Samir Roychowdhury (
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
: সমীর রায়চৌধুরী) (1 November 1933 – 22 June 2016), one of the founding fathers of the
Hungry Generation
The Hungry Generation ( bn, হাংরি জেনারেশান) 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 Royc ...
(also known as
Hungryalism or Hungrealism (1961–1965)), was born at
Panihati
Panihati is a city and a municipality of North 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is close to Kolkata and also a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA).
History
There is a legen ...
,
West Bengal
West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...
, in a family of artists, sculptors, photographers, and musicians. His grandfather Lakshminarayan, doyen of the
Sabarna Roy Choudhury
Sabarna Roy Choudhury was a Zamindar family of Mughal Bengal. They controlled significant swathes of territory, including what would later become Kolkata, prior to the sale of zamindari rights in 1698 to the East India Company.
Zamindari
E ...
clan of Uttarpara, had learned drawing and bromide-paper photography from
John Lockwood Kipling
John Lockwood Kipling (6 July 1837 – 26 January 1911) was an English art teacher, illustrator and museum curator who spent most of his career in India. He was the father of the author Rudyard Kipling.
Life and career
Lockwood Kipling was b ...
, father of
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work.
...
, 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
A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...
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
Bengal renaissance
Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
.
Seeds of Hungryalism
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 (born 29 October 1939) is an Indian Bengali poet, playwright, short story writer, essayist and novelist who founded the Hungryalist movement in the 1960s.
Early life and education
Malay Roy Choudhury was born in Patna, ...
,
Shakti Chattopadhyay
Shakti Chattopadhyay (25 November 1933 – 23 March 1995) was an Indian poet and writer who wrote in Bengali. He is known for his realistic depictions of rural life. He was a green poet, many of his poems raised the issue of nature in crisis. T ...
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 Dr.
Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay was a fellow researcher and an assistant of
Ronald Ross
Sir Ronald Ross (13 May 1857 – 16 September 1932) was a British medical doctor who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902 for his work on the transmission of malaria, becoming the first British Nobel laureate, and the f ...
,
Nobel prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
winner for discovering the causes of malaria. Right from childhood, Samir was thus in the company of people who could groom him for his later
literary
Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...
achievements.
Krittibas Phase
Samir studied at
City College, Calcutta
City College is a composite fully state government-aided public college, affiliated to the University of Calcutta. Established in 1881, it is one of the heritage institutions of Kolkata, and played a prominent role in the wake of the Bengal ...
, where he found as his classmates, Dipak Majumdar,
Sunil Gangopadhyay
Sunil Gangopadhyay or Sunil Ganguly (7 September 1934 – 23 October 2012) was an Indian poet, historian and novelist in the Bengali language based in the city of Kolkata. He is a former Sheriff of Calcutta. Gangopadhyay obtained his ma ...
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 or Sunil Ganguly (7 September 1934 – 23 October 2012) was an Indian poet, historian and novelist in the Bengali language based in the city of Kolkata. He is a former Sheriff of Calcutta. Gangopadhyay obtained his ma ...
'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 (25 October 1933 – 12 December 2005) was an Indian Bengali writer. His 1961 book ''"Kritadas Kritadasi"'' changed the landscape of Bengali fiction and made his name. A staunch anti-establishment figure and a supporter o ...
, 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) (i.e. "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 and Darbhanga etc. 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 filmmakers visited him during his tribal sojourn. Among the visitors were
Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz Lozano (March 31, 1914 – April 19, 1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1977 Jerusalem Prize, the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and ...
,
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
,
Peter Orlovsky
Peter Anton Orlovsky (July 8, 1933 – May 30, 2010) was an American poet and actor. He was the long-time partner of Allen Ginsberg.
Early life and career
Orlovsky was born in the Lower East Side of New York City, the son of Katherine (née ...
,
Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate of ...
, Rajkamal Choudhury,
Phanishwarnath Renu,
Dharmavir Bharati
Dharamvir Bharati (25 December 1926 – 4 September 1997) was a renowned Hindi poet, author, playwright and a social thinker of India. He was the chief editor of the popular Hindi weekly magazine '' Dharmayug'', from 1960 till 1987.The Illustr ...
, Santoshkumar Ghosh, S H Vatsayan Ajneya, Falguni Ray, Basudeb Dasgupta, Subo
Acharya
In Indian religions and society, an ''acharya'' (Sanskrit: आचार्य, IAST: ; Pali: ''ācariya'') is a preceptor and expert instructor in matters such as religion, or any other subject. An acharya is a highly learned person with a tit ...
, Tridib Mitra and Alo Mitra etc.
Shakti Chattopadhyay
Shakti Chattopadhyay (25 November 1933 – 23 March 1995) was an Indian poet and writer who wrote in Bengali. He is known for his realistic depictions of rural life. He was a green poet, many of his poems raised the issue of nature in crisis. T ...
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
Creativity ran in the veins, so early in life, both Samir and his brother Malay directed many plays including 'Kauwa Babula Bhasm' the script of which was prepared by the noted writer
Phanishwar Nath 'Renu'
Phanishwar Nath Mandal 'Renu' (4 March 1921 – 11 April 1977) was one of the most successful and influential writers of modern Hindi literature in the post-Premchand era. He is the author of ''Maila Anchal'', which after Premchand's ''Godaan'' ...
.
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 is shockingly inhuman. Then after a decade his third collection of poems ''Janowar'' (জানোয়ার) (The Beast) was published written in a different vein. Among the
Hungryalists
The Hungry Generation ( bn, হাংরি জেনারেশান) 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 Royc ...
