Samabesa
Samabesa is a major magazine of the post independence or post 1950 period. Samabesa was the second most important magazine among those published from Calcutta (Kolkata), after Asantakali. Like most other magazines of the period this too has gone through many ups and downs. Jagdish Pani was it’s editor and first issue was published in 1955. During 1955 to 1963, it was a regular monthly magazine. After that it became irregular.
Most writers of this magazine at that time were new in literary field. In course of time many became established, Ramakanta Rath, Bibhuti Patnaik being some of them. Samabesa contained writings of some established writers as well. It covered all categories of literature – story, essay, novel, poem, review, discussion etc. .
In 1950s, Sukadeb Sahu, Kanduri Charana Das, Hrudananda Mallik and Jagdish Pani etc. from Kendrapada and Pattamundai went to Calcutta in search of livelihood. There Akuli Misra was trying to organize the migrant Odias. They tried to work for the development of Odia literature. First Kanduri Charana Das, Hrudananda Mallik, Jadunath Dasmahapatra and Ramachandra Harichandan started the publication of Asantakali. It became very popular. Then Jagdish Pani started Samabesa.
Jagdish Pani tried to give a new collective style to the editorship. Poetry section was edited by Rajendra Kishor Panda, story section was looked after by Mahapatra Nilamani Sahu and essay section was edited by Chintamani Behera. The idea was to enrich the magazine with their diverse experience in the respective fields.
No wealthy person or influential political leader was behind this magazine. From the beginning Samabesa had the ideology that it will not make this magazine a business venture. It was meant for literature only. That is why the magazine faced a heavy loss and became irregular. In 1977, it became a quarterly from monthly. Along with this, a book publication unit – Samabesa Prakashani – was also started. It’s first publication was Harekrusna Mahatab’s novel ‘Trutiya Parba’. Stories and poems published in Samabesa were also compiled into two books – ‘Galpa Samabesha’ and ‘Kabita Samabesha’. Harekrusna Mahatab’s jail experience during emergency was published as the last part of ‘Trutiya Parba’. Stories written during that period was published as a book – ‘Andhajugara Kahani’ – edited by Hrushikesa Mallik and Satrughna Pandav.
From 1975, the famous story writer Akhil Mohan Patnaik became the chief editor of Samabesa. In 1982, Akhil Patnaik passed away suddenly. After him, the earlier managing editor of Jhankar Sasibhusan Misra and then Harihara Misra took the charge of editorship. But since from the very beginning it was not a commercial success nobody came forward to continue its publication. Jagdish Pani passed away on the 2nd September, 1994. The magazine folded up after publishing only a few issues following his death.
Samabesa Index
The table below lists the available issues of Samabesa in digital form and also provides links for downloading these. For easy downloading the volumes have been broken up into smaller parts with smaller file size, but it may still take some time depending on the internet connection speed. Clicking on the image or issues files will initiate download.The issues liste in black and without images or links in the table cells below have not been found by us.
Sample pages have been provided for previewing the contents/quality before downloading the larger files. These will open in new browser tabs when clicked on.
The index for Samabesa could not be prepared since a large number of issues are not available,.
It was very difficult to get issues of Samabesa. The issues featured here have been collected primarily from: Smt. Priyambada Patra (Custodian of Prof. Sibarama Patra’s collection), Prof. Nityananda Satapathy, Dr. Sricharan Mohanty and Kedarnath Gabeshana Pratisthan Library.
| ନମୁନା ଖଣ୍ଡ ୧ Sample 1 |
ନମୁନା ଖଣ୍ଡ ୨ Sample 2 |
ନମୁନା ଖଣ୍ଡ ୩ Sample 3 |
ନମୁନା ଖଣ୍ଡ ୪ Sample 4 |