Feature

Star Campus has decided to organize an 'Intellectual adda' twice a month where one or two books will be reviewed through discussion.

One such adda took place at ETC in Dhanmondi on 22nd March 2008. The adda was attended by 'Star Campus' Editor Shahnoor Wahid,the campus team, Syed Badrul Ahsan,Current Affairs Editor who takes a natural interest in literature and a number of students from Buet, IUB, NSU, BRAC and Dhaka University, a professor from Jahangirnagar University and two officials from ETC. There were around 27 people meeting on a pleasant Saturday afternoon for the unique event.

Surely ETC was the perfect place for such an event. We all took our seats amidst the company of books, surrounded by books. These books reminded me of Jawaharlal Nehru's musings about books, “They stand there, row after row, with the wisdom of ages locked up in them, serene and untroubled in a changing and distracted world, looking down silently on the mortals that come and go.”

The adda started with Efadul Haque, a young book reviewer for The Daily Star who presented the audience with an excellent review of Tahmima Anam's 'A Golden Age'. He talked about the theme, plot, characters, writing style of the novel and he also read out some beautiful lines from the book. He concluded the review by saying that Tahmima Anam's novel 'A Golden Age' has surely started a golden age, a new era, a novel beginning for the Bangladeshi writers who desire to write in English.

Then the discussion moved on to serious issues like current political situation, current politicians, past leaders like Moulana Bhashani and his philosophy. The discussion also included how the history of liberation war changed with each Government.

Two young participants remarked that how the distortion of history disillusioned them over the years which resulted in cynicism and complete lack of interest in history. Some students also said that we should also think about our achievements in 37 years. When we all were pointing out the negative aspects of our society and feeling very remorse, then one participant rightfully pointed out that though we have lots of socio-economic problems we have still come a long way in 37 years.

Last but not the least, we all agreed that the war criminals should be punished. If the nation wants to go forward, it should start afresh with punishing the war criminals. Badrul Ahsan pointed out that all over the world no country or nation forgives war criminals. Even today the haunt for Nazis is not over.

He then gave a short review of 'Half Of A Yellow Sun' written by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.Later on Shahnoor Wahid assured us of organizing another such 'adda'. Monsieur Moin on behalf of ETC also promised that ETC will always welcome such addas.

The program ended with the showing of gratitude to Star Campus and ETC on the part of the participants. Everyone left the adda with a content heart and smiles on their faces.