Growing Pains

Despite its illustrious antecedents,Sandesh hasn’t had it easy either. After it was launched in 1913,Sandesh was run by Satyajit Ray’s father Sukumar Ray for some time and then by his uncle Subinoy. Its publication was stopped in 1925 and 1929 for a few years,before closing down for a considerable amount of time in 1934. However,Satyajit Ray took over in 1961 and gave it a new lease of life. He changed the idiom of the magazine,starting from the aesthetics to the content. “My father made it more interactive. His cover designs were replete with visual punning and cryptic clues,something children enjoy. It was meant for children belonging to middle-class Bengali families,not merely those in urban areas but also in small towns and villages. He even invited first-time writers from the districts to contribute,” says son Sandip. Feluda,the iconic Bengali detective with a penchant for Charminar cigarettes and alliterative cases,Ray’s immortal character,was born in its pages. As was the absent-minded professor Shonkhu.

It’s well known that under Ray,Sandesh became a launch pad for many literary careers. Writers like Ajeyo Roy,Shishir Kumar Majumdar,Rebanta Goswami,Gauri Dharmapal and Jeevan Sardar owe their careers to Sandesh. After Satyajit Ray’s death in 1992,Sandip,who took over,made a conscious decision to make Sandesh more varied. New-age writers like Rajesh Basu and Aniruddha Dey came to the fore. “I wanted our readers to have a worldview. So,we invited art-historians and scholars to write for us too,” he says. However,circulation plummeted from 20,000 a decade ago to a few thousands recently. It has become difficult to bring out the magazine even three or four times a year.

Sandesh’s chequered history reflects the state of children’s magazines in Bengal. It started with a propaganda magazine called Satya Pradeep,established by the Christian Vernacular Education Society in 1860. Its intention was to spread the teachings of Christ to Bengali children in an informative and educational manner. Sandesh followed almost half-a-century later,paving the way for others like Mouchak and Anandamela. In the period when it stopped publishing (1935-1961),another star was born,Suktara. Established by Subodh Majumdar of the renowned Dev Shahitya Kutir publishing house in East Bengal (now Bangladesh),it had a difficult birth. “Majumdar lost a lot of assets after Partition. He had to start from scratch. Being a lover of literature,he wanted a profitable venture but also something that would speak to the future citizens of new India. That’s when the idea of a children’s magazine was born,” says Shantipriya Bandyopadhyay of the magazine.

Suktara brought together some of the best minds of Bengal,among them the celebrated cartoonist Narayan Debnath. His strip about the two bumbling boys called Handa and Bhonda for Suktara attracted instant attention. “My characters were based on observations. I was talking about the boys of those times through these characters. The way they talked and dressed,everything was designed to make them more relevant to the young,” says Debnath. As years passed,Handa and Bhoda kept pace with the times. “The trick is to never underestimate children,” says Debnath.

In 1968,when Kishore Bharati was launched,Ray had already re-established Sandesh. Suktara too was doing well. “But there was nothing really for adolescents. My father,Dinesh Kumar Chattopadhyay,thought that we needed to fill that void. As a magazine targeted at adolescents,Kishore Bharati did more than that,” says Tridib Chatterjee,its editor. It had an agony aunt column,a column for medical problems and an editorial dedicated to contemporary issues. “Our latest editorial is on the chit fund debacle. We have tried to keep up with the times. Something that Sandesh failed to do,” says Chatterjee.

However,Chatterjee will be the first to admit that the boom-time for Bengali children’s magazines is long over. “Our readership isn’t the same. But time too has changed. Children are glued to the internet now,they have Play Stations to fiddle with. But we still have our loyal readers. I don’t think we will close down anytime soon,” says Chatterjee. Sandip Ray,however,is worried about sustaining the magazine with the limited resources he has,even though he has plans for digitisation. In 2003,the magazine received a grant from the Ford Foundation (to be spread over three years),but the management didn’t get the entire amount because it could not account for the magazine’s expenditure on time. “We were never really a profit-making enterprise. Even during the best of times we would barely scrape through. We don’t have regular staff. Now we barely manage to get ad revenue. We can’t carry on like this,” he says. Chanchal Ghosh,who contributes to various children’s magazines,agrees. “Magazines today are very commercialised. Editors only want ghost stories and mystery novels. If we want to write about social issues,they object. How can you expect to bring about change if you are so myopic?” he asks.

That the future of Bengali children’s magazine lies in digitisation is the common mandate. But when Ichamati,a Bengali online magazine was launched a few years ago,it generated considerable amount of interest before fizzling out. Kolkata-based freelance writer Yagnaseni Chakraborty says it is because content is the key. “My son,who is 10 years old,is dazzled by Doraemon and Harry Potter. He doesn’t have time to flip through Sandesh. But that doesn’t mean one can’t reach out to his imaginative side. We just need to be more creative,” she says.