তুর্কি লেখক দোলুনে একার-এর নেয়া মলয় রায়চৌধুরীর সাক্ষাৎকার

 Dolunay Aker in conversation with Malay Roychoudhury

Dolunay : Malay Roychoudhury, what are the conditions that make up the Hungry Generation?

Malay : The Hungry Generation or The Hungryalist movement was started by me and my elder brother Samir as well as poets Debi Roy and Shakti Chattopadhyay in November 1961. After India’s independence and partition of the country West Bengal, the State to which I belong was flooded with destitute refugees who did not have a place to stay and have even one meal a day. The powers-that-be of the time did not pay any heed to this gargatuan problem. We were very angry and wanted to vent our anguish and rage. I got the word ‘Hungry’ from Geoffrey Chaucer’s line “In the Sowre Hungry Time” and the word Hungry suited for our movement. We also drew from Oswald Spengler’s idea of culture as organic and spreading in various ways, not in a single line. This suited us India is a multicultural and multireligious country. After the first broadside was issued, about 40 writers, poets and artists joined us. Everybody was free to publish his own broadside or bulletin, the only condition being that those are to be distributed free at Coffee Houses, Universities, periodical and newspaper offices. As a result news about the literary movement spread quickly and reached other Indian languages in other states as well. Allen Ginsberg who had come to India collected several Hungryalist broadsides and sent them to other poets and writers in USA, UK, Latin American countries and European countries. TIME magazine of USA wrote about us and we became known in those countries. 

Dolunay :  Stark Electric Jesus poetry is a revolt against the inactivity of the world. The world spoke this poem. You have suffered in India. How did your poem deal with ordinary ideas?

Malay : Right from the start the Establishment newspapers started writing against us. There were editorials castigating our movement. Our manifesto on poetry, politics, religion etc angered the Establishment and Calcutta Police issued arrest warrants against eleven of us in September 1964, six of whom were arrested on charges of conspiracy against the State and Obscenity in literature. Ultimately only I was chargesheeted and a case was framed against my poem Stark Electric Jesus. Others were set free. I was handcuffed and with a rope tied to my waist I was made to walk the street alongwith seven criminals, a couple of whom were murderers. I was jailed for a month by the Calcutta Lower court in 1965 but exonerated by Calcutta High Court in 1967. Yes our poems were mostly protest poems during the 1960s. Samir published a collection of poems titled “Amar Vietnam”. Pradip Chowdhuri was rusticated from Vishwa Bhatari, the University established by Bengali Nobel laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore. Utpalkumar Basu was dismissed from his teaching job at Jogmaya Devi College. 

Dolunay : The Hungry Generation, became a strong reference to world poetry. You have received letters from all over the world. Allen Ginsberg, Octavio Paz, Lawrence Ferlinghetti etc. What do you with associate this united anger?

Malay : In USA City Lights Journal of Lawrence Ferlinghetti published our works in three issues ; in one of them Allen Ginsberg introduced us to American readers. Dick Bakken published special Hungry Generation issue of his magazine Salted Feathers. Carl Weissner published our works in special issue of Intrepid. Margaret Randall in Mexico wrote about us in her magazine El Corno Emplumado. Howard McCord, Professor of English at Washington State University published Stark Electric Jesus as a booklet with an introduction written by him. We all were writing against The System even during Police action as well as thereafter. 

Dolunay : Hunger: the truth of our lives. What happens if the poet breaks away from the reality of hunger?

Malay : I do not think anyone can break away from the fundamentals of Hunger. In India the reality is stark. A large number of India’s population do not get to eat everyday. I have visited hundreds of villages and encountered the plight myself. In several visits my wife accompanied me to enter villager’s hutment kitchens to find out what they were eating and how they were carrying their day to day lives. The problem remains seven decades after India’s Independence.

Dolunay : Which with reality of language, the poet moves away from conformism?

Malay : Post 1960s poets outside the Literary Establishment do not conform to academic canons and have moved far away from the rules laid down by the Academia. I do not know about Turkey, but here in Calcutta in particular and West Bengal in general about 3000 little magazines are published each year. In fact the Little Magazine Explosion started right after we started the Hungry Generation movement. Little magazine editors arrange book fairs at district towns to get out of the clutches of the Establishment. There is a Little Magazine Library and Research Centre at Calcutta wich has been collection almost all literary magazines since 1970.  Some poets are lured though with prizes, posts and money and they start eulogising the powerful people. 

Dolunay : What is the status of poetry  in India? Are the effects of the Hungry Generation going on?

Malay : The poetry scene is very much robust and active. From the annual list of poets published by a fortnightly poetry magazine, there are about 4000 poets in West Bengal alone writing in Bengali language. Similarly there are poets in other Indian languages. Poetry Readings are organised quite frequently in cities all over India. Writers and poets get arrested every now and then. Most of the members of The Hungryalist movement have expired but the subsequent generations have been carrying our voice of protest and dissent. There have been Ph D and M Phill dissertations on our movement. A film titled Baishey Shrabon portrayed the protesting Hungry Generation poet. A film has been made on my poem Stark Electric Jesus. BBC radio also produced two programmes on our movement for their Channel 3 and 4.

Dolunay : What do you think about the poet's of activist?

Malay : The poet must be an activist. The moment you defy the established canons and the value systems you become an activist, whether you write against the System or not you are forced to be an activist by dint of being a poet. 

Dolunay : Finally, what would you say to your Turkish readers?

Malay : I would like to thank young Turkish readers for evincing interest in our movement as well as what is happening in the literary field in an underdeveloped country like India. In most of the countries poets and writers of the third world who write in their mother tongue remain neglected by the West. I would also like to translate contemporary Turkish poets and introduce them to Indian readers, specially Bengali readers. Other than a few poems Nazim Hikmet and Cemal Suraya, readers are not much aware of the Turkish poetry scene.