By Nava Thakuria
Guwahati, Jan 3:
The prestigious 33rd Guwahati Book Fair, inaugurated on 30 December at the playground of Assam Engineering Institute in Chandmari locality of the city, has given space to the Tibetan cause. A stall showcasing the Tibetan culture and the ongoing freedom movement led by exile Tibetans against the Communist Chinese regime in Beijing emerges as a new experience to the visitors.
Opened by Tibetan support group leader RK Khrimey and managed by Buddha enthusiast Soumyadeep Datta the stall depicts various pictorial documents to establish that Tibet was the real neighbour to India (not the China). Moreover the intervention of Beijing administration over the Tibetan resources has been projected as a threat to the environment of Brahmaputra valley and millions of residents in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and also in northern Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, thousands of book lovers continue to throng at the book fair every day which will continue till 10 January. Organized by the State-run Publication Board Assam the book fair witnesses the participation of over 125 stalls. Entry to the book fair is made free to encourage more participations of bookworm. A number of literary discussions, book release functions and spectacular cultural evenings have made the ambience enthralling.
Among various new books, two important translation works related to Prime Minister Narendra Modi received well deserved responses from the visitors at Guwahati Granthamela. The Assamese version of Modi’s popular letters to his mother titled ‘Aailoi Chithi’ along with the translations of PM’s weekly radio program titled ‘Mon Ki Baat’ as ‘Mor Priya Deshbasi’ drew the attentions of book lovers. A stall dedicated to the Bangladesh literature also added colours to the book fair.
Postponed two times because of political unrests in 2019 and the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, the was formally inaugurated by Assam chief minister’s media adviser Hrishikesh Goswami in presence of Tathagata Roy, the noted intellectual and former Governor of Tripura,Meghalaya & Arunachal Pradesh, Yeshe Dorjee Thongshi, a renowned litterateur in northeast India along with other dignitaries to bring desired reliefs to publishers and delights to bookworms.
“Books are oasis of the desert as they nurture the intellectual and creative faculties of the human beings. Relentless initiatives should continue to popularize the reading habit among the children and young people,” said Goswami, who represented CM Sarbananda Sonowal in the function. He also conferred the publication board’s lifetime achievement award for 2019 carrying a citation, corsets, two lakh rupees check, etc on eminent Assamese scholar Dr Thaneswar Sarma.
Roy, a resident of West Bengal, in his speech termed Assamese as a sweet language and expressed hope that the bonhomie between Assamese and Bengali people would continue in future too. Familiar with the Assamese society, the outspoken author observed that the National Education Policy 2020 should immensely help in highlighting the regional languages and their literature.
Sahitya Academy awardee Thongshi, who is a resident of Arunachal Pradesh but very popular among Assamese literary society, described various challenges surfaced due to the corona virus pandemic. He however opined that the rapid increase of readers around the world was a positive news for the human race. Thongshi expressed happiness that a collection of literary pieces penned by another Arunachali litterateur Lumber Dai was also released in fair.
After the months of Covid-19 induced national lockdown, the book fair emerges as an important public function in the city, said the publication board secretary Pramod Kalita adding that Asom Prakashan Parisad continued its activities even facing challenges because the pandemic. He informed that the publication board reprinted 41 important books and published 31 new ones within this year for the benefit of committed readers.
