Samir Roychoudhury
Encyclopedia
Samir Roychowdhury (November 1, 1933), one of the founding fathers of the Hungry Generation
Hungry generation
The Hungry Generation was a literary movement in the Bengali language launched by what is known today as the Hungryalist quartet i.e. Shakti Chattopadhyay, Malay Roy Choudhury, Samir Roychoudhury and Debi Roy alias Haradhon Dhara, during the 1960s in Kolkata, India...

 1961-1965 (also known as Hungryalism or Hungrealism),was born at Panihati, West Bengal, India in a family of artists, sculptors, photographers and musicians. His grandfather Lakshminarayan, doyen of the Sabarna Roy Choudhury
Sabarna Roy Choudhury
Sabarna Ray Chaudhury family were the Zamindar of the Kolkata area, prior to the arrival of the British. On November 10, 1698, they transferred, by lease, their rights over the three villages – Sutanuti, Kalikata and Gobindapur - to the East India Company...

 clan of Uttarpara, heard learned drawing and bromide-paper photography from John Lockwood Kipling
John Lockwood Kipling
John Lockwood Kipling, C.I.E. was an English art teacher, illustrator, museum curator, and father of author Rudyard Kipling.-Biography:...

, father of Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

, who was Curator at the Lahore Museum (now in Pakistan), and thereafter established the first mobile photography-cum-painting company in India in the mid-1880s. The company was later taken over by Samir's father Ranjit (1909-1991). Samir's mother Amita (1916–1982) was from a progressive family of 19th century renaissance.

Seeds of Hungryalism হাংরি আন্দোলন

Samir's grandfather, Sri Lakshminarayan Roy Chowdhury established a permanent photography-cum-painting shop at Patna, Bihar in 1886, the city from which Samir, along with his younger brother Malay Roy Choudhury
Malay Roy Choudhury
Malay Roy Choudhury is a Bengali poet and novelist who founded the "Hungryalist Movement" in the 1960s. His literary works have been reviewed by sixty critics in HAOWA 49, a quarterly magazine which devoted its January 2001 special issue to Roy Choudhury's life and works...

, Shakti Chattopadhyay
Shakti Chattopadhyay
Shakti Chattopadhay was a Bengali poet and writer, widely regarded as one of the greatest poet of 20th century Bengali literature. -External links:...

 and Debi Ray, had launched the Hungryalism (হাংরি আন্দোলন) movement in November 1961. Samir's uncle Pramod was Keeper of Paintings and Sculpture at the Patna Museum. Pramod's daughters, Sabitri and Dharitri were accomplished veena players and classical singers. Dharitri was a painter as well. Samir's mother Amita Banerjee came from a family where her father Kishorimohan Banerjee was a post-graduate and an assistant of Ronald Ross
Ronald Ross
Sir Ronald Ross KCB FRS was a British doctor who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902 for his work on malaria. He was the first Indian-born person to win a Nobel Prize...

, Nobel prize winner for discovering the causes of malaria. Right from childhood Samir was thus in the company of people who could groom for his later literary achievements.

Krittibas Phase

Samir studied at City College, Calcutta, where he found as his classmates, Dipak Majumdar, Sunil Gangopadhyay
Sunil Gangopadhyay
Sunil Gangopadhyay , is a celebrated Indian poet and novelist.-Early life:...

 and Ananda Bagchi, who were preparing to start an exclusive poetry magazine, named Krittibas (1953). Samir became an active member of the group. Sunil Gangopadhyay
Sunil Gangopadhyay
Sunil Gangopadhyay , is a celebrated Indian poet and novelist.-Early life:...

's first collection of poems Eka Ebong Koyekjan was funded and published by Samir. However, when Dipak Majumdar left Krittibas, Samir along with Sandipan Chattopadhyay
Sandipan Chattopadhyay
Sandipan Chattopadhyay was a Bengali writer. In 1961 he wrote the book "Kritadas Kritadasi" it changed the landscape of Bengali fiction and created a niche for himself...

, Ananda Bagchi and Utpalkumar Basu were eased out of the group, although Samir had edited the Phanishwarnath Renu issue of the magazine. Samir left the group and took up a job of marine fisheries expert in a ship which most of the time was in the Arabian Sea, an experience which was later beneficial for Hungryalism inputs. His first poetry collection Jharnar Pashey Shuye Aachhi (ঝর্ণার পাশে শুয়ে আছি) (Sleeping Beside An Waterfall) was premised on the blueness of experience of this marine period.

Among the People

From marine Samir shifted to inland fisheries, which gave him an opportunity to become a part of the poorest boatmen, fishermen and fishnet-knitters families of rural and riverine India. For three decades he travelled extensively in such tribal areas as Chaibasa, Dumka, Daltonganj, Bhagalpur, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga etc. places. These places were the centres where the Hungryalist poets, writers and painters gathered and engaged in creative happenings which has become a part of Bengali literary folklore. During this period Samir emerged as one of the original thinkers, a school of thought later termed as Adhunantika by the famous linguist Dr Prabal Dasgupta. Young writers, poets and artists as well as film makers visited him during his tribal sojourn. Among the visitors were Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.-Early life and writings:...

, Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...

, Peter Orlovsky
Peter Orlovsky
Peter Anton Orlovsky was an American poet.-Life and work:Orlovsky was born in the Lower East Side of New York City, the son of Katherine and Oleg Orlovsky, a Russian immigrant. He was raised in poverty and was forced to drop out of Newtown High School in his senior year so he could support his...

, Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...

, Rajkamal Choudhury, Phanishwarnath Renu, Dharmavir Bharati, Santoshkumar Ghosh, S H Vatsayan Ajneya, Falguni Ray, Basudeb Dasgupta, Subo Acharya
Acharya
In Indian religions and society, an acharya is a guide or instructor in religious matters; founder, or leader of a sect; or a highly learned man or a title affixed to the names of learned men...

, Tridib Mitra, Alo Mitra etc. Shakti Chattopadhyay
Shakti Chattopadhyay
Shakti Chattopadhay was a Bengali poet and writer, widely regarded as one of the greatest poet of 20th century Bengali literature. -External links:...

 stayed with him at Chaibasa for more than two years. He is still an important figure before the contemporary younger poets and thinkers ( like Anupam Mukhopadhyay ) .

Creative work

Samir has been creative off and on. After his first collection of poems he published Aamar Vietnam a collection of poems, though not based on Vietnam, but premised on the sensitivity of a person who lives in a different world and is regularly bombarded by war-news which are shockingly inhuman. Then after a decade his third collection of poems Janowar (জানোয়ার) (The Animal) was published written in a different vein. Among the Hungryalists, he is considered to be a master of word formation and language-plasticity. He shifted his base permanently to Calcutta (Kolkata) in the beginning of 1990s and started his own magazine aptly called HAOWA#49 or Unapanchash Vayu in Sanskrit which is a state of unknown mind. He also started Haowa#49 Publications for which his younger brother Malay Roy Choudhury
Malay Roy Choudhury
Malay Roy Choudhury is a Bengali poet and novelist who founded the "Hungryalist Movement" in the 1960s. His literary works have been reviewed by sixty critics in HAOWA 49, a quarterly magazine which devoted its January 2001 special issue to Roy Choudhury's life and works...

 joined as Creative Consultant. HAOWA#49 (হাওয়া # ৪৯) magazine virtually changed the avant garde literary scene. People who were once critical of the Hungry Generation
Hungry generation
The Hungry Generation was a literary movement in the Bengali language launched by what is known today as the Hungryalist quartet i.e. Shakti Chattopadhyay, Malay Roy Choudhury, Samir Roychoudhury and Debi Roy alias Haradhon Dhara, during the 1960s in Kolkata, India...

 movement (হাংরি আন্দোলন), and even denigrated Hungryalism, started respecting them. Post-graduate thesis have been written on the two bothers, considered to have up-welled fresh mind-waves in an otherwise stagnant creative pool.

Adhunantika controversy

Samir wrote several treatises on Adhunantika aspects of our India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n, especially Bengali
Bengali people
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...

 society, that have impacted post-colonial mindset, and obviously arts, literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

 and culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

. Critics have claimed that Adhunantika is Postmodern version of Hungryalism, and that postmodern features Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...

 creative writing had emerged way back in 1960s when the Hungry generation
Hungry generation
The Hungry Generation was a literary movement in the Bengali language launched by what is known today as the Hungryalist quartet i.e. Shakti Chattopadhyay, Malay Roy Choudhury, Samir Roychoudhury and Debi Roy alias Haradhon Dhara, during the 1960s in Kolkata, India...

 movement was launched with freely distributed weekly bulletins which could have been published by any participant of the movement. Samir introduced an Indianised version of postmodernism which was being called, apart from Adhunantika, Uttaradhunika, Uttar-Adhunika, Bitadhunika, Bhashabadal, Atichetana, Adhunikottarvad etc. Hungryalism got a new valuation with these concepts, and the newer generation of poets, writers and thikners got an alternative platform. Samir edited, since 1990, books on Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism is a social and political movement which points to the existence of considerable common ground between environmentalism and feminism, with some currents linking deep ecology and feminism...

, Postcolonialism
Postcolonialism
Post-colonialism is a specifically post-modern intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to, and analysis of, the cultural legacy of colonialism...

, Postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...

, Complexity
Complexity
In general usage, complexity tends to be used to characterize something with many parts in intricate arrangement. The study of these complex linkages is the main goal of complex systems theory. In science there are at this time a number of approaches to characterizing complexity, many of which are...

, Hybridity
Hybridity
Hybridity refers in its most basic sense to mixture. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Its contemporary uses are scattered across numerous academic disciplines and is salient in popular culture...

 and The Other
The Other
The Other is a 1972 psychological horror film directed by Robert Mulligan, adapted for film by Tom Tryon, from his bestselling novel. It stars Uta Hagen, Diana Muldaur, and Chris & Martin Udvarnoky.-Plot:...

. He edited Postmodern Bengali Poetry (2001) and Postmodern Bengali Short Stories (2002) which included writings from Bangladesh as well as entire India. Earlier only upper-caste writers from West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...

 used to have prime of place in such collections. Samir changed it all; he invited poems and short stories from all strata of, not only West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...

