Reader Meet Author: Subhankar Das

When I pulled a battered and thin packed postmarked Kolkata, India from my spacious suburban po box a few weeks ago I had no idea of the lesson that was in store. The contents of the package were several broadside under the heading Graffiti. Published by writer Subhankar Das, Graffiti-Kolkata is a publication in English that features poems from writers from around the world and as I came to find out it is a remarkable stand just to get these published. As he tells the story, it is not as simple as it is here to get your work puslished and distributed. His new collection, The Stark Electric Space/An International Anthology Of Indie Writers is a work that deserves to read in all countries, but unfortunately he will have a difficult time selling it in his own country.

Fascinated by all of this I recently asked Subhankar a few questions.

Orange Alert (OA): You have published a great deal in your native language, but what prompted you to create Graffiti?
Subhankar Das (SD): Dreams and agony of life is the inspiration… for us Graffiti is a movement… Graffiti is a lifestyle… it’s a pathway of our dream… it’s a protest against the consumerism of thought and mind…

Maybe here you have mentioned about graffiti broadsides. Actually the name of our publication is also Graffiti and yes we have published a great deal almost 100 + title’s and more than 100 issues of our literary Magazine in Bengali, which includes my poetry volumes and translation works along with more than 30 other alternative writers in Bangla in this last 18 years of our journey.

Around 2004 we started experimenting with audio visual medium, in the process making 6 short films. That is when we started translating Bangla works into English for subtitling these films to communicate with the non-Bangla speaking spectrum. Even in India Bangla is a regional language only and I have lot of friends who does not speak or understand Bangla, so there was a need to bridge this gap.

OA: I love the illustrations you include on the broadside. Is there a certain type of art that you look for, for Graffiti?
SD: I like working with indie artists who loves to stay independent, who dos not want to sell their arse to the so called creative industry and when they work it shows you know, be it the lay out design or playing with words in their work, I always believe in giving everyone a space of there freedom where they can choose to scream or to stay mum with their expression of silence. I always search for those eyes who can see the world in a new and a unique way and express it, even in a different manner... My hands are always stretched in welcome for those talents whom the societies fail to understand and choose to ignore...

OA: You have had several guest editors in the last few months, what do you feel this brings to the broadsides as a series?
SD: I always believed in rotation. It brings in more variety and becomes more open ended.

The word editor to me means Power and Power Corrupts. It is somehow in human instinct to be comfortable with a few and try and posses and command which for us the outside writers is the unhealthiest notion which we should consciously try and avoid. Working all these years in the Bangla underground lit scene I have seen editors acting like God. This I find so hilarious that while compiling the indie anthology ‘The Stark Electric Space’ I wrote this small intro – ‘This anthology does not have an ISBN or any such numbers or codes or marks or whatever and does not have an editor. I just believed in some creative souls and their independence and not in codes…’

OA: Is there anything you look for in submissions thematically or stylistically?
SD: That is for the editors to decide. If you ask me I hate telling stories in a poem.

OA: What is the writing culture like in Kolkata?
SD: Bengali literature in Kolkata and India is ruled by Anand Bazar Patrika group of publications. Once a one man show business house now a corporate of course. If you do not write in their magazine or are not related with them, you are not a writer, no one at all. So no one publishes you. Another establishment is the ruling communist party(ha ha) of West Bengal who shot down farmers who protested against land grabbing operation of the government. They think we are the roughes of literature who are funded by the CIA.

Now comes the exiting part. We also have 100s of little magazines who serves the need for these corporate in disguise and make money with government sponsored advertisements.

Naturally the movement becomes diluted and the Ananda Bazar (The daily Newspaper) makes a small comment on little magazines, compares them with bundles of mosquitoes in the dark.

Taking all these into account Bangla little magazine in India still can boast of continuous literary movements starting from Hungryalist Movement of the 60s.
Recently Ananda Bazar bought major shares of Penguin India or in other words now they own Penguin India. All the book shops in India depend on the Penguin India distribution network for English books in India. So now they will decide on the titles and which books to distribute, just imagine that. The reflection was very clear at Kolkata Book Fair this year. All you can buy are the popular titles or classics.

They even control the distribution of Bangla books. They have their own logistics. Ananda Bazar or any news paper or commercial popular magazine must carry your regular advertisements of books or you must have some rave reviews in some commercial magazine, then they can think of keeping your books in their stores for distribution.

Little magazines still can be displayed in 4 ,5 places in Kolkata but for alternative books there is hardly any place, which motivated us for starting a book store in Kolkata.

OA: What's next for Subhankar Das?
SD: A collection of my poems in Bangla to be published next year from Bangladesh which I am presently working on.

My poems in Greek translations to be included in a poetry anthology from Athens also slated next year.

We are planning to do a few chaps from Graffiti in English this year.
I will soon start translating Corso’s work in Bangla as soon as I get the permissions of course.

And …..And …..And ………………………………………………

Bonus Q & A
OA: If you could sit down to tea with anyone (alive or dead) who would it be?
SD: Nagarjuna.

OA: Who are some of your favorite writers past and present?
SD: Jibanananda Das, Subimal Misra, Falguni Roy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Michel Butor, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Kathy Acker.

For more information on Subhankar Das please visit his website.

Share