A Discourse on Our Bookshops

It is certainly good news that the globally renowned Japanese bookstore Kinokuniya has opened its branch in Dhaka. A wave of excitement has been noticeable among people who on the opening day of the bookstore and the day after turned up in very large numbers to witness the arrival of an outlet that certainly promises to expand the world of reading for Bangladesh’s citizens. One was certainly happy seeing the long queues of people waiting for their turn to enter the bookstore on those two days.
However, even as we welcome Kinokuniya in Bangladesh, we cannot but raise a simple yet necessary query: How is it that in the past, at the launch of many of our local bookstores in the country, we did not observe such queues waiting, ready and perhaps willing to go back home with books purchased from the new bookshops? In the past many years, we in Bangladesh have been mortified at the sight of bookshops closing down and their spaces taken over by traders dealing in general everyday goods --- clothes, shoes and what not. In other words, bookshops and books have been in retreat in Bangladesh for an unfathomable number of years now.
There was a time when Aziz Market in Shahbagh was home to a plethora of bookshops catering to all kinds of readers. It was a place where bibliophiles spent the better part of a day looking, and coming by, the books they were either on the lookout for or chanced to come upon. Every book lover moved happily from bookshop to bookshop, his or her heart made glad by the books on various subjects on the shelves. That was a long time ago. Today, how many bookshops can you count at Aziz Market? Not so very long ago, Zeenat Book Supply at New Market was a source of intellectual sustenance for those of us who simply could not stay away from acquiring and reading books. That bookstore is now memory, as are the many other bookstores at New Market which have slowly been wound up over the past couple of decades. 

At the stadium, where bookshops used to be an attraction for those in search of knowledge, one now has the spectacle of shops upholding the sad idea of consumerism. And consumerism is what takes people away from all explorations the mind and soul are ready to engage in. Books are repositories of culture and history, but in these times of increasing mediocrity, they have turned, in the memory, into stories of enlightenment that used to be. In a lane off the main road in Bijoynagar, a few shops dealing in highly sought after second-hand books operated in the 1980s. They do not exist anymore. In Gulshan, Words & Pages was a bookshop that became quite popular but soon began to lose steam, eventually shutting down. Long years ago, a small bookstore known as Reader’s View was a popular rendezvous for bibliophiles in the Malibagh-Siddheswari area. It died decades ago. And there have been bookshops which have had to shift constantly to new areas owing to certain reasons their owners could not avoid. Et Cetera, a book venture launched by Yasmeen Murshed, founder principal of Scholastica, some years ago in Dhanmondi and Banani, regrettably closed shop some years ago, leaving book enthusiasts disappointed.
So the arrival of Kinokuniya in Bangladesh is welcome. But let there be a caveat here. In the first place, the bookstore ought not to turn into a centre of elitism. In other words, the books available there ought to be within a price range which buyers -- and we speak of the middle class -- can be comfortable with. One will be happy if the crowds awaiting their turn to enter the bookstore on its inauguration day comprised serious readers rather than people drawn to the novelty of a foreign firm digging roots in Bangladesh. In the second place, it will be the expectation of citizens -- readers, students, journalists and writers -- to promote, even as they celebrate the entry of foreign bookshops into the country, the local bookstores which are already operative in Bangladesh. 
Mention needs to be made of Baatighar, which has been an excellent centre of books in recent years. Pathak Shamabesh is another outlet which has been fulfilling readers’ demands for good books over a long period of time. Bengal Boi in Dhanmondi is today a good point of reference for people in need of interesting reading material.  The Bookworm, for a number of years based just outside the erstwhile Tejgaon airport, now has its home in the pleasant surroundings of Shahabuddin Park in Gulshan.
A critical issue facing us in Bangladesh in these times relates to the need to promote readership all over the country. And that is a job which requires bookstores to be set up in the small towns and upazilas of the country. Bookshops centred in large cities are certainly inspirational, but in this era of declining reading habits in the country it is of vital importance that bookshop owners undertake moves to open outlets beyond the metropolitan regions where they are currently based. Not very many bibliophiles as well as students, teachers and other citizens are always in a position to come by the works they need owing specifically to an absence not only of bookstores in their local areas but also of libraries.
And, yes, there is today a paramount need to explore other areas in which reading can be popularised throughout the country. In the West as also in India and Pakistan, regular literary festivals are organised in various cities to which scholars and other eminent personalities are invited to speak on specific subjects of national and global interest. Such literary festivals, if and when they are held in Bangladesh, will unquestionably enhance the appeal of books, of reading them, for young and old alike. 
Kinokuniya’s arrival should be a reason for book-reading to be raised to heights of intellectual splendour in Bangladesh. But let not those of our citizens who have been delighted by its opening in Dhaka forget that our own local bookshops wait for buyers -- for men, women and children -- to spend time on their premises browsing the works that have lain on their shelves for ages. Book buying and reading, it will not do to forget, create a landscape of cultural heritage embodying the intellectual aspirations of all citizens. 
For a society to be healthy, for a nation to adhere to its history and heritage, bookshops must reach out to the masses, draw them into their fold. We need to create a landscape of ideas where people who make their way to the bookshops will come away with works they will cheerfully pore over at home --- in their villages, in their small towns, in their upazilas. 
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Syed Badrul Ahsan writes on politics, diplomacy, history and culture