New platform to bring New Year cheer to Bengali 'little magazines'

SUMANTA RAY CHAUDHURI

Kolkata, Dec 29 (IANS) The year 2023 will come with new hopes as regards to expansion of the communication and marketing bases for Bengali literature beyond the boundaries of West Bengal on two counts.

The first is the emergence of a new platform for showcasing and marketing of the little magazine publications from the state both through the offline and online modes.

The second is India's first and only Bengali literary festival going beyond the boundaries of Kolkata to other metro and Tier-II cities of the country.

Last month, the iconic Oxford Bookstore in Kolkata's Park Street inaugurated its 'Bengali Little Magazine Corner' where publishers of little magazines will be able to showcase their works and also be able to market and sell their products online.

According to the Oxford Bookstores' CEO Swagat Sengupta, although there are approximately 2,000 little magazines published in Bengali throughout India, there is no organised platform for showcasing them.

"Despite producing excellent literary work, Bengali little magazines have struggled to reach out to a wider audience. This special Bengali Little Magazine Corner, which will be free of cost for the publishers, will fill up that gap to a great extent. Our online store is also considering selling these little magazines online in order to reach a wider audience against a modest revenue-sharing model," Sengupta added.

The publishers and enthusiasts of little magazines in Kolkata are quite excited about this development.

According to Madhurima Dutta, a former journalist and the publisher of a popular little magazine 'Udan' (The Flight) since 2006, this will be the first organised platform for the publishers to showcase and market their products.

Dutta told IANS: "Barring the annual Kolkata Book Fair and the dedicated Little Magazine Fair at Nandan in Kolkata, the publishers in the sector hardly had any platform to showcase their publications. But these events were just annual affairs. So, this initiative by Oxford Bookstore is a really welcome move considering that the publishers in the sector get round-the-year opportunities to showcase and market their products to the national and international connoisseurs of Bengali Little Magazines."

According to Sandip Dutta, the founder of India's oldest and only little magazine library, Kalikata Little Magazine Library O Gabeshana Kendra, till now the little magazine publishers in the state never had any help or sponsorship either from the state government or from the Union government or any private entity.

"Till now this sector has been surviving mainly because of the initiatives of Little Magazine enthusiasts. In that way the initiative by Oxford Bookstores is unique and experimental and we hope this move sees success," added Dutta, a retired school teacher of Bengali literature.

Starting its journey in the year 1978, Kolkata Little Magazine Library & Research Centre currently has a collection of 90,000 magazines under 70 different subjects.

According to renowned educationist Pabitra Sarkar, who inaugurated the little magazine corner at the Oxford Bookstore, little magazines have a dedicated readership and the literature they publish is distinctive and not typically found in popular culture.

"This initiative will do this little magazine community, its authors, and its readers an exposure to a world of good," he added.

For years, Bengali little magazines have acted as the breeding grounds for several poets and writers from the state who reached the height of acclaim in their literary life.

One of the greatest contributions of this sector was proving the right space for the "Hungry Generation", or anti-establishment, enriched by legendary poets like Shakti Chattopadhyay, Malay Ray Chaudhuri and Sami Roy Chowdhury, among others.

While this development of the emergence of the new showcasing platform has brought cheers for the Bengali little magazine publishers, there is good news for the connoisseurs of Bengali literature outside Kolkata as the India's first and only Bengali literary festival, 'Apeejay Bangla Sahitya Utsob' (ABSU), will be beyond the boundaries of Kolkata to other metro and Tier-II cities of the country from 2023.

According to the organisers of this annual event in Kolkata, they had been receiving requests from Bengali associations in other Indian cities for organizing the respective chapters in those metro and Tier-II cities.

From 2023, while the main winter event will be organised in Kolkata, similar events will also be held in other Indian cities in association with the Bengali associations there at the time of special occasions as per the Bengali calendar, such as Bengali New Year and Saraswati Puja, among others.