The Hungryalists

The Hungry Poets

By Maitreyee B Chowdhury 

In a city roiled by poverty, immigration, violence and the energy of youthful anger, a new generation of writers staked their claim, says Maitreyee B Chowdhury

In October 1962, young poet Malay Roy Choudhury boarded the newly launched Janata Express at Patna. The train would stop in Delhi before it reached Calcutta—a rather tedious journey that would go on for over two days. Malay hoped Calcutta would be pleasant this time of the year. His elder brother, Samir, had written to him just before he had left for Calcutta. You’ll reach just in time to see the city being decorated for Durga Puja. Ma arrives in the most beautiful colours and people make the most creative podiums for her to be worshipped in. The kashphool would have spread its abundance. You’ll find them everywhere if you care to look, spread out sleepily in the emptiness outside the city. The sound of dhak will be everywhere and if you’re lucky, you’ll find some of the dhakis at the Howrah station when you arrive. Malay wondered if Calcutta had changed Samir. Patna was dry and without a trace of chill. The narrow seats and the stale air that greeted him in the third-class compartment were terrifying. He was carrying two small bags, his underwear peeking out of one, some papers and a few packets of crisps from the other. It was still early evening, with reluctant bogies idly basking in a gentle sun. It was Malay’s first trip to Calcutta after the establishment of the Hungry Generation.

Before the year would end, Malay would meet American poet Allen Ginsberg in Calcutta. It was February 1961 when Ginsberg landed in Bombay. A nuclear face-off had just been averted in Cuba and Delhi was at loggerheads with Peking—a border dispute had pushed the two countries to the brink of war. And just like everywhere else, poets, writers and thinkers in India too were affected by these events.

City for Poets | Calcutta ca. 1945

Ginsberg visited many places in the country, including Benares, Patna, the Himalayan foothills and Calcutta. During his trip, he spent most of his time mingling with like-minded poets, musicians and artists, and later wrote about them in great detail in his Indian Journals. In Calcutta, between keeping company with Ashok Fakir in ‘Ganja Park’—an area near the main road stretching from Chowringhee to Rashbehari Avenue—and hallucinating at Kali’s feet while lying in her temples, Ginsberg would walk around the city or watch bodies being burned in the ghats. To the ever-sceptical Bengali, he might have seemed like just another disillusioned westerner doing the rounds of holy Indian cities, in search of drugs, sex and ‘exotic’ spirituality. Not many Indians at the time were aware of Ginsberg’s reputation or the influence he wielded back home. Ginsberg, of course, had read ‘Howl’, his legendary poem, at Six Gallery in San Francisco by then, and had begun shaping the American approach and reaction to poetry. What effect his presence would have on the poets in Calcutta, or they on him, time would tell vividly. But for now, he was one of them—a poet and a wanderer, who carried with him a turbulent and disturbed past, with the belief that here, of all places, he would be accepted no matter how dirty or disillusioned he was.

The train moved slowly, as if struggling with a natural inclination for inertia. Malay remembered what Samir had written to him from Calcutta while he was in Patna. He had been angry with their father for sending him away to Calcutta after school. The Roy Choudhurys had decided to move from Imlitala, their Patna neighbourhood, which their father considered a bad influence on the boys. Pretty early on in life, the place had exposed them to free sex, toddy, ganja, and much more. Their father had built a new house in Dariapur and the family had shifted there. Subsequently, when Samir was sent to Calcutta, it was a double blow for him, to be removed at once from Imlitala and his family. Calcutta was a city he knew almost nothing about. His instructions to Malay had been clear—he was going to live vicariously through his brother in Patna. On certain days, Samir would almost be pleading with Malay in his letters.

Fraternity: (Standing, from left) Saileshwar Ghosh, Malay Roychoudhury, Subhash Ghosh; (seated) Subimal Basak, David, Basudeb Dasgupta

Dear Malay,

Near the chariali next to our house is a woman who sells bidis for two annas. Buy a packet from her, hide it in your trunk and bring it for me when you’re in Calcutta. Remember, nobody should know about this.

Dada

And another about a month later read:

Dear Malay,

Apparently, there are many things to do here, but I don’t know where to start. I have made a few friends; we meet at the Coffee House regularly. Deepak [Majumdar], Ananda [Bagchi] and Sunil [Ganguly] are close to me. Sometimes we discuss kobita [poetry], at other times, it is the state of affairs. Everyone is angry here; there are strange people I meet on the road. Theyare not like the poor of Imlitala; they have a lost look about them. They don’t look or feel poor when you talk to them—all you can understand is death on the inside. I think they have lost a dream. It makes me feel horrible; I miss the easy poverty of Imlitala . . . You must go to Bade Miyan’s paan shop at the end of our lane and tell him about the paan that I used to have, hewill know. You could have one yourself, but I fear it might not be good for you. You must bring one for me though. It will cost you one anna.

