Susnato Chowdhury

Susnato Chowdhury is an independent journalist and writer, as well as the editor and publisher of the Bengali Little Magazine Bodhshabdo since 1999. He is a columnist and regular contributor to prestigious Bengali newspapers such as Anandabazar Patrika, Ei Samay and Sangbad Pratidin. He has five published books titled Shurir Sakshi (Itykatha Prakashana, 2020), Chhotogalpo (Shudhu Bighe Dui, 2018), Mudran Karmashala: Little Magazine: File Copy (Bodhshabdo, 2018, Ed.), Highway Highway (Ravana, 2015), Three A Shibtala Street (Offbeat, 2009). He has worked as researcher and executive producer for non-fiction television programmes. He has a BA in Bengali from the University of Calcutta. Bodhshabdo has carved a niche among readers for carefully crafted aesthetics and well-curated content.

In the Arts Practice grant awarded to Susnato in 2016-17, he studied the design and editing in Bengali Little Magazines in West Bengal and Bangladesh as publishing moved from analogue to digital. He travelled extensively to small towns and accessed old libraries and archives. Based on this knowledge, he organised a two-phase workshop that brought together eminent practitioners from the field and young editors. The workshops provided basic understanding of various printing processes as well as the history of design concepts. It included questions of different layouts in case of prose and poetry, placement of advertisements, selection and use of fonts, significance of cover page design etc. The outcome of the workshop was a book addressing the reconstruction of a few pages selected from various little magazines along with new pages created during the workshop. The whole process was also presented as an exhibition. 

In this dissemination grant, Susnato’s project seeks to go beyond the boundaries of Kolkata, and focuses directly on the history of publishing in Darjeeling. From what Susnato has learnt in the last twenty years of studying the ecology of little magazines and the intellectual activities around this industry, is that Darjeeling has mostly been relegated to the margins of the scholarly circuits in West Bengal. He compares it to the trains that stop at Siliguri and go no further. In contrast to this intellectual negligence is the claim of the state of Bengal over ‘Gorkhaland’. Susnato is putting forward a very important political question of the neglect for the ‘mountains’ in little magazines, book fairs, and literary discussions, though Darjeeling occupies an important position on the map of West Bengal because of the crucial economic, political, social and tourism roles the region has. 

Susnato points out that Darjeeling has a rich history of printing and publishing, right from the British period. The first Nepali literary magazine published from West Bengal called Chandrika has marked its centenary in 2018. However, even people of Darjeeling are hardly aware of this history, Susnato observes. Hence, he wants to reintroduce this rich history to the natives of Darjeeling.

The project will take place in Darjeeling. It will have three aspects – an exhibition, a panel discussion and the publication of a booklet. The exhibition will continue for four days. It will cover the history of publishing and magazines in Darjeeling. The exhibition will be titled From Behind the Clouds and it will have the history of printing presses (colonial, Swadeshi and missionary) in Darjeeling, some extant printing machines, their locations, published books and photos. The entire layout of the exhibitions will be bilingual in Nepali and Bengali. The panel discussion titled Past and Present of Publishing in Darjeeling will be organised on the first day of the exhibition, with the participants Udayamani Pradhan (publisher, grandson of Parashmani Pradhan, the publisher of Chandrika), Loknath Chhetri (Nepali poet), and Shamik Chakraborty (translator of Chuden Kabimo’s novel Fatsung - The Aroma of the Soil). The final list of speakers may be altered depending on their availability. The panel discussion will be hosted by Susnato. The booklet titled Darjeeling and Publishing – A History will be published as a companion to the exhibition. The history of publishing, from the perspective of today, will be covered in this booklet in words and in pictures. The rationale for bringing out the exhibition based on the socio-political context will be briefly described in the booklet. Although the booklet will be in Bengali, there will be a Nepali summary. 

Susnato Chowdhury’s deliverables to IFA will be an illustrated textual description of the exhibition-making process and photographic documentation of the exhibition, a report on the panel discussion and hard copies of the booklet.

This grant is part-supported by Infosys Foundation.