About Us

Our founder has been dead for more than a hundred years. He remains, somehow, remarkably good at running the place. Born 1887. Gone in 1923, at thirty-five. Sukumar Ray left behind poems, stories, illustrations, and an extraordinary ability to make complete nonsense feel perfectly reasonable.

Bombagarh is for people who take nonsense seriously. Very seriously. Almost suspiciously seriously.

We make T-shirts from the wonderfully unruly world of Sukumar Ray.

Why T-shirts?

Because books live on shelves. Great characters, however, occasionally deserve to walk around.

So, we let them.

At Bombagarh, we bring Ray's characters into the present day without giving them a fashionable haircut, a modern makeover, or any other unnecessary improvement. Because, the originals were doing perfectly well without us.

When one of his drawings finds its way onto a T-shirt, our job is deliberately modest. We prepare the original for printing — the detail, the hatching, the line exactly as he drew it — and then we get out of the way.

No reinterpretation. No "inspired by" version. No artist secretly hiding behind the moustache.

Just Sukumar Ray.

He also knew considerably more about printing than we do. He studied print technology in England, improved the way half-tone blocks were made, and published papers about it in English journals.

So, when we say we are careful with his artwork — understand that we are being supervised.

A note on the shirts themselves

White only. The drawings are black ink on paper. We saw no reason to argue with them. Three cloths at three prices, described honestly on every product page. Choose whichever one you wish to.

Each shirt is printed only after you order it — so nothing is ever stocked, warehoused, or sold off cheaply in January.

Bombagarh is a brand of UPLIFE, registered in Kolkata. Write to support@bombagarh.com. One person reads every message — not the founder, sadly, who would almost certainly have replied in verse.