It was at a recent meeting of a very large bank which is publishing their corporate history. Everyone was asked who they thought was the leading publishing house of the country with whom discussions could be held on technical issues. It's no surprise that the dozen or so people seated there all took the name of the same publisher.

No need to say which house it was but I believe that incident declares very evidently the achievement of Mohiuddin bhai's lifetime work. The near unanimous agreement that UPL is at the top of the list when it comes to publishing is for all to see. Few are born to be great and even fewer reach that mark. In his world Mohiuddin Ahmed bhai did and that's what makes him grace the peak.

Early days

Mohiuddin bhai took over the older OUP -Oxford University Press- which was a stodgy academic books brand to what became the leader of the publishing industry ranging across all kinds of contents. Once, exclusively dependent on English books, he moved on to multi-lingual multi topical menu serving house making UPL the most respected book brand in Bangladesh.

I had known him in those early days too where he was mostly dealing with school books which were OUP's main area of work also. But even in the mid-70s he was planning new areas to move into. We had met at a meeting in his office held to discuss books on history and several of my teachers were there. I was a student but was asked to tag along.

We of course got along very well and it was clear that he had his eyes on wider and greater horizons." We want our books not those written by others on our history." he had said. He was basically pushing my teachers to write general books on general history not just academic books which few read except other academics and thus remains outside ordinary people's world.

This could be interpreted to mean that he was interested in publishing books so he was book titles chasing or egging on people to write books. But I understood what it was, a desire to expand the world of communication. After all, that's where his foot was.

His media days

Mohiuddin bhai completed his studies in Mass media and journalism from Karachi and began his professional life at OUP. After independence, he returned to Dhaka and took over OUP which soon became UPL which was a new brand but more versatile. But while he was developing and branching out he didn't lose interest in mass media and journalism. By the mid-1970s he was already planning a weekly, of course an English weekly and it came out as the Sunday Star.

I myself worked for the paper in its later and final years but when it was flourishing many sterling names graced its pages. It produced quality and unbiased journalism that doesn't have a niche market in Bangladesh. People want sensationalism and stunts, abuse and hero worshipping, none of which the paper was ready to do. So in certain ways, it was a victim of its own principles. When it shut down in the early 80s, I felt I had understood the media better by working for an ailing paper though I may not have learnt the lessons as well as I should have.

Building the brand

By the time the 80s arrived, UPL was already part of the leading the pack and the days of the Banglabazar cartel was almost over because the market had diversified. What UPL was successfully achieving was the market positioning of the brand and in that race he was almost without any peers. True, some people were trying to move into the English language market but they were not serious competitors.

None of the books he published were of poor quality and none insignificant. They took more care of the production than others and played by the most stringent rules of the publishing grammar so there was no way they couldn't win in terms of quality.

Mohiuddin bhai did well not so much by breaking new paths as he did but by treading the ones already laid with diligence and care not to mention a fanatical devotion to details. There was no scope of compromise and that is what made UPL the number one.

The peak plus...

The reward for his striving for excellence was that UPL was selected as the publisher of Sk. Mujib's autobiography is by all accounts the top fruit plucked by the publishing industry in Bangladesh. Its success lay not in that book being the state's chief architect's memoirs or that of the PM's dad but in its enduring appeal as a book of memoirs.

It's still one of the top books sold every year and to hold the publishing rights is a sign of having reached there. That UPL got the rights after its brand was made and the book didn't produce that brand but it came to UPL because of the brand. And that makes a world of difference.

So as a published author with several publishers, I know how deeply you cared and how well you took care of what you did. Best wishes Mohiuddin bhai.