Worlds was disappointing: somehow I misunderstood its famous ending. Years later, though, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it whole. Translations played a big part. A serialized Les Miserables appeared every Sunday in the newspaper. I waited all week for its new instalment. A Bangla translation of Treasure Island was nail-biting. One of my earliest books was Abol Tabol, the classic collection of nonsense rhymes by Sukumar Ray. It was a gift from a family friend, and I still love to recite from it. The character Gongaram, a prospective bridegroom who failed school exams nineteen times before quitting, became our household icon for a dimwit. The book is celebrated for its illustrations, but finding them fuzzy and boring I added my own right into the pages. Transitioning from Bangla to English was a challenge. Pages full of English text looked formidable. Enid Blyton liberated me from this fear. The grand adventures of fighter pilot Biggles followed swiftly. Shakespeare had no part in my childhood. An early encounter with A Midsummer Night's Dream bored me. Shakespeare's intense scrutiny of human nature and foibles is best enjoyed by adults anyways, as I was to discover later. Tagore, on the other hand, charmed me early through his songs. My hometown Sylhet had two sizable bookstores and visiting them in the company of my parents, uncles or aunts was always cause for celebration. Birthdays and report-card days were particularly auspicious for my reading habit. Today's children have many more reading options at their disposal. Authors such as Muhammad Zafar Iqbal turn out fun and imaginative fiction for youngsters. Just about every classic of world literature is available in Bangla. Impressive new series such as Harry Potter, Eragon and Twilight appear routinely. Then there is the Boi Mela. (Where was it when I was growing up?) Yet I have a nagging doubt that few children today enjoy books as much as I enjoyed Blyton, Biggles or Bomkesh. Their time seems devoured by a draconian load of studies, shuttling between schools and coaching centers, often through interminable traffic jams. Mobile phones, FaceBook, iPods and television compete for whatever free time remains. Indeed, many forces today are aligned against reading. But seeing a child like this gives me hope for the future of the written word.
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