In 2011, the Class IX students of a Kidderpore school were handed an unusual art project. It was called broken glass painting. It was not just painting on glass, but on pieces of broken glass glued onto their work. For most students, finding broken glass would mean a wild and goose chase across the city or just outsourcing the dangerous job of breaking glass to the guardians. For these students, it meant one simple stop: Sailen Da’r Dokan in Behala Purono Bazar.
When they told Sailen Da what they needed, he didn’t just hand them glass sheets. He carefully broke them himself, weighed the pieces, and packed them neatly. He was known for this kind of magic. He would turn impossible-sounding requests into ready-to-use craft kits so students wouldn’t have to run from store to store.
Parents still joke that his shop is a Pandora’s Box. “If you went looking for tiger’s milk, you might just find it here,” they say.
The shop, over 70 years old, is a lifeline for students, artists and anyone with a creative need
The man behind the counter was Sailendranath Sadhukhan, or Sailen Da to everyone who knew him. His shop, over 70 years old, became a lifeline for students, artists and anyone with a creative itch in Behala, Sakherbazar, Thakurpukur, New Alipore and beyond.
Since his passing in 2015, his sons Madan and Pradip Sadhukhan have carried forward the legacy. “We make sure no customer leaves empty-handed. If we don’t have something, we arrange it. Just give us a day or two. That is what my father created — a strong customer base and a well-stocked inventory,” said Madan. Today, the family runs three stores under the same name in the Purono Bazar area, each one marked by Bengali signs proudly reading “Sailen Da’r Dokan.”
Today, Sailendranath Sadhukhan’s family runs three stores under the same name in the Purono Bazar area
Artist Partha Mukherjee, known as Kolkata’s ‘Coffeeman’, still remembers the shop as a “Kalpataru” — a wish-fulfilling tree. “From stationery to gardening tools, Sailen Da was our first stop. Once I needed cotton paper, which no shop in Behala stocked. Two days after I asked, his shop had it. That was the kind of magic he was capable of.”
For Thakurpukur resident Josephine Tigga, it’s “the one-stop solution for every craft item.” For Behala Blind School’s Bidisha Ghosh, it’s “our own Amazon” — a place she still visits with her daughters whenever they need something at the last minute.
Pritha Das, a retired school teacher, is pursuing her hobby of making crafts. She is a loyal customer of the shop and recalls how her unusual demand was fulfilled by Sailen Da back in 2008. “I had to make a crib for the nativity play in my school. For that, I needed quite a lot of straw (hay). I went to his shop and told him that I needed at least a kilo of hay. He immediately sent his boy somewhere and got a bag of hay for me. I don’t remember him charging anything for it. That was Sailen Da for you!”
“Yes, the competition has grown. Yes, online shopping has changed the way people buy things. But walk down the narrow lane to Sailen Da’r Dokan and you’ll still find that spark. The feeling that whatever odd, rare or impossible thing you’re looking for, it might just be waiting behind the counter,” concluded Das.