Dada

Malay could not understand from Samir’s letters whether he was happy in Calcutta or not. But he sensed some anger. He seemed like a revolutionary without an understanding of what his revolt was about. Malay wished Samir knew how much he wanted to see Calcutta—this city where poems were read aloud on the streets; where a Shankha Ghosh, even at the height of his literary career, could be approached by college students; where Shakti Chatterjee would recite poetry on the stairs of the Coffee House. Samir’s shift to Calcutta indirectly helped Malay in many ways. It was Ashadh of 1952 when Malay next received a letter from Samir. It had been raining for two days and the blue inland envelope was wet when Malay fetched it from the letterbox. Unlike his previous letters, Samir sounded excited in this one—it was the first time he had forgotten to mention Imlitala.

Dear Malay,

Last evening, Sunil, Shakti and Deepak came home. My room is small, and the bed has too many books on it for me to move them. We sat on the terrace adjoining my chilekothar [an attic-like room]. While it didn’t matter to either Sunil or Deepak, I was glad I had the small mat Ma had insisted I bring from Patna. Tha’mma doesn’t stir out of her room after dusk, so it was OK for Sunil to bring his smoke. Thanks to the gondhoraj lebu plant that is full of flowers and small bulbs of lemons, the smell of smoke was confined to the terrace. We talked for a long time; thankfully, none of them were in a hurry. Tha’mma might ask a lot of questions tomorrow though. Sunil is full of ideas; he says he wants to start a magazine. He is still not sure how to go about it though, but he says he is bored of reading the same kind of writing. I told him what you and I have talked about so many times. He seemed a bit surprised at first, and then asked me about you. Deepak was quiet all evening, but he sang a song later. Kaka came up to meet us. Later, he and Deepak talked about Hindi film heroines. Their discussion made Shakti and me laugh a lot. There was not much to eat, but Sunil had bought some pakoras on the way; we ate them and, later, licked the plate clean. Sunil went through my books and wanted the [Victorian poet, Algernon Charles] Swinburne collection. I can give it to him only later, which is what I told him. I hope he didn’t take offence though.

More later,

Dada 

Many new writers were Samir’s classmates in City College. There were other established ones, Coffee House regulars, whom Samir had befriended and would discuss literature with. Shakti and Sunil came up quite often; they were close friends, who had been to his family home in Uttorpara a few times. Sunil was a prolific and acclaimed novelist, but poetry was his first love. Indeed, Samir, who’d recognized his talent early on, went on to fund and publish Sunil’s first book of poems, Eka Ebong Koyekjon. Samir would have intense discussions with Deepak, Sunil and Shakti on many an evening on the kind of literature they had all grown up with and began to believe in. Subsequently, he got deeply involved with Sunil in establishing Krittibhash—a journal that launched many a Bengali poet at that time. Deepak, Ananda and Shakti were also compatriots in this venture. Krittibhash found its voice in 1953. Samir always kept his brother in the loop, and Malay would occasionally receive large paper packets containing literary periodicals and books of poetry. Now as the train moved towards Calcutta, Malay felt as if his life was coming full circle. It had been a strange decision to visit the city at a time when post-Partition vomit and excreta were splattered on Calcutta streets. Marked by communal violence, anger and unemployment, the streets smelled of hunger and disillusionment. Riots were still raging. The wound of a land divided lingered, refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) continued to arrive in droves. And since they did not know where to go, they occupied the pavements, laced the streets with their questions, frustrations and a deep need to be recognised as more than an inconvenient presence on tree-lined avenues. The feeling of being uprooted was everywhere. Political leaders decided that the second phase of five-year planning needed to see the growth of heavy industries. The land required for such industries necessitated the evacuation of farmers. Forced off their ancestral land and in the absence of a proper rehabilitation plan, those evicted wandered aimlessly around the cities—refugees by another name.

