Otiprakrito: Exploring Bangladesh’s first folklore encyclopedia

If you are from Bangladesh, chances are summer or winter vacations comprised of staying over at Nanur bari, your grandmother's home–eating good food, playing with cousins and ending the day with ghost stories and folktales narrated by your grandparents themselves.

As we grew older, the stories became a thing of the past, tucked away in a box along with other childhood memories. 

In a time when mythology and folklore are fading fast from our daily lives, 'Otiprakrito Volume 1' – an illustrated encyclopedia of ghosts, gods-goddesses, angels and demons aims to reawaken our collective imagination. 

Photo: Collected

Published by Otibeguni, a pioneering Folklore R&D organisation, the book is a labour of love and research by its founder, Shahriar Haque, a software engineer by day and a writer by night. 

Haque started his journey not from a publishing house, but from his own passion and a desperate attempt to connect with his culture. Born and brought up outside Bangladesh, he discovered Bangla mythology while flipping through the pages of horror collections at his cousin's house during visits. 

The fascination stayed with him as he grew older. While living in Australia, he found himself searching for the same stories, only to realise how little was actually preserved and documented. This realisation led to the inception of Otibeguni, a mission to research and archive Bangladeshi native and indigenous folklore. 

Beyond the book 'Otiprakrito Volume 1', it curates a growing digital library of over a hundred folklore adaptations. The stories span centuries and regions—from the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans to the Garo hills of Mymensingh. 

Haque operates the project remotely through a team of volunteers and freelancers spread across Bangladesh. 

They were assigned fieldwork across villages–collecting oral tales and recordings, tracing and cross-checking via different sources, and finally artistic interpretation of each legend, giving the creators a visual form that was previously left to the imagination.

Running the project remotely came with its own set of challenges for Haque. Since this is a voluntary initiative, it lacks funding, support and accountability structures. Volunteers often work without ownership, which delays progress and affects the quality of work. Additionally, managing logistics and inventory management across different time zones only adds to the challenges the founder faced.

Otiprakrito features mythological beings and reintroduces these familiar characters alongside lesser-known rural ones.

'Bon Bibi', for example, is the forest goddess of the Sundarbans, protector of honey collectors and woodcutters from tiger attacks. Her legend till this day echoes through the mangrove delta, where villagers offer prayers before entering the forest for their livelihood. 

The compilation does not merely retell her story—it places Bon Bibi within a living ecosystem of faith and fear, showing how mythology continues to guide real human beings even in the modern world.

'Betal', on the other hand, is the flesh-eating, body-hopping demon known from the tales of 'Vikram Betal'. In the book, 'Betal' is reimagined not just as a demon, but as a metaphorical figure—an eternal storyteller who hitches rides on others' shoulders, asking moral riddles that expose human hypocrisy.

The book also covers the whimsical side of our childhood, such as 'Hattimatim Tim', a horned, eagle-footed creature immortalised in Bangali nursery rhymes. 

However, the book reveals how the creature is actually an imaginative explanation of the migratory birds that visit Bangladesh, lay eggs, and leave.

Lastly, no compilation of Bangali folklore would be complete without the mention of Aleya, a character that previously made appearances in TV adaptations — the wandering light that pulls fishermen to their doom. 

Another chilly creature is the obscure Owamangganji Oragoldi, a seven-headed demonic boar from the Garo Hills of Mymensingh. A destroyer of crop fields and devourer of children, the creature embodies a primal, animistic fear—reminding us how folklore often arises from rural anxieties and the mysteries of the wild.

Each story is only one to two pages long and accompanied by original artwork by various artists. The illustrations are not decorative—they function as the visual representation of concepts and stories that previously did not have any face.

Ironically, while global readers and audiences show interest in Asian mythologies, local demands remain insignificant. Haque mentioned how, at a book exhibit in Australia, a guest offered him $50 for an out-of-print copy of 'Otiprakrito Volume 1'. 

This gap between local need and global curiosity is what drives Otibeguni's mission. In the near future, Haque plans to continue building his archive in the form of comics, animations, and more.

'Otiprakrito Volume 1' is not just a book; it's a fight to reclaim the lost stories from our childhood so that the upcoming generations and beyond can revisit them. It reminds us that these are not mere bedtime tales, rather the DNA and the blueprint of a country and its people.