Krittibas. This little magazine  which saw the light of the day on a rain soaked afternoon in the  month of July, 50 years ago,  from a little known press in Wellington square, is one of the leading magazines in Bengali today  Did the young editor had a vision of this day, fifty years down the line? Not really. For him Krittibas meant writing more poems, making more friends and maybe at the outset trying to bring about a revolution in the Bengali poetry. Dipak Majumdar and Ananda Bagchi were  compatriots in this venture , but it was not before long that  Sunil Gangopadhyay had to start rowing this small boat himself. The once upon a  time small boat has now taken the shape of a huge liner , a  platform shared by the veteran and young poets alike.

 Fifty years is actually a long time. It’s quite natural that Krittibas’ journey in these fifty years would  not have been smooth.  Breaking pace intermittently, it nevertheless has trudged on. When Sunil Gangopadhyay went  abroad on a study tour, Sarat Kumar Mukhopadhyay and Belal Choudhury took up the reins. Later Samarendra Sengupta was editor for some time. This magazine had always remained very dear to the young poets . Like today most of the poets felt elated when their poems were published in this magazine. Krittibas had become a myth very soon after its inception. After a long hibernation Krittibas reinvented itself as a monthly magazine.  But this again ran into rough weather.. A long lull. Finally a great friend of Krittibas Bhaskar Dutta was instrumental in rejuvenating the magazine and Krittibas reappeared, with  help from Pradip Chandra Basu. Initially it was an annual number but later with Bijesh Saha of Pratibhas  coming forward to publish the magazine and Rupak Chakroborty helping Kriitibas , it  started appearing  bi-annually and soon enough  four issues in a year.