Kali O Kolom is no little magazine with a radical heart, a non-existent budget line and running on enthusiasm rather than resources. It's a professional venture trying to turn a literary and culture magazine into a successful market initiative. Obviously, in the process its backers hope to free as much market space as it can from what has been occupied for long by dear old Desh from India. After four years of jogging, it is obvious that if anybody can give the Indian magazine a run for its money, it's Kali O Kolom. Edited by Abul Hasnat, this delta land's premier literary editor and tireless promoter of all writers, this magazine has a mainstream style and a table of contents that is both wide and enviable.

'The Editor of our Time'
Abul Hasnat and literary editorship has meant one and the same for a long while in Bangladesh. He has been dubbed 'The Editor of our Time' and is one of the few who is regularly remembered with gratitude by authors whether young or from the ancien regime. His support for them has always been unstinted.

But he is hardly a naïve champion of new writers. If anything he defends the right of good writings to exist rather than pieces by famous writers who have run out of steam. Abul Hasnat is not some woolly-eyed literary saint saving writers from oblivion; he has always been more in love with what writers produce, which explains why he has survived as an editor with his reputation intact.

The journey began in Sangbad where the literary page was way ahead of the paper--as is often the case elsewhere too--and probably set the literary standard for post-1971 Bengali literature. If his not-very-well-paid crusading life that had flourished on the brown, ragged, newsprint pages of Sangbad's weekly supplement ended one day after many successful seasons, it has found a more solid footing in the quality printed and designed pages of Kali O Kolom.

This publication is part of the cluster that is sponsored by the Bengal Group and is certainly the most established of the brood. It's a magazine that between its covers presents a credible case for good taste. Since its inaugural issue it has showcased a lot of quality-edited material.

Kali O Kolom: the current issue
Billed as the 3rd and 4th issue of the fourth year put together, the periodical under review has immense variety. Knowing everyone who matters in the literary world certainly helps an editor. He has gathered everyone into the fold-- from Sunil Ganguly writing a serial novel to M. Zafar Iqbal writing on bird flu. The names, the range of subjects, the task of putting them together and packaging it for all is what makes the editor and his orchestra work.

This issue has a number of quality essays. Gholam Mustafa's piece on the 100th anniversary of 'Charjpad' is both illuminating and lucid, written to be enjoyed by the reader. Manzur-e-Mowla digs into Tagore and his English rendering of Geetanjali, a work filled with historical references which makes book chasing as interesting as writing a book.

Hasan Ferdous, a prolific documentary commentator on expat life--his own and of others--pays attention to Ali Anwar, a fellow New York resident who has been recently honored for his work on Henrik Ibsen. And the caravan has other notable drivers too.

Apart from the essays, there is large feast of fiction, poetry and personal reminiscences. It's perhaps here that a reader may ask if Kali O Kolom is trying to widen its reach or increase its girth. But then, it has something for everyone. In the end this splendid scatter might make sense because who else is on the prowl in this town looking for the best in Bangla literature?

For a man who has in a way sacrificed significantly his own personal literary life in order to breathe life into the work of others, Abul Hasnat's is a remarkable and untold story. Many of our writers today are celebrities partly thanks to TV, but also because Abul Hasnat took an interest in that writer, fashioning in our times the craft of the editor who facilitates literary efforts into art.

Kali O Kolom is a homage to this ignored member of this gharana of greatness.

Afsan Chowdhury's four-volume study of the liberation war is titled Bangladesh 1971.