As I said, Dhaka is full of surprises. I was happy to be part of this one. It all happened in a matter of two days. My husband had shared a reel of my book, Coming Home, on Facebook.
Someone connected with him on Facebook saw the reel and asked, ‘Is your wife a writer?’ My husband said, ‘Yes’. The person told him that they were organizing a book fair at Gulshan Lake Park and asked if I’d be interested. My husband said he’d check with me.
I didn’t feel too confident about participating, yet something told me this was an opportunity I shouldn’t miss. With some push from my husband, I called up the person and told him I’d participate. That was on a Tuesday, March 6th. On Wednesday, I received a call saying my session would be at noon the next day – my first as an author, and my book hadn’t even been launched. I was nervous and excited at the same time.
I told no one I knew here about it because I wasn’t sure how I’d be.
The event was held at Gulshan Lake Park- I’ve written about the park in a previous post. The stage was set under a banyan tree. Wooden benches were placed in front, for the audience. Colourful paper cut-outs of birds, wasps and butterflies reading books hung from the branches. The spring breeze blew, yellowed leaves fell from the tree, the sun took a break for a while, giving the audience a breather, and I had my first session as an author. I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful venue. I realized how fortunate I was to be given the opportunity when I saw the other events lined up for the day and the following two days.
I witnessed two other sessions. One was on an anthology of stories written by Bangladeshi writers. It was an excellent session that provided a peek into the rich culture of the country and its people. I witnessed a Bangladesh that I hadn’t seen in my last six months here- modern and liberal, brilliant and classy.
One of the authors at the event said Bangladesh is a great place to be if one finds their tribe. I cannot agree more.
Here’s a link to the news article covering the event and another one. Imagine my joy at finding my name in one of the papers, The Business Standard.
All of this feels no less than a miracle, and it could only have happened because of the good wishes of friends, many of whom are from the blogging community, the love of family and the blessings of my parents, who I’m certain are watching me from above.
With this I end this post and wish you a very happy beginning of the week.
Cheers,
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