Biting more than they could chew? Problems of being too Hungry
By Titas De Sarkar
It shouldn’t surprise the readers that
the Hungryalists indulged in a ‘narcissistic spirit’ right from the
second paragraph of the first Bulletin they published, in the early
sixties. The very beginning of their existence was a self-declared one.
It was possibly the only way that they could have come into their own.
This was a backlash against the marginalised status of these poets in
the society, in the cultural field. Their lives were the result of the
tumultuous decades post the Partition of Bengal in 1947, when there was
intense displacement from both the sides of the border, an acute
shortage of space, along with a consistent rise in unemployment. The
founder members, finding no representation of these daily challenges in
the literary texts, took it upon themselves to bring the written
language up-to-date as it were, in both its form and content. It came
out as a response to a literary scene that was hijacked by middle-class
ethics, codes, and so-called pretensions. The status-quo was sought to
be maintained because of the degradation of such a lifestyle in the real
world, where joint families were replaced by nuclear ones on one hand,
and women were going out and finding their feet in the job market like
never before – more often than not against the wishes of their husbands
and fathers. Regular political rallies were organised against government
inaction and inefficiency as more and more people were becoming
disillusioned with the promises of the newly formed nation-state. It was
a time when the middle class found their cultural capital to be vastly
at odds with their unenviable economic standing. It is out of such an
asynchronous existence, that the politics of the Hungry poets emerged.
It was not only self-representational, but without the Self, the very
movement had neither an origin nor a justification. What could it be,
after all, if not being narcissistic?
A Bulletin for your thought
Representing the oppressed Self, however,
has the tendency of going overboard. A few (seven, to be specific) of
the Hungry Bulletins are going to be examined here to see if that was
indeed the case, and if so, how were they crossing such boundaries. The
fact that these specific bulletins were part of the anthology on the
Hungry Generation that was published only in 2015 is itself an
indication of how they want to project themselves, after all these
years. A manifesto is in itself a propaganda of one’s own ideas about
the world, its politics and the ideology held dear by the author,
regarding contemporary problems and the ways to counter them. Four
Hungry manifestoes out of the seven that are under consideration were
written in a point-by-point structure, presenting the agenda in the
simplest of formats. The reason for mentioning this is to point out that
the poets resorted to different tactics for letting their principles
known to the masses, rather than letting their writing speak for itself.
Does this betray their lack of confidence in the readers, who they
might have thought to be so used to the conventional reading structures
and ways of thinking, that they would be unable to grasp the politics
behind the ‘obscenities’ that these young poets were introducing to the
pages of their magazines? In any case, they were letting know of their
reasons and approaches to dissent through art in a way which was all too
familiar in the political domain, but not very much so in the artistic
circles. And that was arguably another aspect of this Hungry movement –
if the personal is political, they were bringing to the Bengali
literature, that intimate aspect of politics of the educated middle
class youth with his sexual desires, political anxieties, conflicts of
the everyday, and ways of articulation, which was not addressed till
then.
Manifestoes of the marginalised
Let us briefly look into the contents of the manifestoes. The first bulletin
credits Malay Roychoudhury as the ‘creator’, Shakti Chattopadhyay as
the ‘leader’, with Debi Roy editing and Haradhan Dhara publishing it.
Interestingly, the manifesto is in English. The poets prefer poetry to
resemble a ‘holocaust’ rather than ‘a civilizing manoeuvre’. They are
trying to overcome the ‘artificial muddle’ which is devoid of the
‘scream of desperation’. To them, most of the poems of that time were
all too glamorous, logical, and ‘unsexed’, written by individuals, who
were more concerned with self-preservation than self-doubt.
About the objectives of the Hungry movement, it is stated in the tenth bulletin
that they would put words to make silence (or, what was silenced till
then) speak. They dream of going back to the pre-civilizational chaos
and start a new world, through their creations. This will be done by
coming to terms with every sense-perception which the author possesses,
going beyond the world of comprehension. When this leads to the
self-discovery of the skeptic and vulnerable poet, he’ll cease to create
anymore.
Another bulletin, simply titled as ‘The Manifesto of the Hungry Movement’,
speaks in first person and with itself about how to write poetry. The
poet wishes to inspect himself and every aspect of his lived experience,
and question those before accepting them or otherwise. The poems should
betray precisely those moments when he was most vulnerable, so as to
get an insight into his inner self. About the linguistic signs of
poetry, the poet wishes to do away with the rhyming scheme and adopt
such colloquial words which would immediately resound with the readers.
The commonsensical placing of one word after the other would be replaced
to break the existing politics behind language, which is ‘meaningful’,
even if that leads to ‘meaninglessness’ in their creations, to begin
with.
In bulletin number fifteen,
declared as the ‘Political Manifesto of the Hungry Movement’, the
authors claim that they would liberate the very soul of the masses from
politics, because the latter is only self-serving, irresponsible and
ultimately, a fraud. No respect will be shown to a politician of any
colour. They will transform the very notion of political faith.
Bulletin numbered sixty-five is
the one related to the Hungryalist’s notion of religion. The first point
only has two words in Bengali – ‘God is garbage’. According to them,
religion makes people lose their sense of reason; it is the institution
which condones every sinful act like ‘murder, rape, suicide, addiction’,
and leads to ‘insanity’ and ‘sleeplessness’. Religion is a tool to
acquire the tangibles and intangibles of the world, and only the best of
human beings could resist the temptation of mindlessly submitting
themselves to it. It is a law unto itself, which has a parasitical
existence. It prospers only in the hearts of the faithful. Religion is
only self-glorifying.