Calcutta had assumed different dimensions in Malay’s mind. The smell of the Hooghly wafted across Victoria Memorial and settled like an unwanted cow on its lawns. Unsung symphonies spilled out of St Paul’s Cathedral on lonely nights; white gulls swooped in on grey afternoons and looked startling against the backdrop of the rain-swept edifice. In a few years, Naxalbari would become a reality, but not yet. Like an infant Kali with bohemian fantasies, Calcutta and its literature sprouted a new tongue—that of the Hungry Generation. Malay, like Samir and many others, found himself at the helm of this madness, and poetry seemed to lick his body and soul in strange colours. As a reassurance of such a huge leap of faith, Shakti had written to Samir:

Bondhu Samir,

We had begun by speaking of an undying love for literature, when we suddenly found ourselves in a dream. A dream that is bigger than us, and one that will exist in its capacity of right and wrong and beyond that of our small worlds.

Bhalobashajuriye

Shakti 

Malay in Nepal

Patna, October 1961. Shakti and Haradhan Dhara met Samir and Malay at the brothers’ newly built house. Evening crept stealthily on to their shoulders and sat still there. The Roy Choudhurys were still in a transitional frame of mind. The brothers had not forgotten Imlitala—its terrific chaos, the shadows of their childhood and their small house. The new house in Dariapur on Abdul Bari Road looked spick and span, and stupid. “Not a house for me, not for me!” Malay would shout at the walls. But their father would have none of it—in his vision for his family, Imlitala was a matter of the past. Nearby, in Rajendra Nagar, lived Hindi writers Phanishwar Nath Renu and Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. They belonged to the Nayi Kahani and Uttar Chhaya Wadi movements respectively—groups that believed in largely individualistic, urbanistic and self-conscious aesthetics. While Renu was critically acclaimed as among the most powerful and brilliant writers of his time, Dinkar had a huge impact on readers of Hindi poetry. He went on to become a renowned poet of national standing. His poetry, a precursor to the A-Kavita movement, would later emerge in the sixties as a contemporary influence, inspired in some ways by Ginsberg and the Beat journey. Samir’s regular interactions with them would leave a deep impact on his thinking and mould his poetry in the future. Sometime later, Dinkar, who belonged to the community of Bhumihars, would abandon his caste to make an important statement on caste politics.

It was nine in the evening; dinner was over. None of them had ventured out all day. Malay insisted that Shakti visit Imlitala with him: “I miss Naseem Apa—her fragrant hair, the curve of her back, the way she ran after I kissed her hazaar times in the shadow of the imam. Shakti, come with me to see her, won’t you?” Shakti was overwhelmed by the romanticism of a ghetto being named after a tree. He had been eager to see the imli tree after which Imlitala was named. “Will there be an enactment of Radha–Krishna’s sharad purnima rasa dance?” he asked. “Did the imli tree have a golden wall after the legend of Krishna turning a golden hue while searching for his beloved Radha, who had disappeared in between their dance?” Malay was amused. He had not witnessed any religion in Imlitala. Everyone born there was sworn to poverty, their only allegiance was to the mad dance of filth around them. He told Shakti, “Would you like to read your poetry during the Imlitala fest? Small-time thieves, prostitutes and roadside urchins make up the audience. Women in pink blouses and green petticoats sit down with their men to have country liquor, one hip bent on another, and with dirty hands touch each other. Some love will flow, some lust too. You’ll need a different lens to be able to see this poetry.” Samir sounded a warning that the police might be there too. “Wherever poetry is, the dogs follow,” Malay quipped. A round of laughter followed.

---

Excerpted from The Hungryalists, forthcoming from Penguin India. Published in the Jan-Mar 2019 issue.

About the author

Maitreyee B Chowdhury is a poet and writer based in Bengaluru.

 She is poetry editor of The Bangalore Review. Maitreyee is author of Where Even the Present Is Ancient: Benaras and Uttam Kumar and Suchitra
Sen: Bengali Cinema’s First Couple (nominated for the Crossword Awards, non-fiction).

The Hungryalists : Review by C.P.Surendran in The Outlook

No Rhyme, Only An Anguished Cry

The Hungryalists found a visceral new idiom to lance the pustules around them. The resultant backlash typifies the hypocritical bhadralok intellectual.

