 In 1998, I used to work still at Tulika Books with Hindu and I had been working there for about four or five years and I had actually got sick of publishing. So I quit my job at Tulika and I went to the party and I said I want to be a, you know, a whole-timer or I'll do full-time work for the party and then Prakash told me that they are planning to set up a publishing house and they wanted somebody to set it up basically. I think it was a left project that was long overdue. In the old days they used to be PPH and PPH as you know collapsed particularly after the end of the Soviet Union. PPH had played a remarkable role. I was an undergraduate student in Delhi and I know that PPH books used to be really kind of much anticipated, much bought, much discussed and so on. After its collapse there had been few kind of small ventures like Social Scientist Press brought out a few books and so on but they never really had taken off. So when left word was being thought about, it was quite exciting and so I promptly agreed to it. We will publish books on Marx's theory, we will publish books on the ideological debates of the time. We will publish books about left-wing movements and struggles around the world. You know there was this whole idea of setting up a publishing house that would be like the Victor and Golang's of the British Communist Party for instance and the kind of association and distance that a publishing house would have to have necessarily between, you know, publish what is squarely left Marxist in its ideology and yet be acceptable to a wide readership. And then we used to have these long, day-long meetings which were most exciting. The meetings were attended at one stage. In Ram was involved, Ajaz was involved, I was involved, Prakash of course would be always there, Sudhu Sugandha would always be there, Indu would be there, V.K. Ramachandran used to be associated. So it would be, I mean not that all of them were there in every meeting but it was quite an exciting gathering of people. Initially, it was the first office in Rajendraprasad in the left world. There was nothing. Until then, we had to start our publishing house in these rooms. At the beginning of the publishing house, we started painting. We painted the doors and the doors of the radicolor. Initially, I think we only had one computer, those old, you know, big desktops. And then Prakash had decided already what the first book is going to be. We started with the publication of a book called A World to Win, which is a collection of essays on the communist manifesto and its relevance to the contemporary world. This book also had an interest, according to me, a more interesting section on how the communist manifesto came to India and how it was first published in different Indian languages. Fortunately, just before we had done the book, Prakash had already decided that we would have a book club. And so the first working capital actually came because we immediately, as soon as the book club scheme was announced, we got some 2-300 people who signed up immediately. And so the first book came out of that money. Very soon with Sudhanvata Helm, they were amongst the earliest adopters of technology to service customers. So we had an e-commerce-enabled website at a time when some of the big publishers in India didn't even have a website. This was 1999, 2000, 2001. We had dial-up modems. We didn't have broadband connectivity. We would be delighted if we'd get one order a week on the website. You know, if you got four or five orders in a month, you'd be, yeah, great job, guys. At that time it seemed like a very bold move. It was a left publishing house emerging at a time when leftist thinking was really on the decline. And so it was bold because it had an ambition that we can actually not just keep the flame burning, but resurrect it almost and expand it. In many instances, we were the only publishing house which published against the tide of opinion. For instance, when India conducted the Pokhran test, the nuclear test in 1998, we brought out books arguing against India's nuclear weaponization. I think the first book that I produced for Leftward was War Against the Planet, which was written in a very, very big hurry to meet deadlines so that we'd have a signpost out on the attack on the United States in 2001 and the war against Afghanistan. Over a period of time, Leftward has also done some very, very interesting publishing and one wouldn't associate directly with only left-wing politics, which is in the cultural sphere broadly, in the international progressive cultural sphere. So the book on Palestine, for example, on the freedom theater, you know, the two volumes on the freedom theater. In fact, some of our best-selling books have been written by what would be not considered as left writers or journalists. For example, A. G. Nurani's books, they are some of our best-selling books. His book on the BJP and the RSS was truly made a big impact, you know. I've seen people from other political parties, you know, quoting from his book, you know. Professionalism of Leftward and small publishing houses much higher in terms of the editing quality, in terms of the personal care that is taken in the production of the book and the marketing and the publicity of the book. No corporate house gives that kind of attention. Pharmacize the book. I forgot the name. For that book, Sudhu was searching for the cover page. So the different opinion were the, then at last, Sudhu took one photo, five of us, a hand like this, we got different hands. For example, Kisan Longmerge, he is from Maharashtra. That book was a huge challenge for us. So we had to give that book to the party congress, the Hyderabad party congress. And we had a total of seven days. We didn't know that it would reach us. We just said that we would do it. We didn't know that it would reach us. But yes, it finally reached us. We released the book. We have also then gone the next step. Many of our books are then translated and published in other Indian languages. We have not ever charged any royalties or anything. We just have