A tradition under threat

Commonly called Sharadiya Sankhya or Pujobarshiki in Bengali parlance, this autumnal festivity has been an essential part of the region for more than a century now. But does it have a future? Every year, more and more middle-class Bengali families are sending their children to so-called ‘English medium schools', most of which fail to induce any respect for vernacular literature.

As a result, Bengali books and periodicals are disappearing fast from the educated, urban households. That makes one wonder if the enormous readership, which has been consuming these Pujo numbers and treating them as collectors' items for years together, is now on its way to extinction!

SPECIAL ISSUES

The

Pujo issues are special, in most cases annual, numbers of newspapers and periodicals published from the state, with content varying from essays to novels, to plays to stories, to poetry to travelogue, et al. People in the trade put the total number of such Sharadiyas to more than 200, though only approximately 15 are published by well-structured media firms, and the rest are called ‘little magazines' for their limited circulation. The most successful of these autumnal collections generate revenues in excess of Rs 25 million each. But, while, on one hand the competition is intensifying every year with more publications and fewer readers, corporates are increasingly opting for outdoor publicity during the festive days.

THE HISTORY

The first festive collection

Chhutir Samachar , conceived and edited by Brahmo reformer Keshav Chandra Sen, was a special number of Sulav Samachar . Ananda Bazar Patrika , the longest-surviving Bengali newspaper, with a wide circulation base, published its first Sharadiya in 1926. Since then, litterateurs such as Rabindranath Tagore, Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Bibhuti Bhushan Bandopadhyay, Buddhadeb Bose, Rajsekhar Basu, Sharadindu Bandopadhyay, and Syed Mujtaba Ali have penned some of their best creations in the Pujo numbers, with highly-skilled illustrations as the garnish. Works of Nandalal Bose, Ramkinkar, Jamini Roy, and Ganesh Pyne adorned the Pujo issues for many years.

From the sixties to eighties, readers would keenly wait for Satyajit Ray's unique stories and illustrations in the festive numbers. The most prolific Bengali novelist, Sunil Gangopadhyay, wrote his first for a Pujo number some forty years ago. Samaresh Basu wrote two of his most controversial novels ‘ Projapati ' and ‘ Bibor ' in subsequent Pujo numbers of a popular publication.

Some of the best poems of Bishnu De, Premendra Mitra, Jibanananda Das, Shakti Chattopadhyay, Sankha Ghosh have appeared in Pujo numbers. Manoj Mitra's ‘ Debi Sarpomosta ' had appeared in a Pujo number of 1996.

Till date, the tradition of chronicling the best commentaries of Bengal and its diaspora in Pujo numbers is continuing with vigour. But do we somewhere sense the beginning of the end? Bhaskar Das, Executive President, Bennett Coleman & Co., refuses to be the professor of doomsday. “ Why should I leave the opportunity of outreaching my intellectually, culturally and economically-solvent readers? We publish the Pujo number ‘ Samay ' as our tribute to readers, and the revenue is of lesser strategic importance,” says Bhaskar. We'd love to believe him.

(The author is Vice-President, Corporate Communication, Ruia Group. The views are personal.)