At Bankura’s biri factory, tradition of lectura still continues
The Statesman | 5 August 2025
What is the common between Fidel Castro’s Cuba and Ram Kinkar Baij’s faraway red and dusty Bankura, the native places of two legends? Incidentally Cuba and Bankura have a common connection of a century-old tradition of ‘lectura’, where a person (lector) reads newspaper headings sitting in a charpoy (wooden tool) to the labourers of famous cigar factories in Cuba and biri factory in Bankura.
Late Fidel Castro, the legendary president of Cuba, and Che Guevera were the poster boys for posing with world-famous Havana cigars globally. The tradition of lectura dates back to 19th century in cigar factories in Cuba and was started around 1865.
In Cuba, it’s a long-standing tradition for cigar factory workers to have a lector read aloud to them during their workday. This practice, known as ‘lectura’, involves a person reading newspapers, novels, and other texts to the workers as they roll cigars. The readings are meant to educate, entertain, and provide a sense of community within the factory.
The lectura is seen as a way to connect workers with the wider world, foster a sense of community, and even promote literacy. The lector typically chooses from a variety of texts, including newspapers (often with a focus on political and social issues), novels, and even dramatic readings.
Bankura Biri Silpi Cooperative Society Limited, situated on Rabindra Sarani of Bankura Town has been continuing with this tradition of lectura since the past seventy years, where an aged person reads newspaper headlines when the biri factory labourers roll their biris leaves.
In 1956, the tradition of reading newspaper headlines had started in the cooperative biri factory in Rabindra Sarani in Bankura. It had become instantly hit as the soccer loving labourers used to get news updates on Brazilian legend Pele through the newspaper headlines. But after the passing away, global darshan through his voice, came to an abrupt end.
Again in 1982, the management decided to take the initiative to reintroduce lectura in the Cooperative Biri Factory in Bankura town.
A 17-year-old local youth Pasupati Nag was picked for the lectura job for his clear voice and nose for selection of news headlines. Today, this septuagenarian person has been consistently visiting the factory regularly for the past 43 years and reads the headlines for about an hour at around 1 p.m. every day.
“I feel this is an honour to me reading the newspaper headlines for an hour on the microphone so that every biri worker hears my news reading and the tradition will continue till I am able to walk and read independently. I select the local, national and global news headlines be it political, sports, weather, entertainment and film and read before the audience whose eyes and hands are glued to their jobs of biri making, but their ears are on the world news,” said Pasupati Nag.
Instead of wooden charpoy today he sits upon an iron chair for an
hour and reads the newspaper headlines.
Gopal Das, Sumit Bangal are amongst those 60 biri workers who are still employed in the biri manufacturing factory in Bankura. They said that they don’t have television or radio sets to hear news, but get all those required global updates regularly through the voices of Pasupati Nag.
If he is sick or ill and becomes absent, few labourers themselves come ahead to read the headings for an hour, but the tradition of newspaper reading is going on 365 days since 1982 uninterrupted, the biri workers said. Though Pasupati Bag gets very little remuneration for his one hour service, the interest amongst the labourers to hear the headlines have brought him to this factory everyday since the past 40 years.