Once a bustling haven for book lovers, the iconic College Street in the heart of Kolkata now bears the scars of relentless September rains. Torrential downpours on September 22 and 23 submerged nearly every shop along the stretch. Thousands of books, rare editions, Puja specials, and school syllabi titles, have turned to pulp. The loss is far more than financial; it is an erosion of a lifetime of literature, passion, and knowledge.
Maruf Hossain, 45, has run the Abhiyan Book Café for 21 years. Rainwater destroyed stock worth nearly one lakh rupees. Campaign books, magazines, little publications, computers, and sound systems are all gone. “This year’s rains have caused unprecedented damage,” he said quietly. “We’ve never seen anything like this, not even during Cyclone Amphan. This surpasses everything.”
The storm struck without warning. No weather alerts were issued, and with the Ganges swelling nearby and drains clogged, the deluge had nowhere to escape but into the shops. Hossain’s store now stands hollow. He salvaged what little he could. “Thankfully, no rare books were lost,” he said with faint relief. But vital records, including last year’s bills and printed documents, have vanished. Other sellers, he added, weren’t as lucky — some lost irreplaceable editions impossible to find again.
Hossain fears for Bengali literature’s fragile ecosystem. “This is a big blow to the world of Bengali books and literature,” he said. Small and medium publishers, he worries, are on the brink.
“Savings might cover my losses, but for others, the situation is dire.” He estimated damages across College Street at several crores of rupees. Though private aid has arrived through gestures from readers, it remains insufficient. “The help we’ve received doesn’t match the scale of loss. Without government assistance, recovery is impossible.”
No official relief has reached them yet. Hossain, along with the Kolkata Creative Publishers’ Welfare Association, has appealed to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for a dedicated pumping station and a fire station for quick response. “The government needs a plan so that such incidents don’t recur, or at least the damage can be minimised,” he said. Political
parties, he claimed, have remained largely silent.
For 29-year-old Sourav Bishai, who founded Barta Prakashan nearly a decade ago, the damage is devastating. Around 3,000 books — including freshly printed Puja editions — have been destroyed. His printing office fared worse, with half the machinery submerged and still nonfunctional. “September 22 and 23 were terrible days,” he recalled. “We’ve faced many challenges over the years, but this natural disaster pushed us to the edge.”
Bishai compared the floods to earlier crises, the COVID lockdowns and Cyclone Amphan. “This was worse,” he said. “It rained all night. No one was in the shop. The water stagnated in this low-lying area for hours.” Among the losses were research papers and journals on Kolkata and Vivekananda. “Several books we were about to publish are gone. The research is lost forever.”
To recover, Bishai plans a book fair with small and large publishers to sell partially damaged books at discounted rates. “Standing together gives us strength,” he said. Yet his appeals to the Chief Minister have gone unanswered. “Both the ruling and opposition parties have remained silent about our losses.”
Deeper in the lanes, Tuhin Saha, 47, faces double grief. After working on College Street for 20 years, he opened two stores — Anindita Book Stall and Boi er Aturghor — over the last decade. The floods devoured textbooks on physics, chemistry, mathematics, and biology, along with rare magazines, some of which had only a handful of copies left worldwide. “I’ve lost around ₹70,000 to ₹80,000 worth of books,” he said.
Saha’s anguish runs deep. Delicate, decades-old pages crumbled at the touch of water. Irreplaceable works by Sunil Gangopadhyay, Hemendra Kumar Roy, Sukumar Ray, and Swapan Kumar are gone. “These thin little books carry the emotions of every Bengali,” he said. “Their loss is irreparable.”
He acknowledged the relief efforts but questioned their limits. “Even if help comes, can we ever get back those books that were the soul of Bengal? Those emotions can’t be recreated.” Saha added, “Only regular visitors care about College Street. They come, buy a few books, and support us out of love. But the constant fundraisers put pressure even on them.”
What Saha longs for most is permanence. “Someone must take responsibility,” he said. “The Chief Minister, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, and local authorities must work together to ensure that water drains quickly and doesn’t stagnate.” For two decades, he has watched the same cycle of flooding repeat. “Earlier, KMC workers cleaned the drains and manholes regularly,” he alleged. “That no longer happens.”
Saha’s final question lingers like an ache: “How do we rewrite those books by Bengal’s greats with the same emotion? We simply can’t.”
