Malay Roychoudhury in Conversation with Daniela Cappello
Malay Roychoudhury in Conversation with Daniela Cappello Introducing the Poet Malay Roychoudhury (1939) was born in Patna, Bihar, in a family of Bengali Brahmins, claiming to descend from the clan of Sabarna Roychoudhury, the zamindar family who handed over rental rights of Dihi Kalikata, Gobindapur and Sutanuti to the British in what is today’s Kolkata. Malay’s grandfather was a mobile photographer and on his sudden death at Patna his seven sons and a daughter became penniless. While Malay’s eldest uncle Pramod got a job of dusting statues at Patna Museum, Malay’s father started a photography shop. His mother was a housewife. His childhood was spent in Patna’s Imlitala slum area inhabited by low-caste ( at that time called ‘untouchables’) Hindus and poor Shia Muslim communities . His maternal grandfather was laboratory assistant to Sir Ronald Ross and the maternal uncles, who were comparatively richer and educated, stayed in Panihati, north Kolkata,...