, 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 the 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 (born 29 October 1939) is an Indian Bengali poet, playwright, short story writer, essayist and novelist who founded the Hungryalist movement in the 1960s.
Early life and education
Malay Roy Choudhury was born in Patna, ...
joined as Creative Consultant. HAOWA#49 (হাওয়া # ৪৯) magazine virtually changed the
avant garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or 'vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical De ...
literary scene. People who were once critical of the
Hungry Generation
The Hungry Generation ( bn, হাংরি জেনারেশান) 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 Royc ...
movement (হাংরি আন্দোলন), and even denigrated
Hungryalism, started respecting them. Some post-graduate theses have been written on the two brothers, considered to have up-welled fresh mind-waves in an otherwise stagnant creative pool.
Adhunantika controversy
Samir wrote several treatises on ''Adhunantika'' aspects of Indian, especially
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
society, that have impacted post-colonial mindset, and obviously arts, literature and culture. Critics have claimed that ''Adhunantika'' is ''
Postmodern
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
'' version of
Hungryalism, and that postmodern features of
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
creative writing had emerged way back in the 1960s when the
Hungry generation
The Hungry Generation ( bn, হাংরি জেনারেশান) 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 Royc ...
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 and Adhunikottarvad etc.
Hungryalism got a new valuation with these concepts, and the newer generation of poets, writers and thinkers got an alternative platform. Samir edited, since 1990, books on
Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism is a branch of feminism and political ecology. Ecofeminist thinkers draw on the concept of gender to analyse the relationships between humans and the natural world. The term was coined by the French writer Françoise d'Eaubonne in h ...
,
Postcolonialism
Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a ...
,
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticis ...
,
Complexity
Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interaction, interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to nonlinearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence.
The term is generall ...
,
Hybridity Hybridity, in its most basic sense, refers to mixture. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Young, Robert. ''Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and R ...
and
The Other
In phenomenology, the terms the Other and the Constitutive Other identify the other human being, in their differences from the Self, as being a cumulative, constituting factor in the self-image of a person; as acknowledgement of being real; h ...
. He edited
Postmodern
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
Bengali Poetry (2001) and
Postmodern
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
Bengali Short Stories (2002) which included writings from Bangladesh as well as entire India. Earlier only upper-caste writers from
West Bengal
West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...
used to have pride 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 (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...
, but entire
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
. A new word Bahirbanga was coined by him for diasporic
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
s.
Film
In 2011
Srijit Mukherji
Srijit Mukherji is an excellent national award winning Indian film director and screenwriter who predominantly works in Cinema of West Bengal, Bengali cinema. His regular collaboration with veteran actor Prosenjit Chatterjee brought him into the ...
directed a Bengali film titled ''
Baishe Srabon '' wherein the role of Hungryalist poet was portrayed by film director
Gautam Ghosh
Goutam Ghose (also spelled Gautam Ghosh born 24 July 1950) is an Indian film director, Actor, music director and cinematographer, who works primarily in Bengali cinema. He is the only Indian to have received the "Vittorio Di Sica" Award, Italy ...
.
See also
*
Sunil Gangopadhyay
Sunil Gangopadhyay or Sunil Ganguly (7 September 1934 – 23 October 2012) was an Indian poet, historian and novelist in the Bengali language based in the city of Kolkata. He is a former Sheriff of Calcutta. Gangopadhyay obtained his ma ...
*
Sandipan Chattopadhyay
Sandipan Chattopadhyay (25 October 1933 – 12 December 2005) was an Indian Bengali writer. His 1961 book ''"Kritadas Kritadasi"'' changed the landscape of Bengali fiction and made his name. A staunch anti-establishment figure and a supporter o ...
*
Basudeb Dasgupta
Basudeb Dasgupta (31 December 1938 – 31 August 2005) is an Indian novelist and short-story writer associated with the Hungry generation movement in Bengali literature. He is considered one of the most significant avant-garde and controvers ...
*
Subimal Basak
*
Tridib Mitra
Tridib Mitra (born 31 December 1940) was an anti-establishment writer and part of the Hungry generation movement in Bengali literature. Mitra along with his wife, Alo Mitra, edited Hungry generation magazines "The Waste Paper" in English and " ...
*
Anil Karanjai
Anil Karanjai (27 June 1940 – 18 March 2001) 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 ...
*
Rabindra Guha
Rabindra Guha () (born 25 October 1934) 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 We ...
References
Writers from Kolkata
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
Rajkamal Prakashan is a noted publishing house of Hindi literature as well as English book publication. Established in 1947, the publishing house is headquartered in New Delhi, with branches in Patna, Ranchi, Prayagraj, Kolkata and some other loc ...
, Delhi, India. (1984)
* Salted Feathers edited by Dick Bakken. Portland, Oregon, 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 Publishers, 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 Jamshedpur, Jharkhand. Contributors: Malay Roychowdhury, Arabindo Prodhan, Nilanjan Chattopadhyay, Shankarnath Chakaroborty, Partho Chattopadhyay, Ram Kishore.
External links
Samir Roychoudhury's BBC interview Introduction to Hungryalist Movement along with photographs of the participantsHungry Generation Archive
*
ttp://www.lib.uconn.edu/DoddCenter/ASC/findaids/sanders/MSS 19780002.html Court documents relating to Prosecution of HungryalistsSri Aurobondo and the Hungryalists
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roychoudhury, Samir
1933 births
2016 deaths
Bengali male poets
City College, Kolkata alumni
University of Calcutta alumni
Indian postmodern writers
Poets from West Bengal
Indian male poets
Bengali-language writers
Bengali-language poets
Hungry generation
People from Panihati
20th-century Indian poets
20th-century Indian male writers
20th-century Bengali poets