to get permission from us and we have allowed them to freely publish. So many of our books have been published in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, etc. From the very beginning, we were keen on entering the publishing of Hindi books. And with the addition of Shipra, our Hindi book list is going to start expanding quite dramatically. Not just translating the English books into Hindi, but I'm very excited that we're going to start commissioning original books in Hindi, Marxist books, left books. I think there's an enormous appetite inside India for books in Hindi of and from the left. I feel that this is a new chapter in our light. The work of the left word has opened a new chapter. And there's a lot of fun in it. And we're getting a very good response. Let's see how much further we can take with us. In our previous office, we had one shelf where we used to keep our books. And those books were kept basically for packing purposes. And then because our book club also expanded to start selling other publishers' books like Tulika and others. So we started keeping their stock as well. And those books used to be kept on that shelf only so that the person who would do the packing could take out copies of whatever was required. And then somebody would turn up and start looking at the book shelf and say, Oh, can I buy this? Can I buy this? And you'd say, Yeah, sure. You know, just go right ahead. And then I found that more and more people somehow were spread and more and more people started coming in to a point where literally every day there was one person who was dropping in just to buy books. And I realized that, wow, there's a need for an alternative kind of bookstore. So then I was determined in my head that as and when we have space of our own, one part of that space, however large it is, or however small it is, one part of that space is going to be a dedicated bookstore. And I remember Sudhanba telling me with great delight when the architect of Prithvi Theatre visited him, Vaid Sagan and Sudhu took him around the studio and made a bookshop and a little office space. And Vaid turned around to Sudhanba and Sudhanba was just so delighted that he said, Vaid said, it's beautiful because you've actually thought of the flow of the human body through this space. And that's why it works. Setting up a bookstore in a place like Shadipur, anybody with a business head would say, you're an idiot to do that. And of course one is an idiot. A cafe and bookstore and perhaps a theatre space in the middle of that labour hood would be really breaking the everyday rhythm of that place. Disrupting it but I think disrupting it creatively because they are, who they are, classes for local children, classes for rich people. Where would you find in Delhi a space in which the proprietor or his or her team wants to chat about just any old book? Janam will also have plays, will also have performances, you know, like not just music or theatre, but just like a single person, one person show in that space on the side. So that's really important. What's there to be free? Anybody can get in. So a local child might have a chance to see that in his life. That this is also possible. There is something very specific to May Day Cafe and bookstore in Shadipur on May Day. All these things that come together. That makes it possible for me to one make endless cups of coffee and not feel tired until I stop making the coffee. Then the tiredness sets in. Or to be able to say what I wish to say, which I haven't always thought of previously now. So there's a spontaneity, but that spontaneity is rooted in what's happening on May Day. We have found that leftward books, people who come to leftward books become readers, associate themselves leftward, who have not come from the organized left or have not been part of any movement. But they have this thirst for knowledge they want to know. A nation does not exist if it doesn't think. And obviously these fellows are interested in preventing thought altogether. So it's very important for publishing houses like Leftward to survive and work in this very hostile environment. All the more important. The idea is to keep going forward because only independence can go forward without self-censorship or any other form of censorship. On the freedom to publish and the freedom to express. If leftward can continue to exist for the coming years and continue to do this innovative thing, they should just conduct more master classes with others. I mean the challenge of leftward has been what has excited me all throughout. The challenge of producing high quality Marxist and left-wing books for a general public, for a general reader, for young people, for scholars alike. And I think that has been really the most exciting thing. You know close to that of course is the team. I mean we have such an amazing team. It's not just a mission for them. It's also fun for them. They are also interested in it. And all of a sudden their enthusiasm shows in everything. The bookmarks show in everything. The books, the posters, the bookshops. When their people go with books, when they talk with the enthusiasm of the books, it shows that these people are completely connected to these books. They are connected to these thoughts. They are enjoying themselves in their work. The key issue for us as always is the politics of what we do. And so therefore we want to be in a position where we are able to help movements on the ground and produce material that would help them in conducting their struggles. In order for that to happen, we need an expanded team. In order for that to happen, we need to be able to publish, certainly in Hindi, in a much bigger way. And who knows what the future holds. But certainly English Hindi both have to become much bigger. And we have to be able to respond to things as they unfold in a much more life kind of a way. To be able to be more flexible in how we respond to things and so on. So I am hoping that with this really exciting new team that we have now suddenly, I am hoping that we are looking at more exciting days ahead.