"K. Jackson Marshall, a Scottish gentleman selling books in New Market, Calcutta, met D. Mehra selling hosiery. Impressed by his sales pitch, Marshall asked him to join him in selling books. With meagre capital and his home doubling up as his office, the young man became the bookseller’s representative and started selling books. The new enterprise named ‘Rupa’, which means ‘silver’, was born in 1936. Fortune was favouring the brave and the young entrepreneur’s luck extended to have Rupa’s logo designed by Satyajit Ray. And the fee charged by the maestro—‘a few good books to read!’
As a result of World War II and the consequent instability in Calcutta, the Rupa family shifted to the then political capital of India—Allahabad (now Prayagraj) in 1939, sneaking in books to freedom fighters in jail. Post-Independence, Rupa expanded to Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1951, marking its presence in the commercial capital of the newly independent country. The late fifties and early sixties witnessed two important changes in Indian publishing. First, language publishing started in an organized fashion, and Indian authors were persuaded to publish in India, rather than seek a publisher abroad. Second, the large US funding, committed to making American textbooks available at low prices, encouraged the opening of Indian subsidiaries of American publishing companies. Around this time, Rupa extended its business and ventured into publishing, starting with two slim volumes of Bengali poetry. In 1960, Peter Laughlin, the chairman of New Directions, New York, persuaded Rupa to publish Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. And thus with the acclaimed biography of Gautam Buddha began Rupa’s journey into publishing and ‘The House of Bestsellers’ was born.
The seventies and eighties saw the company set up offices not only in Delhi, but also Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, thus completing Rupa’s representation in the major book markets in India. This decade saw Rupa’s successful foray into the world of sports publishing with books by Sir Don Bradman, widely acknowledged as the greatest Test batsman of all time, and the great trio—Vinoo Mankad, Vijay Hazare and Mushtaq Ali. Later, sporting greats like Erapalli Prasanna and Sandeep Patil joined Rupa’s team as authors.
Our emphasis on sports continues with inspiring biographies of Vijay Amritraj, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Pullela Gopichand, Milkha Singh and Sanath Jayasuriya. Giving recognition to our sporting heroes, we have brought out The Winning Series, which chronicles the lives of icons including Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Virat Kohli and Saina Nehwal. And keeping the record keepers busy, two of our most cherished books—Sunil Gavaskar’s Sunny Days (published in 1976) and Idols (published in 1982)—broke all records in sports books’ sales. Sunny Days—considered as one of the greatest books in the sports genre by sportspersons, cricket enthusiasts, observers and commentators of the game— continues to be in print till today, a world record for any sports autobiography. Gavaskar’s Straight Drive (published in 2009) also topped the bestsellers list.
In the 1980s, Rupa re-energized its focus on paperback publishing and marketing. A remarkable feature of the Rupa paperback list was, and continues to be, is its affordable pricing. Combined with cutting-edge publishing skill set, the company scaled newer heights.
The turn of the century saw Rupa’s foray into yet another genre of publishing, catering to a wider audience with its eclectic range of cookbooks and food memoirs by stalwarts such as Camellia Panjabi, Premila Lal and Vimla Patil. This continues into the present with The Jewels of Nizam: Recipes from the Khansamas of Hyderabad, and the forthcoming magnum opus, Lazzatnama, by the redoubtable Pushpesh Pant.
Not one to rest on our laurels, our list has only grown robust over the years. The range of our titles—both fiction and nonfiction—together with the vast reach of our distribution network, has made Rupa a favourite among readers.
In 2011, Rupa joined hands with David Davidar and co-founded a literary publishing entity, Aleph Book Company, which prides itself in publishing books of enduring quality from (and about) India and other South Asian countries.
Our non-fiction list carries books that have caught—and will catch—the country’s imagination. Mann Ki Baat captures the common thread of positivity and optimism that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has woven through his popular and ubiquitous monthly radio address, while A Journey is a hugely popular compilation of lyrical poems by Prime Minister Modi. Our list of bestsellers includes The Presidential Years: 2012–2017 by former President Pranab Mukherjee; By Many a Happy Accident by former Vice President M. Hamid Ansari and Justice for the Judge by former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi. Our other critically acclaimed titles include 10 Flashpoints; 20 Years by Manish Tewari, Veer Savarkar by Uday Mahurkar and Chirayu Pandit, Catalyse by Krish Shankar, Politics and Geopolitics by Harsh V. Pant, Pivots for Career Success by R. Gopalakrishnan and R. Srinivasan, Decisive Decade by Kiran Karnik, Going Viral by Balram Bhargava and Navaratri by Bibek Debroy and Anuradha Goyal.
Having published icons such as former President of India R. Venkataraman and Pranab Mukherjee as well as Acharya Kripalani, L.K. Advani, J.R.D. Tata, F.C. Kohli, Kishore Biyani, Ronnie Screwvala, Maharani Gayatri Devi, Ram Jethmalani, Mark Tully, S.Y. Quraishi, Syeda Hameed, K. Natwar Singh and Jaswant Singh, to name just a few, we have successfully kept the momentum going by recently publishing books by Bimal Jalan, Sanjaya Baru, Meghnad Desai, Subramanian Swamy, N.K. Singh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Jay Panda, Salman Khurshid and Kapil Sibal.
Gazing at the stars and bringing their real stories from the reel has been Rupa’s forte and we have not let our fans down.
Shashi Kapoor, R.D. Burman, Ram Gopal Varma, Ayushmann Khurrana, Dharmendra, Mithun Chakraborty, Louiz Banks, Meghna Gulzar, Prasoon Joshi, Priyanka Chopra, Irrfan Khan, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and LaxmikantPyarelal’s biography and autobiography have been our own sweet blockbuster story.
We, at Rupa, never rest on our laurels. Close on the heels of some truly great publishing in 2021, we are geared up for an exciting and invigorating list across fiction and nonfiction in the year ahead. The year’s muchawaited autobiography of Manish Malhotra will be followed by the memoirs of senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Ghulam Nabi Azad, the autobiography of former Indian Test player Gundappa Vishwanath and memoir of cricket’s formidable administrator Ratnakar Shetty titled On Board. The year’s crop of new releases include books by some of our favourite authors–Amitabh Kant, Sanjaya Baru, Vinod Rai, Subramanian Swamy, Kapil Sibal, Prakash Singh, Rajiv Malhotra, Bibek Debroy and Sandeep Shastri among others—which rival their previous releases and a whole host of new authors who are all set to put out stellar reads. Some of the famous names that are writing for us this year are Hardeep Puri, Sanjeev Sanyal, Ravi Venkatesan, Sunil Deodhar, Makarand Paranjape, Khalid Ansari and NS Rajan.
In fiction, we continue to publish some of the best writers of the subcontinent, including Ruskin Bond, Terry O’Brien, Saiswaroopa Iyer, Siddhartha Gigoo, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, Arpit Bakshi, Sorabh Pant and Anuj Tiwari.
All this, in addition to publishing some of the icons and bestselling authors like A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Ruskin Bond, R.K. Narayan, Satyajit Ray, Khushwant Singh, Ramesh Menon, Gulzar, Derek O’Brien, Radhakrishnan Pillai... the list is endless. Our success is due not only to our loyal base of authors and readership but also a consequence of the teamwork and dedication of all at Rupa. As we continue on this remarkable journey, we hope to remain the publisher of choice, providing a wide selection of great books that will entertain, engage, move and delight."