C.P. Surendran 29 May 2019

The Hungryalists: The Poets Who Sparked A Revolution

By Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

Penguin Viking | Pages: 187 | Rs. 599

 

In early May, a BJP activist, Priy­anka Sharma, trolled the ruling Trinamool Congress Party leader and the chief minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee. Sharma was inspired by the freak Met Gala look of actor Priyanka Chopra, and hoisted it on Mamata to great comic effect. Sharma was arrested and spent days in jail before a bail was granted. Malay Roy Choudhury, around whom the Hungryalists mov­e­­ment spun, was jailed for a month in 1966 by Calcutta’s Bankshall Court. The Congress leader, the late Prafulla Chandra Sen, was in power. Malay’s crime was to have written Stark Electric Jesus, a visceral poem echoing Howl. But the pressure to bring Malay under control was not so much statist as societal: good people were offended.  Does that sound familiar? How little things have changed, since. Malay was exonerated by the Calcutta High Court in 1967.
Maitryee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury maps the literary movement, largely unacknowledged.  In the process, she shows how Calcutta’s lost generation found an unlikely messiah in Allen Ginsberg, who on return to the US did all he could in aid of Malay. Indian public figures were missing in action.
Ginsberg, scavenging for salvation—a project contemporary poets seem to have wisely given up on—amidst the bloated corpses and floating lamps of the Ganga was also the sole speck of glamour in this gutter-and-grime story of a handful of poets: Malay Roy Choudhury; his brother, Samir, Shakti Chattopadhyay, and Hara­dhon Dhara, known as Debi Roy. Later, Rajkamal Chaudhary, Binoy Majumdar, Utpal Kumar Basu, Falguni Roy, Subimal Basak, Tridib Mitra, Rabindra Guha, and Anil Karanjai joined the movement.

Chowdhury places most of these characters vividly and with minimal strokes within the context of a well structured narrative that reads as easy as good fiction. Her writing is anecdotal and evocative: “Like many Indian homes, the bathing arrangements at the Roy Cho­ud­hury house were outside the main bui­lding…. Ginsberg, who was used to bathing in the nude, did not bother to cover himself…, much to the horror of the women in the house. Finally, Malay’s aunt threw a towel at Ginsberg …and exp­licitly asked him to cover himself.”


Led by Malay Roy Choudhury, Hungryalists were suspended between ’50s radical humanism which their anarchy hankered after, and the militancy of ’60s Naxalism.

The movement petered out with Malay’s arrest on grounds of obscenity, and Shakti testifying against him. The overt reason was Shakti had differences with the group. The covert one might have been pettiness and cowardice, two abiding hallmarks of the Indian intellectual. There is a third. Politicking. A generational voice like Sunil Gangopadhyay’s, whose letter to the writer Sandipan Cha­ttopadhyay is quoted, vents the meanness of his animus toward the Hungryalists:  “I hope you do not end up really thinking that Malay has some writerly stuff in him!… I know the Hungry folks have tried to pit themselves against Krittibash….’ Krittibash was his literary movement.

The Hungryalists were suspended betw­­een ’50s radical humanism, which their anarchy subliminally hankered after, and the militancy of  the Naxalbari movement that caught on from the mid-’60s.
One of India’s towering thinkers, M.N. Roy—his colonial thesis argued, as did that of the Hungry gang, against trusting the nationalist bourgeois leadership, and whose contribution was approved by Lenin in the second Comintern—as he gra­duated from international Comm­un­ism (Roy founded the Mexican Commu­nist Party) to humanism, anticipated the agonised screams of the Hungry poets, before these translated to the murder and mayhem of the Naxals. I believe these conjunctions were not merely planetary; they may merit Chowdhury’s attention perhaps in another book.

When Malay won a Sahitya Akademi (of which Sunil Gangopadhyay became the president in 2008) award in 2003, he ref­used the honour. I can well understand the reason. It was too late; and as an institution officiated only by the good men and women of this country, Malay must have derived some satisfaction in showing the angels their place in his hell.

I can’t resist: when the #MeToo movement in India was at its frenzied best, what little remained of many writers’ character was laid waste by the wave. Indeed, they were de-platformed and their basic rights of free speech sought to be taken away; intellectuals signed mass petitions to exclude them from festivals; liberals put out tweets on the basis of allegations of offense; book projects were frozen. The bhadralok quotient of this country still does what they are best at, some 65 years after the banishment of Malay: virtue signalling with a vengeance. That’s a kind of censorship. And no Ginsberg to the rescue either. Between the state and groups, the individualist continues to be an endangered species. Chowdhury’s work is a cautionary pointer to other times. And to ours.

