The Mushtaq-Tisha couple has been kicked out of the book fair. Uncivilized visitors have made this work worse. Also the people engaged in the security of the fair have set a shameful example by failing to provide security to them.
Mushtaq-Tisha is not the first pairing of the book fair as an ‘uneven age’ writer couple. Popular writer Humayun Ahmed- Meher Afroz Shaon has set that record long ago. Tisha-Mushtak age gap is probably 40. Humayun-Shaun may have 25/30.
The ‘uneven age’ issue is confusing. I don’t know how much the age gap can be called unequal age. The difference, if any, remains, according to the public, that Humayun was Shaun’s father’s age. Mr. Mushtaq Grandpa is local. But that is not the point.
Humayun-Shaon never had to leave the fair like Tisha-Mushtak. Humayun may have survived because he was hugely popular as a writer and there was no Facebook-TikTok at that time. Mushtaq-Tisha are currently in talks. They have already achieved the fame of Hero Alam, Zayed Khan, Shingar Mahfuzur Rahman label. Due to the book fair coming out like this, it will now become international news beyond the news of national newspapers. They can be found on Al Jazeera, Brut, Guardian. The irony is that the only news about the country’s books, book fairs and writers will probably be about them. But the international media will not know that every year Bangladesh publishes some good books. For example, the people of Europe and America do not know that a country called Bangladesh had to get involved in a bloody liberation war of 9 months after 23 years of agitation. In the end, the lives of 3 million people have to be freed.
Where is the crime of Tisha-Mushtak? According to the law of Bangladesh, a girl of 18 years can get married. Nowhere in the law does it say that no one can get married if there is a gap of 40 years.
Why did Tisha marry a ‘sugar daddy’ or a ‘gold digger’, why is there such a gap in their age? Or the reason for our burning, why will they go public after such an unequal relationship, live on Facebook, go to book fairs holding hands, promote their own books by standing at stalls?
If the society does not follow the morals, customs, discipline, we will make them isolated and untouchable? Does it mean that you have an ‘unequal’ relationship so you have to hide, can’t be public, can’t publish pictures and videos of you being well, being happy. You cannot write a book, even if you write, you cannot come to the book fair to promote the book.
Who are you, sons and daughters of ‘Adam-Hauer’, to impose so many ‘no’?
If you don’t want to read their book, you don’t need to read it. No need to stand in line in front of their stall. No need to see what pictures and videos they have uploaded. You don’t need to know what the horse egg said when it came live.
As citizens of the country, they have the constitutional right to freedom of expression and the right to write a book, the right to promote that book is also legal. Similarly, there is no problem in criticizing that book, or even if you buy that book and tear it in the fair ground. But what we cannot do is to bully them out of the fair or help them out.
This act is criminal. If the rule of law works properly, everyone involved in this act should be punished. I want these rascals punished.