, but entire India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 and Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

. A new word Bahirbanga was coined by him for diasporic Bengali
Bengali people
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...

s.

Film

Srijit Mukherji has directed a film in 2011 titled Baaishey Shrabon wherein the role of Hungryalist poet has been portrayed by famous film-director Gautam Ghosh.

Sources

Hungry Shruti & Shastravirodhi Andolan by Dr Uttam Das. Published by Mahadiganta Publishers, Kolkata, India. (1986)

Van Tulsi Ki Gandh by Phanishwarnath Renu. Published by Rajkamal Prakashan, Delhi, India. (1984)

Salted Feathers edited by Dick Bakken. Portland, Oregan, USA. (Hungry Issue 1967)

Intrepid edited by Carl Weissner. Buffalo, NY, USA. (Hungry Issue 1968)

Encyclopedia in Assamese (Vol VII) edited by Rajen Saikia. Published by Assam Sahitya Sabha, Jorhat, Assam, India. (2007)

E-Kaler Gadya Padya Andoloner Dalil by Satya Guha. Published by Adhuna, Kolkata, India. (1970)

Samir Roychowdhury Compendium edited by Aloke Goswami. Contributors: Rabindra Guha, Basab Dasgupta, Naser Hosain, Murshid A. M., Dr Nrisingha Murari Dey, Sujit Sarkar, Moulinath Biswas, Thakurdas Chattopadhyay, Dhiman Chakraborty, Partha Chattopadhyay, Ramkishore Bhattacharya, Ashok Tanti and Aloke Goswami. Galpobishwa Publishars, Siliguri, West Bengal, India. 2008.

Samir Roychowdhury Compendium 2 edited by Arun Kumar Mukherjee.BODH. Contributors: Dhiman Chakraborty, Uttam Chakraborty, Anupam Mukhopadhyay, Bela Roychowdhury, Alok Goswami.

Compendium 3 edited by Kajol Sen, Published from Jamsedpur,Jharkhand. Contributors: Malay Roychowdhury, Arabindo Prodhan,Nilanjan Chattopadhayay, Shankarnath Chakaroborty, Partho Chattopadhyay, Ram Kishore.

See also

  • Sunil Gangopadhyay
    Sunil Gangopadhyay
    Sunil Gangopadhyay , is a celebrated Indian poet and novelist.-Early life:...

  • Sandipan Chattopadhyay
    Sandipan Chattopadhyay
    Sandipan Chattopadhyay was a Bengali writer. In 1961 he wrote the book "Kritadas Kritadasi" it changed the landscape of Bengali fiction and created a niche for himself...

  • Malay Roy Choudhury
    Malay Roy Choudhury
    Malay Roy Choudhury is a Bengali poet and novelist who founded the "Hungryalist Movement" in the 1960s. His literary works have been reviewed by sixty critics in HAOWA 49, a quarterly magazine which devoted its January 2001 special issue to Roy Choudhury's life and works...

  • Basudeb Dasgupta
    Basudeb Dasgupta
    Basudeb Dasgupta , a Bengali novelist and short-story writer , is considered as one of the most significant avant-gardes and controversial figures in the history of Bengali literature.-Writings:Basudeb's major contribution to Bengali literature spanned from the early 1960s to mid 80's...

  • Subimal Basak
    Subimal Basak
    Subimal Basak, is an Indian fiction writer. He is a member of the Hungry generation, with Samir Roychoudhury, Falguni Roy, Shakti Chattopadhyay and the movement's creator Malay Roy Choudhury....

  • Tridib Mitra
    Tridib Mitra
    Tridib Mitra was one of the pioneers of the Hungry generation movement in Bengali literature which changed the literary landscape of West Bengal once for all. With his wife Alo Mitra he edited Hungry generation magazines The Waste Paper in English and Unmarga in Bengali...

  • Shakti Chattopadhyay
    Shakti Chattopadhyay
    Shakti Chattopadhay was a Bengali poet and writer, widely regarded as one of the greatest poet of 20th century Bengali literature. -External links:...

  • Hungry generation
    Hungry generation
    The Hungry Generation was a literary movement in the Bengali language launched by what is known today as the Hungryalist quartet i.e. Shakti Chattopadhyay, Malay Roy Choudhury, Samir Roychoudhury and Debi Roy alias Haradhon Dhara, during the 1960s in Kolkata, India...

  • Anil Karanjai
    Anil Karanjai
    Anil Karanjai was an accomplished Indian artist. Born in East Bengal, he was educated in Benaras, where his family settled subsequent to the Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. As a small child he had spent long hours playing with clay to make toys and arrows. He also began very early...

  • Rabindra Guha
    Rabindra Guha
    Rabindra Guha [ রবীন্দ্র গুহ ] is a Bengali poet of the Hungry generation movement in literature who subsequently started the Neem Sahitya Andolan with Mrinal Banik and Biman Chattopadhyay from the steel factory city of Durgapur in West Bengal. He has written several collections of poetry, short...


External links

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