The Hungryalists : Review by Samantak Das in Indian Express

Talkin’ About a Revolution

The life and times of the Hungry Generation of modern Bengali poets, arguably the most dynamic and divisive literary movement of its generation

Written by Samantak Das | Updated: June 8, 2019 1:35:45 am

The Hungryalists: 

The Poets Who Sparked a Revolution 

by Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

The Hungryalists: The Poets Who Sparked a Revolution
Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury
Penguin Random House
198 pages
Rs 599

In November 1961, a one-page pamphlet, written in English and titled Manifesto of the Hungry Generation was published from 269, Netaji Subhas Road, Howrah, West Bengal. It began by stating, “Poetry is no more a civilising manoeuvre, a replanting of the bamboozled gardens; it is a holocaust, a violent and somnambulistic jazzing of the hymning five, a sowing of the tempestual Hunger.” It went on to declare, “Poetry is an activity of the narcissistic spirit. Naturally, we have discarded the blankety-blank school of modern poetry, the darling of the press, where poetry does not resurrect itself in an orgasmic flow, but words come out bubbling in an artificial muddle. In the prosed-rhyme of those born-old half-literates, you must fail to find that scream of desperation of a thing wanting to be man, the man wanting to be spirit.” Thus was born, perhaps the most debated and certainly the most divisive, “movement” in modern Bengali poetry, that of the Hungry Generation, whose founders and followers were labelled “Hungryalists”.

Three names appeared on top of that first declaration of the need for a new kind of poetic sensibility — Debi Roy (“Editor”), Shakti Chatterjee (“Leader”), and Malay Roychoudhury (“Creator”) — a fourth name, printed at the bottom, that of the publisher Haradhan Dhara, was in fact Debi Roy’s pseudonym. Missing was the name of Malay’s older brother, Samir, who was, in many ways the catalyst for the birthing of the Hungry movement, not least because he brought his friend, the poet Shakti Chatterjee, into it in the first place.

Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury’s book is the first full-length study of the Hungryalists and it does a fine job in delineating the contours of a poetic movement whose effects on modern Bengali poetry and culture are yet to be properly evaluated, perhaps because we are still too close to the many turns and twists of the birth, development, maturity, and untimely demise, of the Hungry revolution and its protagonists for a dispassionate assessment. In her Introduction, Bhattacharjee Chowdhury makes it clear that while she will trace a chronological account of the Hungryalists, she is not going to make an attempt “at mapping every little nook and corner visited by these poets… [which] would be… an impossible task and not necessarily rewarding” and also that she will take some poetic licence with the facts because “the story of poetry found and lost is the only personal journey that survives in the end, everything else becomes a myth.”

In a 2015 documentary film on 50 years of the Hungryalist movement, the director, Tanmoy Bhattacharjee, begins by asking Malay Raychoudhury why the Hungry generation’s poetry “failed”, to which the movement’s “creator” retorts, “Who says it has failed? You? Or him? Listen, young man, the movement did not fail. What has failed is society, what has failed is literature.” The Hungryalists attempts to locate the causes of this “failure”, if indeed failure it was, as well as the enduring afterlife of a movement that had all the ingredients of a successful potboiler, with large dollops of love, sex, drugs, intrigue, backstabbing, madness, violence and politics (the Naxalite movement followed close on the heels of the Hungryalists and the split in the Communist Party of India took place whilst the Hungry movement was still on), not to speak of the imprisonment of Roychoudhury and the subsequent international outcry that led to an outpouring of support from some of the leading poets from across the globe.

This is not an easy story to tell, in large part because there are still bitter divisions of opinion regarding the roles played by some the iconic founders of contemporary Bengali poetry (Sunil Ganguly, Shakti Chattopadhyay, Sankha Ghosh, to name just three) in the Hungryalist period, all of whom have their passionate supporters wherever Bengali poetry is discussed, debated, created.
Perhaps, because she is located in a city other than Kolkata (Bengaluru) and because she is not a Bengali poet per se, Bhattacharjee Chowdhury is able to marshal her facts and put forward her opinions with the kind of dispassionate distance that someone located in the midst of the cultural churn of Kolkata’s literati would find difficult, if not impossible, to do. For which her readers should be grateful, even if they may not always agree with her sometimes glib characterisations (e.g. “Bengalis are anyway a timid race, and when attacked physically, the intellect in them is puzzled about the necessity of action”; or “Bengal was a ruin, a confused mess, and writers seemed to be its finest casualties” and analyses (e.g. her discussion of “the easing out of Buddhadeva [Bose] from Jadavpur University”. But, despite these (minor) quibbles, or, perhaps because of them, The Hungryalists: The Poets Who Sparked a Revolution should be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of modern Bengali, indeed modern Indian, poetry in the turbulent era of sex, drugs and rock and roll.

The writer is associate professor, department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, Kolkata

Jayeeta Bhattacharya in conversation with Malay Roychoudhury

[ Jayeeta Bhattacharya, post graduate in English, and teacher,  
is a poet who writes both in Bengali and English. She is the first
 female author who has written a Bildungsroman novel in Bengali. ]

Jayeeta : Poetry or prose -- in case of prose critical

 essays or stories and novels --  which do you prefer writing ?

