Farewell my friend | The daily star

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My first meeting with Mohiuddin Ahmed was in 1956 over dinner at his brother’s house. His brother, Kabir Ahmed, was what we denied in Bangla “bhaira bhai“by SAM Khan, my father’s colleague, and the friendship of the two families around him. It wasn’t really a family dinner and I still don’t know why I was invited and not my brother, who was closer to Mohiuddin in his old age. I felt quite out of place among all the adults, and then this youth came up to me and asked if I would like to see his brother’s art collection.

There were no paintings in our house, and my brother’s interest in art – encouraged by Munni auntwho later became Mohiuddins bhabi– was frowned upon by my strict mother.

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I wasn’t interested in seeing paintings but it was a relief to leave the adults so I accepted the offer and went to see the paintings – some of them by him bhabi. I don’t remember the names of the artists or the paintings I saw. The home education my brother and I received prior to our visit to Viqarunnisa and St. Gregory introduced us to many European artists through an arts education course. But these pictures were nothing like the ones I’d seen in our books.

Little did I know when I left that evening that the skinny teenager would become my friend, publisher, and mentor in later years. Little did he know that evening that he would become one of the most respected publishers in Bangladesh, publishing high quality books in various genres.

My second meeting with Mohiuddin – I could never call him by his nickname Moin, which his friends Ameena Saiyid and Urvashi Butalia, who had worked with him at Oxford University Press (OUP) – took place in Karachi in 1971 and was at one more place Dinner. The late Ejazul Huq, better known to his friends as Emran, suggested one evening that, if I were free, I might meet some of his friends at the house of Martin Pick, who worked at OUP. There would be other Bengali too. In 1971, surrounded by a family who did not fully understand the reality of what was going on in East Pakistan, it would be a relief to meet Bengal.

One of the Bengalis there was Mohiuddin Ahmed, then Martin’s colleague at OUP, Karachi. I don’t remember what else we talked about, but I remember he gave me an alphabet book from Dr. Seuss showed. “Try writing something like this,” he said. No, I never tried like Dr. Seuss, but I tried to get Dr. Getting Seuss’ wild and crazy books for my sons.

I returned to East Pakistan in October and lost contact with Mohiuddin. And then one day, shortly after Bangladesh became independent, he contacted me. He had founded University Press and needed help with a manuscript that interested him. What should I do? Be a reader. Review content errors, make sure there are no inconsistencies, and correct language errors. Comment on the overall quality of the book. “But I don’t know my way around rightly,” I said when I saw the manuscript. And although I was reading an article in “Studied at Dacca University“I had no idea what proofreading entailed. He showed me the most common grades I needed to know, and I was gone. A little familiar with footnotes and endnotes, I had no idea that law had a different system of documentation would have.

Mohiuddin gave me many manuscripts for review and processing. Aside from errors in content and language, he also asked me to check whether a manuscript was defamatory, something a publisher could get into trouble for. He often went through a passage with me so as not to falsify what the author had said, but to reformulate the passage so that neither the author nor the publisher would get into trouble.

In 1993 Mohiuddin Ahmed became my publisher when he wrote the revised edition of “The art of kantha embroidery“The next year, University Press Limited (UPL) brought out”Princess Kalabati and Other Stories“It would be nice,” I said casually one day, “if the book were illustrated by a young person.” He took me seriously and persuaded his daughter Shamarukh to illustrate the book, which made her wonderful to publish several of my books: a book on divisional novels, another on rickshaws and rickshawallahs, anthologies of translated Bangladeshi writings, and even a culinary book (he was in the process of accepting a copy of Siddika Kabir’s book in English). As a writer, I learned how careful he was to send his authors annual accounts of books he sold, followed by a royalty check a few months later (Bangla Academy pays a lump sum after a book is published, but many other publishers – some quite reputable in Bangladesh – don’t report books about books sold, not just license fees.) As an editor, I learned that it is imperative to get copyright clearance from authors and translators.

Did Mohiuddin publish everything I offered him? No. There was a book of political essays that he rejected outright. The rejection didn’t change our relationship. I respected his judgment. The essays were never published as a book. But another book he refused – Syed Waliullahs “Tree without roots“Which was out of print for decades – was not discarded.

Mohiuddin had often suggested to Firdous Azim and me that we set up an imprint like Kali for Women. He would help us, even distribute the books for us. Although Firdous and I even had the name of the imprint and published a book under that name, we never got around to founding a women’s publisher. Convinced by Syed Waliullah’s cousin, who looked after his literary interests in Bangladesh and accepted the offer that Mohiuddin Firdous and I had made earlier, I took on the task of publishing the book – as well as other books by Syed Waliullah and others. And he gave me all the help he could.

He explained to me how to calculate the selling price of a book. He taught me what a page should look like by using a scale to make things clear. He told me about the importance of “White Space”. And true to its promise, UPL distributed my publications. Afterward, he told me that he regretted becoming a publisher because I didn’t have time to read manuscripts for him.

Mohiuddin had become a publisher after a rigorous training at the OUP in Oxford. He had worked in the press and had both theoretical and practical knowledge of how to put a book together. How I wish he had written a book to guide other publishers!

The Parkinson’s outbreak about 20 years ago gradually slowed it down. He would still be found in his wheelchair visiting the Ekushey Boi Mela, at the occasional seminar and conference, at a book launch. But he stopped going to the old office in Motijheel, where his friends or writers would meet around noon. He always had enough lunch to share with two others – a simple lunch of vegetables, daal, and chapatis with brown atta. If more people came by than he had to eat, he immediately ordered naan and tikka at a nearby café.

In recent years he has had to spend more and more time at home. The way to Motijheel was too long. The new office on Pragati Sarani, which his daughter Mahrukh Mohiuddin had set up so that he could have his office there, had been badly damaged by fire and became unusable. He also had to devote a lot of time to physiotherapy. Busy with other things, I could only visit him occasionally, always remembering to bring lemon tarts that we enjoyed with tea and other snacks we had made at home.

In March last year, Covid put an end to these occasional visits. I missed these visits. I wondered how he was coping with it. Then I found out that he had developed Covid. I was worried but he returned home. However, this last time he went to the hospital, he did not return. When he died on June 22nd, I couldn’t see him. I felt bad myself. All I could do was sit at home and remember a friend I had known for 65 years, a friend who had become my publisher and a nationwide publisher who was named “Publisher Emeritus” by the publishing community “was honored – a great man who, with his willpower and determination, tried to make publishing in Bangladesh professional and ethical. Rest in peace my friend.

Niaz Zaman is an academic, author, and publisher.

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