Ekushey Book Fair

Photo: Amdadul Huq / Driknews

February 21 has become synonymous with our collective spirit of an independent nation. The students' rise for the cause of the mother tongue on 21st of this month in 1952 against the Pak regime was the prelude to the subsequent emergence of an independent Bangladesh.
February 21st, thus, emerges as the defining time for the whole Bengali nation; we are independent in our thoughts, speech, and actions and in all our whole being the very blood, the entity. We composed poems, songs in our own language that added much to the essence of our being we have upheld our long and rich cultural mooring since then.
We celebrate this month in a diverse mood-- Ekushey Boi Mela (Ekushey Book Fair) throughout the country is a manifestation of that conviction. The biggest fair that takes place in the capital city Dhaka is such an event that comes each year with a reverberation of that spirit as a nation rich with a colourful variety in all our culture and tradition. The month long fair keeps its doors open to the uncountable visitors, day in and day out. New writers along with the established ones come up with their new books for the readers. The variety includes, amazingly, books on almost all spheres of our lives: social, political, individual, national and international. Books on fiction and non-fiction; and on poetry keep the readers' spirit reverberating -- we sing of ourselves! As the United Nations declared the day 21st February as the International Mother Language Day, the pride has got its international recognition.
Ironically, despite all these achievements we haven't been able to implement our own language Bangla in all spheres of our lives. The pledges that our martyrs made before and during this revolutionary movement are not materialized-- much to our humiliation. More frustrating is the fact that there are, as it has been observed, certain government high ups who speak or deliver speeches on occasions in English where they could have used Bangla.
The apathy is being injected into the young generations who are studying in English medium schools and colleges.