CONTRIBUTORS
The Samaresh Basu Digital Archive project was conceived in 2023, with the intent to preserve the family collection of Samaresh Basu’s photographs, letters, manuscripts, and notes. The initial primary collection, therefore, came from a part of Samaresh Basu’s family. In the following phase of the project, the archival team reached out to other close associates of the author who contributed significantly to the archive. This section provides a brief introduction of the contributors.
Bulbul Basu
Bulbul Basu is the eldest daughter of Samaresh and Gauri Basu. She is an esteemed Rabindrasangeet singer and an alumnus of Sangeet Bhavana - Visva Bharati, where she later served as a professor. She contributed one of the rare images in this collection of a young Samaresh and Gauri posing together.
Mousumi Samaddar
Mousumi is the youngest daughter of Samaresh Basu and Gauri Basu. She is an alumnus of Kala Bhavana - Visva Bharati and specialised in printmaking under the tutelage of printmaker extraordinaire Somnath Hore. She taught art and music at Patha Bhavan, Kolkata. The main share of this archive's collection comes from her. She has shared invaluable archival material including photographs, letters and manuscripts which we have been able to digitize and preserve in this archive.
Udit Basu
Udit Basu is the youngest son of Samaresh Basu, born to Samaresh and Dharitri Basu. An alumnus of Vidya Bhavana - Visva Bharati, Santiniketan, he currently works at Charubasona- Jogen Chowdhury Centre for Arts. A significant portion of this archive's photograph collection and memorabilia digitally preserved here are from his collection.
Alpana Bhattacharjee
Alpana Bhattacharjee is a retired teacher of Bengali literature. She has contributed one of the most valuable manuscripts in our collection- a handwritten magazine published by Samaresh and his friends when he was fifteen years old. The magazine was in collection of Alpana's late husband- documentary filmmaker, Tarun Bhattacharjee.
Jukta Adhikary
Jukta Adhikary is a retired professor of Botany, who has taught at multiple institutions through his professional career including Presidency University, Bethune College and Barasat Govt. College. He is also a keen literary enthusiast and a poet himself. He has kindly contributed all the editorials of 'Mahanagar' magazine, written by Samaresh Basu while he served as the editor for the same. It is a valuable collection of this archive.
Kanchana Mukherjee
Kanchana Mukherjee is the daughter of Prof Haroprosad Mukherjee and Maitrali Mukherjee, the founders of the publishing house Bingsha Shatabdi. Samaresh was a family friend of the Mukherjees and some of his writings were also published from their publishing house. Kanchana has shared some rare photographs of Samaresh in candid mood, spent in company of her parents Haroprosad and Maitrali.
HAVE SOMETHING FOR US?
The Samaresh Basu Digital Archive is open to receiving contribution of archival materials pertaining to the author from his family, friends, family of friends, publishers, literary societies or organisations, illustrators, photographers, and readers. The archive is interested to digitise Samaresh Basu’s manuscripts, letters, travel and research notes, drawing and illustrations, first edition book covers and photographs.
Copyright of the material will remain with the original holders of the copyright, and does not devolve to the Samaresh Basu Digital Archive, which only serves as custodian of the digital files.
Write to us at <samareshbasudigitalarchive [at] gmail.com >
Or you can contact us on +91 9239411814.
