People's Democracy

THE FESTIVE SEASON

CPI(M) Sets Up Thousands Of Marxist Literature Stalls

THE autumn festival is a big social event in Bengal.  During each day of the festival, people come out in more than hundreds of thousands and visit the richly decorated images in the colourful temporary wood-and-bamboo structures that have tarpaulin covers and are brilliantly lit up with bright and tiny ‘Lilliputian’ lamps with various social motifs.

Susanta Sarkar and Nanigopal Roy, CPI(M) workers both, and with a two decades of age difference between them, man the 10” by 15” stall that the Entally (east) local committee has set up at the crossing of the Chatu babu bazaar in east Kolkata, a market place that buzzes with activity.

Very many of their comrades accompany them as they sit virtually from quite early in morning to very late at night at the stall and behind a broad trestle table where a full variety of classical Marxist literature as well as CPI(M) publications, in Bengali, Hindi. Urdu, and English is on display. 

Such stalls draw a steady number of visitors many of them make purchases while almost everybody browses through the titles, often exchanging snatches of conversations with the comrades manning the stalls. Tea kiosks nearby make brisk business.

The National Book Agency, the publishing house of the Bengal CPI(M), is always hard put during the festival season to meet the demand of the different units of the CPI(M) for books and magazines as well as pamphlets.  The seven outlets of the NBA and the four agency offices have to be on their toes as the requests pour in.  Latecomers receive a chiding but the general effort is to fulfil the requisitions to the greatest extent possible.

This year more than 400 titles are on display at the stalls.  These include classical Marxist literature, Marxist primers, as well as books on philosophy, history, economics, science subjects, novels, poetry, and compilations of essays.  The titles on Cuba always enjoy a great popularity with the people of Kolkata and this year was no exception.

Recent political-ideological works by Sitaram Yechury and Anil Biswas, too, sell well as do a collection of poetry of Pablo Neruda translated into Bengali. Till date, 45,000 copies have been sold of Biswas’s slim volume on Socialism is the Future. (B P)