Anisul Hoque is standing at the apex of three small steps, hands crossed behind his back, when a young woman notices him and approaches, a book clasped in her hands.
As she extends the book, the title becomes visible: two simple characters in Bangla stamped across the red cover. She asks him to sign the pages of Maa, his acclaimed 2004 novel, and Hoque smiles as he bends his grey head and begins signing with the pen he had been holding for just such an occasion.
Around them, publisher booths display more books of every size and colour, all sharing the common element of having the triangles and circles of the Bengali language on their cover. There are thousands of books displayed at the Ekushey Book Fair. The annual event is inexorably tied to Bangladesh's Language Movement, and takes place during the month of February each year in order to precede Language Movement Day on the 21st ("ekushey" is Bengali for the number 21) which is also International Mother Language Day.
Indeed, as patrons of the fair wander through the dusty grounds of the Bangla Academy and Suhrawardy Udyan, announcements are heard blasting over the speakers, informing visitors of extended hours during the national holiday (8:00 am to 8:00 pm).
A tribute to the martyrs of the language movement and a celebration of the written words, the Ekushey Book Fair this year has around 450 publisher booths (100 more than last year), festooned with colourful signage and flowers.
The fair, informally initiated in 1972 in a scattered manner, has now turned into an annual gathering of the country with book-lovers converging there in droves to meet authors and purchase books at discounts.
This year's event comes in the wake of a series of tragic events, from Avijit Roy's murder while returning home from the 2015 Ekushey Book Fair, to the slaying of his, and others, publisher Faisel Arefin Dipon (owner of Jagriti Prokashoni) in October last year. Thus, security has been ramped up for the 2016 festival, with increased camera surveillance and more guards on the grounds. Yet, with record turnout this year, people seem undeterred, and the ideals of the Language Movement are felt stronger than ever.
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Four kilometres away from Bangla Academy, in the stone buildings of Old Dhaka accessible only on foot and rickshaw, Mr Shohrab Hassan stood in the Dibya Prakash showroom, where he is Manager.
"We have around five more books to finish, for the book fair. We expect to finish them before the fair is over," he said. "We are still quite busy, working from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm, but it will go back to normal hours of 9:00 am to 8:00 pm once the event is over."
Two weeks prior, this writer had the chance to visit Banglabazar Book Market and observe the preparations for the book fair. Across Banglabazar, those in the book industry work extended hours in the weeks preceding the fair to meet the demands of the event. From the typists who correct the texts to the binding team who attach the covers, it is an assembly line carried out through the alleys and passages of the old city -- a charmingly antiquated, yet well-oiled system.
For Dibya Prakash's books, the process begins at the computer stage. In a building almost indiscernible from its neighbours, Poresh Chandra Bhowmik, a computer operator, pours over the printed pages what will eventually become a book, making corrections by pen and inputting them into the digital file on his desktop computer. He receives the file from the publishing house, and works from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm every day to finalise his corrections.
The finished file gets printed, and sent down the dilapidated steps and around the dimly lit corners of the building's hall to Elias Sarder, who is in charge of pasting. He cuts the pages and places them between clear plastic tracing sheets, 8 or 16 pages to a sheet. The sheets are added to a developing machine that superimposes the pages to a polyurethane plate, creating a positive. The plates are passed to Zakir and Miraz Hossain, who expose the image. They produce 150-200 plates a day, 40-50 of which are for Ekushey Book Fair.
The plates are sent down the streets of Banglabazar, piled on carts and pulled by young men, rolling past other carts carrying large fluttering pages tied down with twine, and others still, carrying finished books. The Dibya Prakash plates are taken to Ekusey Printers, which are then overseen by Parvez Ahmed, the proprietor.
As one approaches his offices, the whirring of the printers mute the voices of the room. Paper after paper churns out of the mammoth Heidelberg machine. Between two cylinders at the rear of the machine, the plate is inserted, wrapping around one cylinder while the image superimposes on the other, a rubber cylinder. The pages spewing out of the machine mirror the plate. A look at Mr Ahmed's office reveals a filing system of plates, and a ledger of every order this year, should any books exceed demand and require a reprint.
The penultimate stage takes place in another building, where the leaves of pages are carted after printing. In a small room, 19 men work diligently for M/S SS Brothers, folding the large sheets of paper, which are fed into a binding machine, tying the chapters of the book together. For hardcover books, cardboard is pasted and covers are glued on, before flap covers are folded over, and over -- the men's tanned hands work mechanically, attaching cover after cover. They finish 2,000 books a day, working from 8:00 am to 12:00 am (with overtime pay, according to the manager), in January and February to meet the demand of the boi mela. In a different room, men can be seen taking naps, and eating.
The finished books are sent back to Shohrab Hassan in the Dibya Prakash showroom, who packages and ships them out. The Dibya Prakash booth at the fair (stall 545-548), engulfed by visitors and excited voices, serves as a silent testament to the hard work of at least 30 hands, still working tirelessly four kilometres away.
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