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Shanoor Wahid also talked about Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1875), From the Earth to the Moon (1867), Around the World in 80 Days, pointing out the fact that about a hundred and forty years ago, a writer like Jules Verne dared to dream about living in a submarine under the sea and extracting hydrogen from water to be used as fuel. He had also for the first time contemplated with the proposal to communicate with life outside earth and the use of a cannon to shoot a projectile to the moon, which is evident in From the Earth to the Moon, where a lot of gun powder was used to throw a conical cylinder to the moon. In fact, in 1969, after more than 100 years of Jules Verne's imagination man put his first step on moon.

The discussion became more informative when Asjadul Kibria of the Daily Prothom Alo reminded us of the initial steps taken by Sheba Prokashony in Bangladesh in translating science fictions from other languages. He also referred to our neighbouring country India where science fictions are getting a lot of recognition nowadays. Saikat Habib of the daily Samakal also announced that they are going to publish a series on Agatha Christie's works and encouraged the students to contribute.

Vice Chancellor of Daffodil International University, Dr. Aminul Islam, pointed out the presence of chemistry, microbiology and genetic engineering and so on in science fictions emphasising the significance of science in our daily life. He also mentioned different science fictions of Dr. Zafar Iqbal.

The dessert of the discussion was still to be delivered by Dr. Faheem Hasan Shahed, Head, Department of English of AIUB. He mesmerised us with a literary piece of which none of the room was aware of even being acquainted with the writer. It was Barak Obama's Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. The book is a life-long journey of self-actualisation of a neither black nor white human being who all his life was looking for an answer to the question “Why his father is not coming back?” The book moved me so much that I could not resist buying it.

In the end, I was just thinking how people could recall such minute details! A few moments later I got the answer myself, i.e. the 'integrative motivation' which is nowadays very much absent in our 'instrumentally motivated' students who only think about their academic grades. Most of them are hardly ready to 'lose' a single moment reading anything outside their syllabus. Our policy makers are also responsible for such a condition recommending only the years old traditional reading, which has to be tested by an impractical testing system.

Although a smart exploration in science fiction can encourage a person to ponder over the connection between imagination and reality and thus make him more creative, it is really sad that up to this point nobody has dared to include this literary genre in the curriculum, especially in university level. In fact, a misunderstanding regarding its artistic value has thwarted its academic exposure, which with its intriguing nature not only can catch the young readers but also can evoke the adventurous childhood memory of people like us who are prisoners of reality having almost forgotten what imagination is.

Last of all, although they began their discussion with a 'Time Machine', transcended me to my childhood days, then brought me back to the concrete room, I found myself expecting the time machine to stop there at once so that I could stay still with it forever.

(The writer is Lecturer, Department of English, Daffodil International University)