Rise of Pop Fic
Photo: SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN
The third and final day of the Dhaka Lit Fest opened with a session titled “Pop Fiction,” featuring Srabonti Narmeen Ali, Nesar Nadim, and Khondokar Ashif Uz Zaman, in a lively conversation with best-selling novelist Nirupama Subramanian. It was about the rise and rise of popular fiction (in English) in the country, and the ways and means the authors of pop fiction are using to get their work out there. Nirupama Subramanian is the author of two best-selling novels Keep the Change (2010) and Intermission (2012). Srabonti Narmeen Ali, whose debut novel Hope in Technicolor was released two years ago, elaborated on her use of social media to create a following for her work.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2015
For the love of the game n Tahsin Momin
n Tahsin Momin
15
DT
Dhaka Lit Fest
In this session, the notable historian Ramchandra Guha and Bangladesh national cricket team’s bowling coach Heath Streak discussed the history and future of cricket with Kazi Inam Ahmed. In the first part of the session, Ramchandra talked about how the game has progressed in the last three decades. He openly admitted that the Indian Cricket Council is not at all fond of him, and expressed his fondness for the Zimbabwean cricket team. When Kazi Inam Ahmed brought up the topic of Bangladesh’s recent success run, Heath Streak complimented Mashrafee Mortaza by saying, “He got me out in his very first test match.” The latter part of the session was mostly a discussion of how cricket has been commercialised and politicised over the last decade with the introduction of the T20
British-Bangladeshi author Nesar Nadim’s book Demons, which is believed to be the first horror pop fiction novel in English published in Bangladesh, shared his experiences, which included publishing the novel in e-book format back in March this year before it came out on print this month. Khondokar Ashif Uz Zaman’s first novel Faded was launched this year by Bengal Publications at the DLF. The authors, in addition to discussing the role of social media and e-publishing to break into the industry, particularly in the case of short stories, also talked about how pop fiction by local authors have slowly caught up to their international counterparts, and can now hold their own among today’s readers. l
format. Even though T20 is widely popular, Ramchandra is yet to attend his first IPL match. In fact, he has never watched a single IPL match. When asked about this he replied, “I have never been to an IPL game partly because I started an unconstructed romantic. I love test cricket most of all. I don’t mind one day cricket. It’s just that as I see it, test cricket is like single malt Scotch, you can savour it, understand it. 50-over internationals are what I called Indianmade foreign liquor and T20 is the local hooch, you get it only when nothing else is available.” Ramchandra thinks franchise cricket is mostly corrupted because of all the money involved. However, he also added that 50-over cricket has also made test cricket more competitive. The session ended by the three panellists exploring why the beloved game captures hearts and minds across borders by opening up the floor to a question answer session. l
Photo: RAJIB DHAR
‘We need to start with the basics’ n Tahsin Momin The second session on Day 3, “Can South Asia be a power bloc?” took a hard look at the region’s realities. The session featured Victor Mallet, South Asia bureau chief for the Financial Times, and Zafar Sobhan, editor of The Dhaka Tribune. This session was moderated by Ashikur Rahman, Senior Economist at the Policy Research Institute. The moderator opened the session by sharing his experiences in South Asia. Mallet then took up the thread with a comparison between how the European Union works as a bloc as compared to the South Asian bloc. He talked about how the countries in this region can improve their communications and trade relations with one another. He is of the opinion that the Asian highway, which is currently under construction is a step towards this harmony, and it now needs political integration. In this regard, Victor said: “The whole process of integration has barely begun in South Asia, and clearly a political integration will be a very, very long
way down the road. So, I think the first thing to look at is how far you can go with trade integration, which will clearly be beneficial for all the countries in this region.” Sobhan’s contention to the picture painted by Mallet was the undeniable dominance of India. Furthermore the complicated relations between the two economic giants--India and Pakistan--would prove a big obstacle to forming a South Asian bloc, although Sobhan agreed that there exists a political will for integration. “Modi had a very much doubted, celebrated trip to Bangladesh. Bangladeshis expected to get a great deal from the trip, and then I think they felt that Modi and India got everything, and they were left with very little,” he added. Fasih Ahmed, editor of Newsweek Pakistan, was initially slated to be part of this session, but was unable to attend at the last moment because he was denied a visa by the Bangladeshi consulate in Pakistan. Mallet used this fact to press home his point about the need to improve regional
Photo: SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN communications to gradually eliminate the red tape involving visas, at least within SAARC nations. Sobhan believed it was important to foster positive relations, not just between governments, but also within
the general populace. The session concluded on the note that there was a real need for a South Asian bloc, but it might be a while until that becomes a reality. l