Bynge on this app for Tamil serial fiction stories

CHENNAI: Mid-week cheer in my grandmother’s house was all about eagerly waiting for the arrival of the latest weekly editions of Tamil magazines Kumudham and Ananda Vikatan. As soon as they made an entry, the elders of the house would sit in rapt attention reading their favourite serial fiction for the magazines had drama, classics, thriller, romance and a whole lot of worldly knowledge packed into them. 

Notion Press’ Naveen Valsakumar, Jana Pillay and Bhargava Adepally are among the scores of fans of Tamil serial fiction. Last year, when the virus-induced lockdown was imposed, it gave them time to go back to their love of reading serial fiction. That’s when they realised that apart from magazines and newspapers — to an extent — serialised fiction as a market has not been tapped yet. Thus, was born the Bynge app.

“Culturally, we have all grown up reading serial fiction. We wanted youngsters to take to it too. We realised that people stop reading mainly because of the lack of availability of quality content. Since we have access to good writers, we thought why not delve into this space where we can popularise serial fiction once again,” begins Naveen. The trio reached out to top writers of Tamil Nadu to contribute to the app’s content generation. 

While conceptualising took about three months, it was building the catalogue that took the better part of last year. “We thought of starting it as a site through our Notion Press portal. But after the accumulation of content we decided it will be better as an app,” he adds. The app now has 100 serials scripted by 70-80 writers. Currently, they are dispensing Tamil content and eventually hope to rope in writers of other regional languages like Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam and Bengali. 

A new episode or two is released every week, keeping readers on the edge. While they wait, readers can comment and also chat with the authors. For veteran crime-thriller writer and Naveen’s favourite Rajesh Kumar, this feedback is what keeps him going.

“Earlier, while writing for magazines, we had to wait for long to get the feedback for our story. But now it’s there in the comment section. I have fun reading those comments,” says the writer whose serial Nal Iravu Seidhigal Vaasipadhu, Durga, has got him around 189K readers. All the feedback is provided to the writers. Happy that they can offer an escape from the grim reality that we are living in, Naveen notes that Tamil readers are passionate about their authors’ works, language, literature and storytelling. 

“Feedback from young readers mostly read ‘we wish it is made as a web series or a movie’. Some even comment that their mother or aunt is loving the series. Our biggest categories of the audience are those aged 18-35 and those above 50 years,” he details.

Authors like Pattukkottai Prabhakar, Indira Soundararajan, Kalki, Savvy, Bava Sellathurai, and many others have found a space on the app. Sharing his views on this switch from novels to a digital platform, renowned writer Charu Nivedita, says, “My contemporaries say that their readers are not those who use apps to read. But with the Bynge app I am seeing that it is for all. And reading all the comments is a nice pastime for me. I write about the Arab world and its politics. My next, Aurangazeb, will be out next month. It is a new challenge and I am enjoying it.”

The app is available for free on Android and iOS.