Case Study

Preserving Cultural Heritage through Family Memoirs

The Challenge

Every family has its treasure chest of stories. How do we record these for posterity?

No matter how big or small, the stories of where we come from matter. They are a record of why and who we are today. Whether we are fortunate enough to have many generations of raconteurs in our midst at every family gathering, or we have a leaner list of history keepers, many of us wish to preserve these priceless memories before those who hold them are no longer with us.

The question is how? Even the most enthusiastic family member who wants to create a document for future generations might not have the time, energy or skills to bring them to life.

The Strategy

To immortalise family legacies, the Allcap books team has developed a multi-faceted approach involving detailed curation, documentation and contextualisation. The team of skilled researchers, writers and editors, drawn from newsrooms and publishing houses, have been working with clients to immortalise family legacies. Here’s how the process works:

Story collection and curation

The Allcap team works closely with families to gather and curate anecdotes passed down through generations. Tales of partition, of parents and in-laws and their contribution during the freedom movement, stories of personal hardship and achievement – these accounts run the gamut of human experience.

These stories are edited to make them more readable, while maintaining their essence. Pictures, where available, are digitised and included, too.

Building the family tree

A visual document of the many branches of a family is an impactful starting point for a family memoir.

Contextualisation

Each narrative can be placed in its broader context – historically, and culturally – if that fits the client’s vision. This can be woven into the stories to create a complete picture of the family’s journey.

Publishing

Even a relatively slender memoir of 20,000 to 30,000 words can become a book to touch, hold, and pass down. It can be translated into regional languages such as Bengali or Hindi to ensure the account can be enjoyed by all. Allcap can create print-ready files and ebooks.

The Results

Here’s a showcase of some of the family memoir projects we have completed.

Narayanganj Diary

Size: 5.5 x 8.5 inchesPages: 88

Narayanganj Diary is the story of one of the most illustrious families of Narayanganj–the Guhas. They lived in a beautiful, sprawling abode called ‘Ananda Bhaban’, till the partition of India compelled them to abandon their idyllic home and move to Calcutta, and then eventually spread across the world. Two fourth-generation Guhas have chronicled the story of their roots, replete with nostalgia and humour, to take readers into the hearts of an illustrious family and its legacy.

Growing Up in 20th Century East India: Memories of Parents from Another Generation

Size: 5.5 x 8.5 inchesPages: 144 (in English and Bengali)

Kalpana Dasgupta, the first and only woman librarian of the National Library of India, Kolkata, and the first and only woman Director of the Central Secretariat Library, New Delhi, tells the remarkable story of her parents and in-laws and their inspiring actions during the freedom movement. The book is a tribute to the forward-thinking attitudes of a generation that believed in liberation of the mind.

House of Roys

Size: 6 x 9.25 inchesPages: 128

Behind-the-scenes stories from an era when Bengal was in the high noon of its political pre-eminence, told through the family history of the Roys of Behala. Recounted by Probir Roy, this book sparkles with anecdotes featuring several eminent individuals, including Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, M. N. Roy, Dr. B. C. Roy, Yuri Gagarin, C. R. Das, A. K. Fazlul Haque, Jyoti Basu and Russi Mody!

And then there is the tale of a young lady who put her hands inside the jaws of a snarling Bengal tiger – a pet – to save a boy from being mauled. The young lady, Shyamsundari Devi, lived to tell the story to her grandson – the author of this book.

Madam Sir: The Story of Bihar’s First Lady IPS Officer

Size: 5.5 x 8.5 inchesPages: 327

A masterclass in courage, resilience and leadership by a woman who broke new ground and thrived despite being viewed with disbelief and derision by her colleagues, Madam Sir is a stirring account of a sheltered girl’s rise to the top echelons of the Indian Police Service.

Set against the backdrop of significant events such as the Bhagalpur blindings, the 1984 Sikh riots and Lalu Prasad’s reign in Bihar, Madam Sir looks at the IPS from the inside, through a woman’s eyes.

Beguiled: A Real-Life Story of How a Woman got Conned in Life

Size: 5.5 x 8.5 inchesPages: 256

Gitanjali met Randeep Singh Taneja at a farmhouse party in Delhi. She was a single mother, a divorcee, and he was five years younger. They became friends, went for walks together, had coffee, and soon he proposed. She refused, he beguiled her, they fell in love, and finally she said yes.

It was only after their move to London that Gitanjali noticed that her husband was not all that he claimed to be. There were random phone calls from women who either claimed to be his wife or girlfriend, a child who called him ‘Papa’, photographs of him with other women. At first, he seemed to have reasonable explanations for all this. His lies were ultimately revealed when she checked his cell phone and discovered the many lives he was leading across the world.