The Himu effect', as I like to call it, came into play a little over a decade later after the first book came out, the trend having been discovered by Ahmed himself when a member of his PR team, in partnership with Banglalink, organised a Himu-themed youth festival in the early 2000s. In his autobiography Kathpencil (2009), the late author recalls how, at the time, young Bangladeshi couples could be found taking leaves out of Himu's books, dabbling in casual relationships built mostly over text messages on their mobile phones.