Dhaka Club Book Launch: Adding intellectual flair and lustre
On 30th May Dhaka Club played grand host to a book launch in its Hamidur Rahman Sinha Lounge. The book was the second installment of Hasnat Abdul Hye's autobiography All Those Yesterdays 1954-1964: Youth in Pakistan, America and Europe (Dhaka: Adorn Publication). The farthest thing from my mind was a summons for a Dhaka Club event. So when the author called to request me to be a discussant at the launch I was more than surprised. I had heard of Mr. Hye, of course, and had read some of his short stories. I immediately assented. To me it was important that he had written the book in English. We Bangladeshis lag way behind other South Asians in English writing, and an outdated 'language' debate keeps ensuring that we are outperformed and out-hustled in a field that we should claim as our own. However, when I received the invitation card, I saw that I too, among a distinguished list of discussants - Professor Khan Sarwar Murshid, Professor Zillur Rahman Siddiqui, Syed Shamsul Haq, Dr Mizanur Rahman Shelley, Professor Ferdous Azim - was listed as 'Professor Khademul Islam'. Hmmm! So when Mr Hye called to confirm my presence, I protested that while I had indeed once taught at Dhaka University, it hardly merited the 'Professor' title. Hasnat Abdul Hye laughed it off; indeed, afterwards, when he called to thank me for my participation, he enquired whether he was speaking to 'Professor Emeritus…' Book launches in Dhaka can be predictable affairs attended by the usual suspects. But here, by the time we discussants took our place on the dais, a sizable crowd had seated themselves in the chairs. Later, I was told that the club parking space cup had runneth over, testament to the drawing power of Hasnat Abdul Hye in combination with Dhaka Club. With the proceedings emceed with enviable ease by Khan Ata of theatre fame, Professor Zillur R Siddiqui gave a sober analysis of the text, followed by speakers in the order given above. Excepting perhaps for I and Ferdous Azim, who is more accustomed to the lecture mode, all were old hands at public speaking - especially Dr Mizanur Shelley and Syed Shamsul Haq, adept at their practiced pirouettes. Ferdous's talk was one sifted through a serious academic temperament. By the time my turn came to speak, I felt like the peasant at the foot of a medieval lord's table, pondering a roast that had been picked clean. Everything worth saying had been said. So I upped the entertainment level by 'fessing up that I was no bigwig prof shrof, that I was very happy Mr Hye had chosen to write in English, mentioned Nirad C Chowdhury and Samar Sen's Babu Brittanto, and the long-lost Dhaka of Mr Hye's book: "The house at 47 Purana Paltan, where Buddhadev Bose spent his boyhood and early adult life for over five years from the later Thirties, still exists…The building and the garden are not entirely as they were in Buddhadev's days. But the main building remains intact with the old design and the engineering devices used in the roof.The walls are made of brick and mortar and so is the roof. The latter rests on huge iron beams (like railway slippers) and horizontal flat iron bars. Red mortar is still used to repair the old jalchad (rainproof roof). The front verandah was covered by wall with grilled pattern, giving glimpses of the interior from outside. The floor is red coloured, its oxidized mortar giving a cool effect. Khokan, the present owner and Shirin, his wife, take minute care to preserve the old ambience of the house…" Professor Khan Sarwar Murshid delivered the concluding remarks, praising its wealth of information and language, and as a faithful record of a middle-class Bengali's contact with a wider world far removed from the placid backwaters of a 1950s East Pakistan. At the end, Hasnat Abdul Hye thanked us all, adding that friends had not hesitated in informing him that his photo in the club flier sent out to members was more appropriate for an obituary notice than the advertised event. Supporting such book launches is part of an overall effort -along with extending membership to academic, artistic, cultural and journalistic circles - by club president Sadat Hossain Salim to make it more inclusive and extend its roots deeper within the community. It is a sensible insurance policy in a democratic age - the club has only 5 acres left from its 173 in 1941; it also gives the institution an intellectual flair and lustre that lifts it above the other 'pretenders' to the throne. No doubt the club's founders would approve of a return to such graces.
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