Malay : I do not have any preference as such. 
Depends on what is happening in my brain at 
a particular time. Critical essays I mostly write on
 the request of Editors. These days I dislike writing essays ;
 actually, since essay writers are only a few,
 Editors request for essays ; in many cases 
Editors even select a specific subject and request 
me to write on it. Is it possible, tell me ?
 Now a days I do not like to read much or 
think about the society. I write fictions, 
once something strikes me I start writing,
 there is no dearth of material in my experience,
 I may pick up scores of characters from my own life.
 When an Editor requests, I send him.
 Poetry is really an addiction ; once the grug grips you,
 there is no way out other than writing. 
I write them on the body of emails ;
 when someone requests for a poem or poems,
 I mail him. If it is not to what I had intended to achieve
 I delete it completely. In fact whoever requests,
 I send him, without any preferences. 
Some editors identify a subject and request me 
to write on it. That creates a problem for me,
 as you know I do not write subject-centric poems ;
 I write as I please, whether it is liked or not. 
I do not have anything like a writing diary or pages, 
after 2005, because of arthritis I suffered induced by
wrong medicines after angioplasty. 
Then I started suffering from asthma, hernia, prostate,
 varicose veins. Because of arthritis 
I was going out of writing habit, 
you would not be able to feel that suffering. 
Texts kept on creating vertigo of thoughts and
 I was not able to write anything. 
Then my daughter encouraged me to learn 
computer, I learned typing in Bengali,
 the middle finger of right hand is less affected, 
I use it for typing. My son has gifted this computer,
 he cleans it whenever he visits on holidays. 
For about three-four years I was not able to 
write because of problems with my fingers.

Jayeeta : While reading your novels one 
finds that the narrative techniques and forms 
are different from one another.
 From Dubjaley Jetuku Proshwas to Jalanjali, 
Naamgandho, Ouras, Prakar Porikha, 
have almost the same characters you 
have proceeded with, it may be called a single novel, 
but you have kept on changing the form and technique.
 Why ? Then in Arup Tomar Entokanta novel you 
have introduced a new technique, 
you have displayed three types of Bengali diction. 
In Nakhadanta novel you have put together
 several short stories along with your daily diary. 
Tell us something about these. Are they conscious effort ?

Malay : Yes. No editor would have published such a
 large novel comprising of five, obviously I 
wrote them at different periods, each separate
 from the other. Dubjaley is written based on my co-workers,
 I had learned that some of them are Marxist-Leninist.
 Writing five different novels was a sort of boon for me,
 I have tried to bring in novelty in all of them.
 When an idea comes to me I think about its
 form for quite some time, about its presentation,
 then I start writing. Quite often a form develops 
at the time of writing itself, such as in Nakhadanta or  
Arup Tomar Entokanta. While writing Nakhadanta 
 I had gathered substantial information during field
 studies in West Bengal about the jute cultivators
 and jute mills.  Similarly, for writing Naamgandho 
I collected field information of potato cultivators and
 cold storages in West Bengal. A large number of
 characters in these two novels are from real life events.
 I have written outside of my experience as well such as
 Jungleromeo, based on beastiality of a bunch of criminals. 
I have written the fiction Naromangshokhroder Halnagad 
 in one single sentence, this is also imaginative, 
based on political divisions in West Bengal.
 Hritpinder Samudrajatra is based on the voyage of
 Rabindranath Tagore’s grandfather’s heart ripped off
  from his body in a cemetery in England to Calcutta 
in a ship of those days ; I have criticised Rabindranath 
and his father in the fiction. Had Rabindranath’s 
grandfather lived for another ten years the industrial 
scene in West Bengal would have been developed. 
Idiot Bengalis of those days attacked his character of
 vices which you would find thousand times more in 
today’s Indian industrialists, among whom there are 
thieves, black marketeers, smugglers and even those
 criminals who have fled the country. I wrote the detective
 novel as a challenge, but I have dragged Indian society
 there as well. I am not able to write a fiction without
 involving Indian politics and society. Even  the
 lengthy story Jinnatulbilader Roopkatha which
 have animal and bird characters, is based on
 political events a personalities of West Bengal.
 Rahuketu is based on court case and activities
 of members of the Hungryalist movement.
 Anstakurer Electra is about sexual relations
 between father and daughter. I have written
 Nekropurush deriving on necrophilia. Chashomrango 
is about elasticity of time.

