1/14/2018 Sarat Chandra: Novel popularity

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News / Magazine / Society & The Arts / Books / Indian publishing industry goes gaga over Bengali novelist Sarat Chandra

Chattopadhyay

Indian publishing industry goes gaga over Bengali novelist Sarat Chandra

Chattopadhyay

Indranil Banerjie
December 2, 2013 UPDATED 13:52 IST   MAIL TO AUTHOR
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Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay and Badal Bose: Cashing in on the demand The Bengali

novelist Sarat

Chandra

Chattopadhyay

, who died 47

years ago, is proving to be one of the biggest money-spinners in Indian book publishing history.

Last fortnight, Calcutta's Ananda Publishers put into gear their plans for printing two lakh copies of the

author's collected works - a plan that is going to cost the publishers at least Rs 40 lakh in royalty payments

alone, making it the biggest single royalty deal in the country so far.

The sales of Sarat Chandra's collected works, priced at Rs 100 per copy, are expected to gross a whopping Rs

2 crore. At any rate, says Badal Bose of of Ananda Publishers: "We are committed to pay the copyright holder

Rs 40 lakh regardless of how many copies we actually print or sell."

The deal is obviously sound as the estimated demand for Sarat Chandra's works is enormous. A decade ago

his collected works published by an association formed for his centenary celebrations, were bought up

even before they were actually printed.

For the first 50,000 copies, advance bookings were completed in about four months and by the time all the

books were finally delivered by 1978 the centenary committee decided to print another 50,000 copies that

also sold out.

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1/14/2018 Sarat Chandra: Novel popularity

"As a novelist Sarat Chandra is more popular than even Rabindranath Tagore, no matter what the

intellectuals might feel," declares the best selling Bengali novelist Moni Shankar Mukherjee, who writes

under the pseudonym "Shankar". Mukherjee's contention is, however, difficult to prove or disprove.

Tagore's novels individually have sold a total of 11.2 lakh copies, according to records available with Visva-

Bharati University, the sole publishers of the Nobel laureate's work. Two of the dozen novels written by

Rabindranath, Rajashree and Shesher Kabita have sold over six lakh copies, while the rest have averaged

about 50.000 Copies each.

Unfortunately the two private publishers of Sarat Chandra's works, M.C. Sarkar and Sons and the Indian

Associated Press Company, have not kept any comparable records. Supriya Sarkar of M.C. Sarkar and Sons,

the company that held the exclusive copyright for Sarat Chandra's collected works before selling it to

Ananda Publishers, claims that the 13 individual titles of the novelist's works being published by them

currently sell about 35,000 copies a year.

"The demand is growing considering that five years ago only about 20,000 copies would sell every year,"

says Sarkar, maintaining that they have sold over a million copies of the author's novels during the last 50

years. Ananda Publishers are aiming to sell their edition of the collected works to the rural educated, avid

readers of Sarat Chandra's novels, who have not always been able to afford his books.

They are pricing their edition at Rs 100 as compared to Rs 450 charged by M.C. Sarkar and Sons, who have

sold only about 50,000 copies of their edition.

The intentions of both the Ananda Publishers and Sarkar are to cash in on the Sarat Chandra boom before

the copyright period expires in 1988, after which no publisher will have to pay royalty on his books.

"Since we have already begun publishing Sarat Chandra's works we will be ahead of our competitors once

the copyright expires," explains Badal Bose. Supriya Sarkar, has acquired the copyright for the collected

works reportedly at a huge sum from Sarat Chandra's nephew's wife, Monica Chatterjee.

Publishers like N.D. Mehra of Rupa and Company are, however, somewhat sceptical about the sales target

set by Ananda Publishers. "Except Shakespeare, I cannot recall another author's collected works selling

more than a lakh copies in a single edition," says Mehra.

But big retailers in Calcutta contend that Bengali novels and Hindi paperbacks are the biggest sellers in the

country. Modern Bengali novels written by Satyajit Ray, Somoresh Basu and Shankar net several lakh

rupees even though they are produced without exception in hard covers.

Just how big the market is can be gauged by the fact that an omnibus of three of Shankar's novels sold a

record 1.4 lakh copies. Most Bengali hardcover novels are priced upward of Rs 20 compared to less than Rs

10 for Hindi-paperbacks.

"Sarat Chandra during his lifetime did not enjoy the kind of respect and popularity accorded to

Rabindranath and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay," laments Mukherjee. Sarat Chandra's novels, with their

stylistic simplicity and social plots were, and to a large extent are, still considered to be "devoid of literary

content".

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1/14/2018 Sarat Chandra: Novel popularity

Whatever popularity he did enjoy was "suspect both to the intellectual establishment as well as to himself,"

says Sarkar, whose father was the novelist's first publisher way back in 1913. Lacking institutional backing,

Sarat Chandra's works after his death were brought out "by people who did not bother to ensure good

printing and production", thus further dampening sales, argues Mukherjee.

Ironically when Sarat Chandra died in 1938, only about 25 people are said to have gone to his house to pay

their last respects. But today thousands of his fans all over the state are queuing up to pay advance money

for his collected works.

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