Rows of book stalls lined the sidewalks on both sides of the road. In this crowd, you will find groups of school-college students carrying bags on their shoulders, as well as senior readers. Sometimes the little gold jewels come riding on the father's shoulders. Seeing such a scene, a visitor can stop, because such an arrangement with books is incredible!
This experience is completely new for the people of Chattogram. For the third time, the winter book exchange festival was organized at Jamalkhan in the city for the third time under the slogan "Exchange of knowledge, not books". The gathering of readers of all ages from different parts of the city was telling that how much Chattogram people have embraced this event.
Twenty thousand books in eleven categories were exchanged in this festival with the participation of about ten thousand people. The event started at 9:30 am with a short opening ceremony At the end of the ceremony, Mizanur Rahman, Joint Secretary of the People's Republic of Bangladesh and Commissioner for Refugee Relief and Repatriation, announced the opening by exchanging symbolic books. At this time, he called upon everyone to focus on developing his own mind to become a pure Bangladeshi. He requested everyone to take initiative to spread the idea of book exchange festival all over Bangladesh.
Deputy Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of Chattogram Zilla Parishad Shabbir Iqbal was present as a special guest in the inaugural session.
He said that although our Chattogram city is historically important, the art and literature practice here has been slow for a long time. I will speed up such arrangements. Coordinator of the festival Syed Khan Sagar presided over the inaugural function conducted by Ankan dey Animesh. Co-coordinators Mahir Azraf, Rinvi Nusrat, Sadia Sultana, Saima Sultana, Triyama Roy, Ayman Awsaf, Islam Jishad, Kazi Rakib, Saifullah Nadeem, Ritwick Barua and others were present among the organizers. Famous people from different areas of Chattogram gathered in the book exchange festival throughout the day. Poet and writer Biswajit Chowdhury appeared with books as gifts in the morning. He spends quite some time with the readers. Famous actor Nasir Uddin Khan came in the afternoon. People from all walks of life were excited to see him.
Collecting unread books in exchange for read books — that's the basic concept of Book Exchange Festival. Why organize this? Said Khan Sagar, the coordinator of the festival and the director of the organizing organization Field Camera Stories, said, "The idea of book exchange is not new. The way we used to exchange the books of the three detective series with our friends in school life, this event is a formal version of it. In line with the winter book exchange. Our childhood is intertwined. At this time after the annual exam, we used to take books from him in the neighborhood and start reading. Our organization is a new version of that. Even in this age of technology, we want to maintain this exchange of knowledge." When asked if such arrangements are a threat to new books by publishers, he said, "Book exchanges can never be a threat to new books. Rather, there can be no better gift for book lovers in the current economic reality." He said that very soon Field Camera Stories is going to come up with a plan to hold such a festival in every district of Bangladesh and gradually in every upazila.
Earlier this year in March, a similar event was held for the second time by Feild Camera Stories. Mahir Azraf, co-coordinator of the festival, answered the question why such an event was held twice in the same year. Repeated requests from the city's book lovers on online platforms and the popularity of the festival has motivated them to continue the event, he said. One hundred volunteers were under the overall supervision of this event. The organizers were enthusiastically praised by the readers who were impressed by the orderly organization and management. Afroza Sultana, a college student who came to exchange books at the festival, said that you can exchange books for free every time at the book exchange festival. As a result, he is getting a chance to read the rare books. Monir Uddin, an employee who came to book exchange and was a little disappointed, said, "I was looking for the book of Ahmad Chafar Onkar and I couldn't find it." Although I got my guru though. But being in close proximity to such a large number of books has encouraged me to read more books, exchange knowledge.
Another co-coordinator, Ankan Dey Animesh, got the idea of the organizing organization Field Camera Stories. It is known that Failed Camera Stories is basically a storytelling platform whose main field of work is book and film world. Ever since its inception, Field Camera Stories has organized one after another wonderful events in the journey of telling the stories of people in the society. This organization has already caught the attention of film and book lovers by organizing a lockdown short film festival, regular blog about films, production of 4 international award-winning short films, book exchange library, etc. during the Corona period with the participation of filmmakers from 5 countries.
The event started in the foggy morning with the arrival of winter and ended in the evening. It is known from the organizers that 22 thousand books have been exchanged this time. The highest number of books exchanged were in academic category and fiction category. Chattogram Zilla Parishad was the main sponsor of the event. Proud sponsors were Friends Food, Mahanagar News and ICT Point. T-shirt sponsors for the volunteers included Exclusive Properties, photographic partner CCPC Photographic Society and social media partner Chattogram Live among others.