Jayeeta : Do you think Salman Rushdie
 is the ideal Postmodern novelist in the perspective
 of Postcolonial or Commonwealth literature ?

Malay : Rushdie is a magic realist novelist,
 influenced by Marquez. However chaotic it might be,
 the reader understands the novelist, just like 
in the case of Satanic Verses. American critics
 do not give much importance to magic realism
 because the technique was not invented 
in their country ; as a result magic realist writers
 are also labelled as postmodern by them.
 Though there are certain subtle usage of 
postmodern features in Rushdie’s fiction it
 would be incorrect to call it postmodern.
 If you call fictions of Gabriel Garcia Marquez 
as postmodern, spanish critics may shoo bulls 
of bullfight at you.

Jayeeta : In your fictions we do not find 
conventional trope of love. There are no stereotype
 protagonists. Have you adopted these in 
order to individualize your fiction as yours ? 
In Dubjaley Jetuku Proshwas novel,
 Manasi Burman, Shefali, Julie-Judy ;
 in Naamgandho novel Khushirani Mondal ;
 in Arup Tomar Entokanta Keka sister-in-law,
 Itu in Ouras, they are different from
 one another and none of them are 
stereotype character. You have even 
created a shock at the end of the fiction
 by revealing that Khusirani Mondal was 
kidnapped from East Bengal during partition 
and she is actually grand daughter of
 one Minhazuddin Khan. You have played with
  self-identity in case of Khushirani Mondal ; 
without knowing her own origin she recites
 songs in praise of goddess Lakshmi, follows
 Hindu fasts, believes in superstitions like Chalpara . 
I would like to know the intricacies of Malay’s fiction in detail.

Malay :  That is because my love life has 
not been conventional. Secondly, the concept
 of central character was brought to the colonies
 by Europe, as a symbol of metropilitan throne. 
Women elder to me have first entered my life. 
That might be the reason for the ladies being 
elder to young men in relationship in my novels.
 In female characters obscurely there is presence
 of Kulsum Apa and Namita Chakroborty. 
The life I led during the Hungryalist movement
 has left its impact on female characters.
 Through Khushirani Mondal I have tried to
 indicate that how problematic is the idea of identity.
 Look at today’s Indian society, because of
 identity politics the society is getting fragmented, 
skirmishes are taking place daily,
 Dalits are being beaten up, 
Muslims are being driven out of their home and hearth.
 By banning beef livelihood of hundreds of families
 have been destroyed, Posrk is banned in Islam, 
but in Dubai malls you’d get shop corners in which pork is sold.
 From identity politics we have reached jingoism.
 Let me tell you about my marriage ;
 I had married Shalila within three days of proposing to her,
 both of us liked each each other at first sight.
 I have written these incidents in my memoir. 
Shalila’s parents died when she was a kid ;
 I am unfortunate that I did not get the affection 
of a Bengali mother-in-law.

Jayeeta : In Dubjaley Jetuku Prashwas novel
 Manasi Burman’s excess breast milk was kept 
on a table after she pumped it out. Atanu Chakraborty
 who had come to visit her suddenly picked it 
up and drank it. Why did he do it ?

Malay : Atanu’s mother had died recently ;
 he had sexual relation for several months 
 with two Mizo step sisters Julie and Judy 
at the Mizo capital where he had gone 
 for official work and was quite depressed. 
When he found a mother’s milk on the
 table of Manasi Burman he felt the absence
 of his mother and instinctively gulped the milk.
 In later novels Ouras and Prakar Parikha
  I have explored the strange sexual relations
 between Atanu Chakraborty and Manasi Burman,
 they had by then joined the Marxist-Leninist bandwagon.

Jayeeta : How far globalization impacted Bengali literature.
 Do you think that globalization is withering away ?

Malay : I can’t tell you about the current state of affairs.
 These days I do not get much time to read. 
We are both quite old and have to share 
family activities, going to market, cleaning home, 
peeling and cutting vegetables, 
helping my wife in cooking etc -- 
I do not get much time. I have not read any novel
 after introduction of globalization.
 Because of Brexit and Donald Trump’s 
withdrawal from international politicking globalization
 has weakened ; only China is interested in selling 
their products ; our markets have already been
 captured by China. However, colonial Bengali
 literature was possible because of Europe. 
Bankimchandra started writing novels in European
 form. Michael Madhusudan Dutt wrote Amitrakshar
 in European form. Poets of thirties started writing
 in European form, so much so that academicians
 have been pointing out Yeats’ influence on 
Jibanananda Das, Eliot’s presence in
 Bishnu Dey’s poems. Before the British arrived,
 our literary style was completely different. 
Symbol, metaphor, image etc were Europe’s contribution.
 I do not have much knowledge about modern songs,
 but critics talk about Tagore having been
 influenced by Europe, in fact some tunes
 are said to be same as certain European songs. 
Singing changed after arrival of Kabir Suman.

