Anandasangi 2 Chhoto Galpa by Ananda Bazar Patrika Sangkalan [Hardcover]

The Sunday pages of newspapers are never short on news. But what makes Sundays special is the added bonus—short stories, serialized novels, engaging essays, and features. Alongside the hard-hitting realities of news, readers get a literary feast tailored to their tastes, making their leisurely Sunday afternoons all the more enjoyable. This tradition has now become an integral part of newspaper culture.

For over seventy-five years, Anandabazar Patrika has consistently enriched its Sunday edition with literary gems. Its Rabibasariya supplement is not just famous but has become an essential read—a beloved space for readers seeking intellectual nourishment. Looking at the complete list of short stories published in Rabibasariya over these decades is astonishing. Almost every notable writer, except for Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, has contributed to this weekly supplement.

Rabindranath Tagore himself wrote his famous story Robibar for Rabibasariya, marking his first and only story written exclusively for a newspaper in his later years. This same platform brought together literary giants like Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, and Manik Bandyopadhyay. Though each of them had a distinct storytelling style, approach, and tone, they all found a place in Rabibasariya. Even Satyajit Ray, known primarily for his films and children's fiction, published his only adult short story, Pikoo’s Diary, here.

Tagore once described the essence of a short story by comparing it to a fruit that emerges from the vast, tangled branches of life—small, self-contained, colorful, and rich in taste. The short stories of Rabibasariya are the perfect embodiment of this idea. Most of these stories are concise due to space constraints, making brevity their defining characteristic. This limitation led to a unique storytelling approach—tight prose, swift pacing, sharp dialogues, and an almost steel-like precision in narrative execution.

This style of compact storytelling has been widely embraced in Bengali literature. The Rabibasariya stories exemplify the subtlety, intensity, and fleeting brilliance that define the best of short fiction. No other literary supplement has brought together such a vast array of accomplished short story writers or offered such a diverse and remarkable collection of stories.

This seventy-five-year-old archive stands as a significant and reliable document of Bengali short fiction history.