There are victories that history remembers — revolutions won, lovers united, masterpieces made. But what about the stories of those who faltered, who felt too much, who wrote instead of winning? At Baithakkhana Chapter 2, the second edition of an annual literary meet, curated by Chandril Bhattacharya, Sanchari Mookherjee, and Tausif Rahman at Kolkata Centre for Creativity, it was the defeated who took centre stage.
Two of Bengal’s finest actors, Swastika Mukherjee and Anirban Bhattacharya, brought to life a selection of letters written not in triumph, but in torment, in one of the sessions on Day 2 of the three-day event. Titled Letters: Faded into Oblivion, the letter-reading session peeled back the layers of fame and genius to reveal what lies beneath: the fractures, the failures, the aching humanity.
Swastika Mukherjee opened the evening with a powerful curation of letters that traced the contours of female desire and despair. Frida Kahlo’s searing words to Diego Rivera, written between bouts of physical agony and emotional devastation, spoke of a woman undone and remade by love. Amrita Pritam’s epistolary confessions to Sahir Ludhianvi were drenched in longing — for the man, for the poet, for the possibility of a love that never quite arrived. From Simone de Beauvoir’s intellectual passion to Nelson Algren; and Lady Ranu Mukherjee’s soft, aching notes to Rabindranath Tagore, Swastika gave voice to women who may have been adored, but were ultimately left waiting.
In each letter, the theme of defeat lingered, not as weakness, but as quiet courage — the ability to keep feeling, writing, and remembering even after the world had turned away.
Swastika and Anirban brought to life a selection of letters written not in triumph, but in torment
Anirban Bhattacharya followed with a performance that was restrained yet devastating. His readings from Vincent Van Gogh’s letters to his brother Theo revealed a soul unravelling — desperate for recognition, for connection, for peace of mind. Oscar Wilde’s famous letter from prison, De Profundis, written to Lord Alfred Douglas, was a tragic love song laced with regret. Luigi Pirandello’s words to Marta Abba pulsed with the ache of an old man still waiting to be understood. And Franz Kafka’s letter to his father — part indictment, part elegy — was perhaps the most shattering, laying bare the psychological weight of a son doomed never to measure up.
In Anirban’s voice, the defeated weren’t pitiable. They were profound.
What made the evening remarkable wasn’t just the letters themselves, but how they were framed within the ethos of Baithakkhana — a space for slowing down, reflecting, and reclaiming forgotten textures of thought. And in that quiet room at KCC, their voices echoed once more.
Srijato and Upal Sengupta during their collaborative session of verse and song
The evening concluded on a soul-stirring note with poet Srijato and singer-songwriter Upal Sengupta of Chandrabindoo fame taking the stage. Their collaborative session of verse and song was a final ode to the theme of The Defeated. Srijato’s poems — tender, bruised and bitingly honest — spoke of failed lovers, lost causes, and the melancholy of slipping through life’s cracks. Upal’s rendition of timeless tunes like Bhindeshi Tara and Onno Kothao Chol lent the gathering a wistful romanticism, his music turning the pain of loss into something strangely luminous. It was the perfect curtain call — not with triumph, but with truth.
“In this edition of KCC Baithakkhana, we celebrate the stories of the defeated. We explore the craft and magic behind how we come to identify with and empathise with the unfortunate and the doomed,” the organisers said in a statement. “We may admire the victors, but our deepest sympathies lie with the vanquished. The image of Karna struggling to free his chariot wheel from the ground remains far more powerful than the countless victories of Arjuna.”
