Tales of journeys bygone

There's this historical relationship between train travel and literature. For a journey that requires long hours of sitting still, travellers had always found companions in books. Until, of course, smartphones and the internet arrived.

Rail travel is a much romanticised idea in Bangladesh. From Rabindranath Tagore to Nirmalendu Goon, numerous poets wrote countless poems about this voyage. In fact, one can even find a few dramas and films that are solely based on train rides.

Since the inception of trains in the subcontinent, rail stations became a great host of bookstores. It was a natural fit. Travellers could spend their waiting times there, while books bought from the stores could keep them occupied during the long hours inside iron compartments.

But with the passage of time, these bookshops now find themselves in a quagmire.

At Kamalapur Rail Station, the country's main station, thousands upon thousands of people can be seen every day, but almost none of them can be found at its two bookstores -- Camelot Book Stall and Srijani.

"We started our journey back in the '30s. The first Camelot Book Stall was set up at Phulbaria Station," said owner of the store Hannan Khan Mukul. "We named it after Lord Camelot."

"After the station was shut down in 1968, we shifted to Kamalapur and have stayed here ever since. Bangabandhu's classmate MA Saleh Ahmed was our founder," he said.

"But all this is mere history now. There was a time when we couldn't handle customers' pressure. They came before departure time, and even bought a lot of books. But as they're no longer there, we're on the path towards slow extinction," he lamented.

"Why are you still running the store despite all the adversities?" this correspondent asked. He said it has become a matter of habit now.

His shelves are stacked with books of a diverse range. A large section is taken up by newsprint paperbacks -- Masud Rana, Tin Goyenda, adventures, westerns, and the like. There's Humayun Ahmed, there's Muhammad Zafar Iqbal. Another eye-catcher comes in the form of recent and classic Eid editions of various newspapers.

At the adjacent stall of Srijani, Rabindranath, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay takes centre stage. It was founded in 1972 by Amal Kanti Nath.

Its manager Md Shafiullah said, "It's really hard to get customers these days. Everyone is on their phones, on Facebook. We're barely surviving amidst all of this."