An IT specialist by profession, Abhra Pal, a resident of Melbourne, has also engaged himself in literature.
Out of that interest, he started the online platform ‘O Kolkata’ about 10 years ago and is still running it. And today, O Kolkata is not only a writing platform, it serves as a publisher as well.
In the beginning, Abhra wanted to start a quality online magazine, where only good writing would be published, selected by the editors.
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Then the Covid lockdown started in Australia and all over the world. During that time, the people behind O Calcutta decided to digitize the magazine.
Since he is associated with IT, as a solution, Abhra came up with an app of their own, where anyone can read the magazine.
At the same time, Abhra Pal published a book of poetry in English, written by himself, using a well-known print-on-demand service.
প্রিন্ট অন ডিমান্ডের মাধ্যমে বাংলা বই প্রকাশের উদ্যোগ নিয়েছেন অভ্র পাল Source: Abhra Pal
As a result, he had the opportunity to distribute his books to most of the countries in the world.
It was then Abhra thought, why can’t this be done for Bangla books as well? With this plan in mind, he registered ‘O Kolkata’ as a publisher in Australia and India.
But publishing books in Bangla is difficult, because Bangla fonts are not supported in most of the print on demand services.
Abhra Pal speaks to SBS Bangla about how he and the people behind ‘O Kolkata’ overcame the difficulty, and what are their future plans.
To listen to the interview in Bangla, please click on the audio-player button above.
Tune into SBS Bangla every Monday and Saturday from 6 to 7 pm.
