‘Books of Bengal’ attempts to bridge two Bengals

Books have always been a medium of cultural exchange all over the world. For centuries, books successfully united communities, especially in the subcontinent. Bangladeshi authors are renowned for their unique style of literature. Because of that, now there is a demand for Bangladeshi books among the people of the Indian state of West Bengal. The situation is similar in Bangladesh too, as many Bangladeshis want to read books by West Bengal-based authors.

Attempting to quench the thirst for books of the people of both the Bengals and build a bridge among them, ‘Books of Bengal’ came into being.

Owned by Shhadart Zaman Soikot, ‘Books of Bengal’ started its journey at the onset of Covid pandemic as a Facebpook page. Now, the platform became one of the largest suppliers of Bangladeshi books in West Bengal. ‘Books of Bengal’ now has three showrooms – one in Kolkata and two in Dhaka. Besides, it has a website too. The platform is one of the major sellers of Bangla books on Amazon.

“When I started the business, it was the beginning of the pandemic, and I just quit my job. Reading has always been my hobby. From an early age, I used to read a lot. So, during the pandemic situation, the idea of opening a book-selling page came to mind. I knew some people who were from Kolkata. I asked one of them if he could send the books if I gave him the list, and somehow he agreed. Back then, I had zero ideas on how to import books or what is an LC. I started to look for people who could help me out. After some time, I found a person, and then I opened a Facebook page and beyond my expectation, I got a huge response. Although the majority of them were people I knew. However, I had to face a loss on the first shipment, but after that things turned around,” said Soikot.

Indian books have always been available in Bangladesh. However, the problem is that people can only have books that are already in stock, but somehow, if someone wants to buy a book that is not available in stock, one can pre-order that particular book from ‘Books of Bengal’. In the beginning, the business targeted the young generation as its target customers.

“We actually tried to give books at a cheaper rate for students. This could be one of the reasons ‘The Books of Bengal’ became so popular so quickly. Initially, we only focused on Bangla books. But later, customers started to request that we take pre-orders for English books too. Not only that, we received requests to deliver books from Amazon as well. Because of that ‘Books of Bengal’ also started to import English books. Moreover, I started to receive orders from Kolkata too.” said Soikat.

Similar to the Bangladesh book sales, Kolkata-based sellers also stock Bangladeshi books. In Kolkata, most stores stock the books that have been taken there by Bangladeshi publishers for different book fairs. The books that are not sold at the fair are usually collected by the local sellers in Kolkata, and then those books are sold to the customers. Because of that, it can also be possible that one cannot find a specific book, as those might have already been sold at the fair or no publisher has taken that book there.

‘Books of Bengal’ wanted to meet the demand of Kolkata-based customers. For that reason, Soikat started to look for people who could help him with the matter. There are only a limited number of Bangladeshi items that are exported to India. “After a lot of effort, I finally found a person who agreed to help me send books to Kolkata. My first shipment was about 20kgs of books. And I’ve been working with him ever since,” said Soikot.

Now ‘Books of Bengal’ is serving customers both in Bangladesh and West Bengal. Almost 45 per cent of the total monthly sales of the business come from Kolkata. At present, 10 people work for the company.

“Many might think that the interest in reading has started to reduce with time but it is not. Businesses like Rokomari.com, Batighar, Pathaksamabesh even small ventures like Books of Bengal couldn’t have made it this far. Although it can’t be denied that books were highly available in every region in past, now as everything has become centralised it has been difficult for many to have the books they want. It is even true for Kolkata. There is only a handful of books stored in areas which are outskirts of the city.

According to Soikot, the market for books has grown recently. “Many might say people lost interest in books but I think the market has grown. Yes, it is true that new markets haven’t been grown that much yet those who had reading habits started to buy more. If I talk about e-books, especially Bangla e-books those are yet to be available for purchase. The price difference between e-book and hard copies are very little. This is another reason people are still purchasing books,” he said.

“There was a time when there remained a library in every locality. But now the libraries are gone. There used to be discussions on books in every library. Over time, those discussion sessions are gone too. This is a major reason the new generation is losing interest in reading and the new market segments are not growing, he added.