Day by day we are turning into a people who are more in love with money earned by any means and less in love with books. The publication industry in the country has failed to grow in quality. The business of publication here has not differed much from the business of potatoes and onions. Except a few publishers who can be counted on the fingers of one hand, most publishers are bent on keeping their trade afloat and also making profit out of the writers' pockets. The writers or non-writers who invest their hard-earned money, for some ill-earned, too, into publishing their books, naturally will like to take their products to a wide number of people for either fame or recouping their money through advertisements as well as other ways.

A common objection, therefore, is that Ekushey book fair on the Bangla Academy premises gets flooded with books many of which, despite being substandard, can reach the widest number of visitors who are either new as readers or unsuspecting for their incorrigible naivety. So, the book fair is famous for doing a very good business in terms of money from sale of books and at the same time notorious for spreading a lot of garbage among the community of readers. But what responsible publishers and also Bangla Academy do in this regard? Do they ever try to take important and originally valuable books to the reader community through analytical discussions and reviews in a lasting, impacting or systematic way? What significant role do the print and electronic media play?

In order for some good and quality books to reach the reader community, Ebong Boi, a magazine about books, and Shikkhalok, an education bulletin published by CDIP, have jointly started a program for discussion of books that are worth having in collection for reading. The first such program was organized on this past 4th May at CDIP library room in Dhaka on Serajud Dahar Khan's book of poetry, Paarthokko Kortey Pari Na (Unable to make distinction between things), published by Gatidhara in 2024.

Syed Badrul Ahsan, a senior journalist in the country, as Special Guest in the program told of the significance of organizing such discussion for building a bridge between knowledge and readers. Shamsul Huda, ED of ALRD, and Shajahan Bhuiya, Vice Chairman of CDIP, also spoke in the program as special guests and touched on many relevant issues. The program was presided over by Fatihul Quadir Samrat and moderated by Faisal Ahmed, Editor of Ebong Boi, and me from Shikkhalok.

Shishir Mallick, Mahfuz Salam, Basanti Saha, Abu Rakib, Anarjo Nayeem, Ipshita Bonhi and others discussed the book of poetry and pointed out some flawed and many quality aspects of Serajud Dahar Khan's writing. He came to fame with his first book of prose, Khan Shaheber Khandojeebon. In the book under discussion, Paarthokko Kortey Pari Na, Khan has reflected on the emerging Orwellian trend of obscuring the differences between right and wrong, good and bad, humanity and inhumanity and the likes in today's world.