Associational life and Creativity
The working hypothesis of my current book project is that there is a causal link between associational life and creative endeavours. A vibrant associational life generates more creative artefacts than an emaciated one. Implicit in this proposition is the direction of causality, associational life occurs first, creative outputs come later.
Imagine my surprise when I came across the first issue of Krittibas magazine, undoubtedly the most impactful Bengali literary journal of the fifties and sixties. The very first editorial states clearly that one of the main aims of the journal is to develop close social bond between the young and upcoming poets of Calcutta. Running a magazine is a good excuse to get together for an adda, so the direction of causality sometimes goes the other way as well!
The magazine was of course a big success, and so was the adda, that informal gathering of poets, which it engendered. Sarat Kumar Mukhopadhyay, one of the editors of Krittibas, has written about it in his essay ‘Krittbaser Adda’, a copy of which is available here.
