Only one thing missing from the Boi Mela

As the Ekushey Boi Mela comes and goes, I feel a certain dread of losing creatively admired people who are anticipated in our cultural celebration of intellectualism. This time the anxiety amplified for my unforgivably late blankness of not having Humayun Ahmed ever. On July 19 of 2012, I was too naive to comprehend the tears of my mother that were shed in front of the TV. This year, when I stepped inside the entry gate, my consciousness was engrossed in looking for the creator whose hair would've faded if he lived today–I knew that he was not going to be there but I just couldn't give in to reality. I still wanted to feel his books pressed hard–as if they would fall– against my bony hands. I searched, looking to greet some book of his that I hadn't read, to exempt myself from the painful emotion of losing "sir" for a while through reading. I looked for newly published books of young writers, wishing I would come across something resembling his genius when Humayun Ahmed was a juvenile. I spun around to the gentle chaos, I saw readers, I saw writers, I saw children snatching books from parents; I couldn't help an instant of involuntary grin. I prayed to god that this tradition remains as the name suggests—Amar Ekushey Boi Mela!     

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