“I’m Arjun Chaudhuri, and I run Ukiyoto Publishing, a company I founded in 2019. People often ask how someone who studied Electronics and Communication Engineering at NIT Durgapur ended up in the world of books. The truth is, the journey started much earlier in my childhood in Kolkata. Growing up Bengali means you are never far from art. Someone sings, someone paints, someone writes. For me, writing became the voice I never questioned. In 2014, I published two books and realised how many gaps existed in publishing, especially for new authors. That insight stayed with me.

I worked for four years in engineering, then moved to Malaysia and Singapore for work opportunities, and later worked in the education sector in Hyderabad, handling franchise operations across India. Even while living a structured corporate life, the writer in me kept reminding me of what felt real. I eventually decided to follow that voice.

Leaving a stable job was a shock for my family, but once Ukiyoto began to grow, they understood this wasn’t a jump but a calling.

Over the years, our publishing ecosystem expanded across different countries. Our mythological and historical catalogue has been among our strongest, with titles like Pavanputra Hanuman, Suryaputra Karna, Raavan and several other children’s books. We also published India’s first mythological manga, Tagdu and the Wrath of the Serpents, which launched at Hyderabad Comic-Con.

I always believed stories could do more than stay on a page. We moved from books to films, short films, and animation. This year, for the first time, we brought stories to the stage.

At the Hyderabad Performing Arts Festival, two of our books were adapted into a live dance-theatre performances. Watching characters step out of text and into movement felt like imagination turning into experience.

Before Hyderabad, we hosted the Kolkata Carnival every year, an open-air literary mela with books, food stalls, performances, music, and thousands of visitors.
Festivals like these remind me why literature must be lived, not just read.”