A month-old website, shonakatha.com, offers audio versions of short stories in an effort to digitise classic Bengali literature and make it accessible to the younger generation
Au00a0month-old website, shonakatha.com, offers audio versions of short stories in an effort to digitise classic Bengali literature and make it accessible to the younger generationu00a0u00a0
Eleven year-old Bhuvana and eight year-old Bhairav live in Bangalore. Though they understand their mother tongue (Bengali), they cannot read the alphabet. In March this year, their parents, Sreejata and Dipankar Ganguly, realised the missing link and founded Shonakatha, an online repository of Bengali audio tales. 
"In the last decade, my wife Sreejata has translated 10 to 12 Bengali books into English and she was faced with the challenge of keeping the soul of the text and the charm of the language alive. That's when we came up with Shonakatha, a website that digitally archives classic short stories in the form of Bengali audio tales," said Dipankar, a software engineer by profession.
The name Shonakatha was chosen for the project thanks to its dual usage. Depending on how it's used, the word Shona can either mean to listen to stories or golden stories. At present, the site boasts of 20 short stories by writers including Rabindranath Tagore and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay.
You can read famous short stories such as Tagore's Kabuliwallah as well as lesser known ones by other authors. To celebrate the Bengali New Year (April 14), stories by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, author of the iconic Pather Panchali, will also be uploaded on the site.
Once you log on, you can browse through a brief history of the authors and listen to short excerpts from the stories to decide which audio story you wish to hear. After you pay you can download the audio file, in Mp3 format, to listen on your computer. You can also download the audio file on to your cell phone and listen to the story while on the go. If you don't have access to the net, you can email the duo with a request for a CD of the story, which will be mailed to you.
The stories vary in duration from 20 minutes to 50 minutes and have been narrated by six voice artists who have been involved with audio dramas. These artists have perfected the art of painting a picture with sound alone over several years.
As the couple is based in Bangalore, their Kolkata-based creative director Swapna Guha handles the labour-intensive making of the audio tales, which take anywhere from a fortnight to 20 days each.
"We haven't tampered with the stories in any way. There are no additional sounds or songs that have been added to spice up the tales. The storytellers' voice is the sole medium by which listeners are transported to a bygone era," added Ganguly.
Shonakatha's target audience consists of adults and children who wish to listen to original Bengali stories and the narrators, in a way, are symbolic of grandparents who in joint families would acquaint the younger generation to such stories.
According to Dipankar, "The audio version of stories can also be used by the visually impaired and by Bengalis (belonging to the younger generation or living overseas), who can't read the language." If they are able to gather sufficient funds, Shonakatha may soon become a free download site. A golden thought, indeed.
Log on to: www.shonakatha.com
Cost: Rs 50 per story, Rs 150 for a set of five stories
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