Sandesh (magazine)

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A Sandesh Issue, with cover design by Satyajit Ray

Sandesh (Bengali: সন্দেশ, Shondesh) is a Bengali children's magazine. The periodical was first published by Upendrakishore Raychodhury in 1913 through his pblishing company, M/s U. Roy & Sons. After the death of Upendrakishore Roychowdhury in 1915, his eldest son Sukumar Ray succeeded as the editor of the magazine in 1915. The Sukumar Ray years estalished "Sandesh" as a unique magazine that combined literary values with humour and fun and a lot of information from different parts of the world.

In 1923, Sukumar's younger brother Subinoy took the charge after the untimely death of Sukumar Ray. However the publication of the magazine was stopped in 1925. In 1929 it was revived by the new owners of the firm U. Ray & Sons. Subinay Ray remained one of the editors in this period too. In 1934 it again ceased publication.

In 1961, the magazine was revived under the editorialship of Satyajit Ray and Subhas Mukhopadhyay. Many of Satyajit Ray's writings were first published in this magazine. From 1963, Satyajit's aunt the reputed writer Lila Majumdar became the honorary joint editor of the magazine in place of Sri Mukhopadhyay. From 1963 Satyajit Ray formed a non-profit literarayco-operative, "Sukumar Sahitya Samavaya Samity Ltd.", and since then this Co-operative has been running the magazine.

From 1974, Satyajit;'s cousin Ms Nalini Das became honorary joint editor of the magazine, and she was in effect the Executive Editor of the magazine in this period, while her husband Asokananda Das was the Hinirary Publisher. In 1992-93, the magazine faced a crisis when Satyajit Ray, Nalini Das and Asokananda Das all died within a period of 14 months. From 1994, Lila Majumdar also became to ill to be able to continue as the Executive Editor.

From 1993-94, Sandip Ray, son of Satyajit Ray, became the Joint Editor of the magazine and Amitananda Das, son of Nalini Das became the Publisher. But the inexperienced team could not meet the challenge of the changing times -- due to the competition from comics, TV, cable TV, and books with coloured illustrations; the total circulation of children's magazines dropped steadily in this period. "Sandesh" remained a Black & Whaite magazine, and it was a struggling one, incurring losses and skipping issues.

In 2003, The Ford Foundation gave a grant to "Sandesh" to make the magazine viable. But unfortunately, due to squabbles within the co-operative, though the magazine had many coloured pages and became much mre attaractive visually; it was not viable financially. Between July 2005 and April 2006, the magazine missed sevearl issues, and since May 2006 it skipped four issues.

From August 2006, a new attempt is being made to revive the magazine with good literary values combined with sensible management. The Festival Annual issue has been published after a a break of four issues. A strategy has been formulated so that the magazine can be published regularly and that the quality as well as the circulation increases progressively.