Sandesh
Sandesh
ed. Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury, then Sukumar Ray · 1913
Children's monthly; the firm's issues ran to 1925
U. Ray & Sons grew out of the halftone block-making business that Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury set up in Calcutta in 1895. His research on the halftone process was printed in Britain's Penrose Annual, and the firm went on to make the best colour plates in the city.
It began publishing with Upendrakishore's own Tuntunir Boi, and in 1913 it launched the children's monthly Sandesh. In 1914 the family and the press moved into a house he had designed at 100 Garpar Road. After Upendrakishore died in 1915, his son Sukumar Ray ran the firm and the magazine. Sukumar's Abol Tabol came from the press in September 1923, days after his death.
Without him the business failed, and it was wound up in 1927. Sandesh was revived in 1961 by Sukumar's son, Satyajit Ray, under another publisher.
The house itself is gone. Ask the desk, and we will look for its books in reprint or second-hand.