The forty-eighth bulletin is
interesting as it talks about the role of the painter in the society,
written by two painters – Anil Karanjai and Karunanidhan Mukhopadhyay.
In true Hungry spirit, they wanted to paint those aspects of people’s
lives which aren’t highlighted due to their poor socio-economic
condition. They rue the fact that many painters let go of this principle
as their patrons belong to the elite class. Their objective would then
be to come out of this easy co-existence and spread their creation to
the masses, staying true to their ideologies. Hungry painters are free
of materialistic concerns and they consider themselves to be the
conscience of the society and ‘destroyer of evil’. To them, any
pretension in art is unforgivable.
The last bulletin to be discussed here, titled ‘Hungry
Generation’, encapsulates the meaning that poetry holds for them. Poems
written by their contemporaries do not resemble life in any way, they
regret. Moving beyond meaning-making, poems should try to explore the
chaotic, what society considers as disorder. Poems sustain these authors
despite the psychological and physical ‘hunger’ they suffer from.
Disillusioned with ‘men, god, democracy and science’, poems have become
their last resort. For them, poetry and existence have become
synonymous. However, poetry is not the escape route from the world that
has rejected them. Rather, poets could truly be liberated by giving into
their savage spontaneity. Freedom from conventional form could only be
found in the orgasmic outburst of emotions. It is therefore a call to a
culture-war against high-brow art, which is consciously made
aesthetically pleasurable, lyrically articulated, and pursued merely as a
pastime – a frivolous exercise. In contrast, poems exist to satiate the
soul of the Hungry.
Too Hungry to resist
The above claims betray certain anxieties
of the Hungry activists. There was a constant desperation to prove that
they were different from the rest, and that they were better. A
possible reaction to the judgmental society, they countered it by
examining their colleagues in turn and found them wanting, according to
their set standards. However, bringing out manifestoes and justifying
their actions is also a way of seeking validation from the masses, a
hope that they’ll be understood on some levels. Because misunderstood
they were, and the readers often looked past the politics and the
intellect behind the usage of words, which were summarily discounted as
obscene and derogatory. Yet, they believed that those very people, who
according to them were already structured by the State, societal
conventions, and ritualistic behaviour, could be capable of empathy, and
would be able to appreciate their project.
Publishing manifestoes also indicate an
expectation of winning over a section of the society in a short span of
time. Making their objectives clear would assist others to support their
cause sooner than having a prolonged investigation into their writings
and then arriving at an understanding about their work. The Hungryalists
were so few in number, that reaching out to the readers in such a
straightforward manner was probably a way to find like-minded souls.
The hyperbole which is noticed often in
these manifestoes is probably because of the huge vacuum that these
poets were trying to fill, both in the literary as well as personal
context. Taking on the entire society and its conventions is a
monumental task. When that is taken up from a marginalised position, the
articulation could cross the limits of what is humanly achievable, as
has happened here. The over-ambitious politics was also due to the
youthfulness of the authors, which has been referred to as a phase of
high optimism, a time when the protagonists are old enough to form
ideologies but young enough not to have all the responsibilities of an
adult, which gives them that impetus to see their politics through.
An interesting possibility would have
been to witness these artists doing what they did best – write or paint –
without having to justify their positions, by publishing manifestoes
and such like. But herein lies the paradox: the reason for that
justification – their poverty, lack of societal acceptance, and cultural
representation – is the very reason why the Hungry movement had come
into existence in the first place. If there was no need for any
justification, then that would have meant that the society had already
reconciled itself with their art and politics.
While the motive for coming out with
manifestoes is understandable, what remains unclear is the way of
executing the claims that the movement had committed itself to. How were
they actually going to overcome the ‘artificial muddle’? What are the
kinds of introspection that would make the poet connect with his
unconscious? Why are his words outside the conspiracy of the structures
after all, even if it breaks the known form? – all these issues require
serious engagement. Merely putting it down on paper without a definite
framework of execution only makes the words hollow. Making declarations
about liberating the soul from politics sounds rather amateurish, if not
downright problematic. One of the Hungry tactics was to consciously
make exaggerated statements through their manifestoes, poems or even
certain activities like sending masks of animals to individuals holding
important positions in the government, but such shock and awe effects
are only momentary. A detailed discussion about themes such as
uncontrolled flow of emotions or spontaneous writing could have given
one a better understanding of their ideas vis-à-vis other poets of the
world at that time. Moreover, any reader of the Bengali language would
know that quite often the words that the manifestoes had were a far cry
from the commonly spoken language of the masses. Such a convoluted way
of writing only distanced them from others.
The manifestoes show that the
Hungryalists did have the intent of trying to transform the literary
scene and in the process, the society. They did possess a few
progressive ideas, and their hearts were in the right place when they
propounded a culture for the masses, free from the trappings of elite
cultural tropes. However, the feeling one gets from the bulletins is
that they had hit above their weight. They did so knowingly, but a
spoonful of restraint, an ounce of elucidation of their propositions and
a generous helping of a vision about their long-term prospects could
have given more strength to their struggle and made it more popular. Or
maybe, they just wanted to remain Hungry forever.
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