Jayeeta : There is opacity in understanding of
 Remodern, Postmodern or Alt-modern 
even among the poets of Zero decade. 
What are the reasons ? How far Bengali literature 
on the same level as that of international literature ?

Malay : Even if there is opacity in understanding 
you would find influences. And it would be 
incorrect to presume that everybody’s mind
 is full with smoke. Some are well educated. 
Some do not have any interest, they want to
 write as they please. Without any understanding
 of Remoden, Postmodern, Structuralism,
 Poststructuralism, Feminism one may write as
 he pleases. Kabita Singha did not know about
 Feminist theories but she has written Feminist poems.
 The type of rhymed poems being written in
 Bengali commercial magazines are no more 
being written in Europe, their images are 
fragmentary and have speed. If one reads
 the poems in Paris Review or Poetry magazine
 one would find that they are being written in
 easy dictions, abandoning complexities, 
whereas many young poets have resorted to
 complex Bengali poetry writing. The point is 
that poets do not like to be branded by labels. 
Everybody wants that his name should be known, 
not within any arena of a label.
 I myself feel disgusted because of Hungryalist label. 
Most of the readers do not know beyond Stark Electric Jesus.

Jayeeta : Now let us discuss some of your personal issues. 
You have written about your growing up period in
 Chhotoloker Chhotobela and Chhotoloker Jubobela. 
You have written about the Hungryalist period in
 Hungry Kimbadanti and Rahuketu. 
However, the later Malay Roychoudhury 
remains unpublished for sometime. 
Tell me about this period. Did you not write
 or they are unpublished ? Tell us about this transitional period.

Malay : I have already written,
 I have covered the entire period. In the latest issue 
of Akhor little magazine I have written about the
 entire period titled Chhotoloker Jibon. It is to be
 published by Prativas with the title Chhotoloker Sarabela.
 I have sent you a copy of Chhotoloker Jobon, 
you may like to go through. Amitava Praharaj
 has written that readers were purchasing this copy
 of Akhor as people buy bottles of Rum before
 Gandhi’s birthday, since intoxicants are not
 sold on Gandhi’s birthday.

Jayeeta : What is the difference between 
Malay as a person and Malay as a writer ?
 How do you see yourself ?

Malay : I do not think there is any difference.
 However, I have tried to destroy the image of my
 identity as a person ‘Malay’ ; I am not satisfied just
 by destroying the language as such. Like any other
 person I go to the market, bargain during purchases,
 resorted to flirting during my youth with a fisher-girl,
 drink single malt in the evening. During the Hungryalist 
movement I used to smoke marihuana, hashish, opium,
 took LSD capsules and drank country liquor. The attire
 I am in during the day is the attire I am in when 
guests visit, even if they are women. I do not change
 they way I talk if someone visits, though I had seen
 some poets and authors talk in a peculiar limpid
 way in Kolkata. Most of them are Buddhadeva Basu’s
 students. I talk in Hooghly district lingo mixed 
with Imlitala diction. As a person and as a writer 
I belong to Imlitala, which makes it easier to break my image.

Jayeeta : Tell me about your contemporary writers
 who have not been properly evaluated by Kolkata-centric
 literary groups.

Malay : No evaluation is made at all and you are
 talking of proper evaluation. So much cultural-political
 groupism takes place that works of  talented writers
 and poets are not evaluated, specially fiction writers 
remain neglected. Tug of war is played with literary prizes.
 For the same cultural-political reasons CPM 
people were driven out of Bangla Academy,
 though they also were well educated and wise men. 
A new bunch has come who are lavishing their dear
 writers with awards. The Establishment does not
 give importance to those who have avoided both sides.
 For example Kedar Bhaduri, Sajal Bandyopadhyay.

Jayeeta : Has there been any change in your
 consciousness after reaching life’s twilight ? 
I am talking about philosophy of life.

Malay : Now I like solitude, I do not want to keep
 on talking, my wife also does not like too much talking.
 We do not go to celebrations. 
Avoid lunch or dinner invitations, for health reasons. 
Here in Mumbai, if I talk about relatives, 
my wife’s cousin and her husband lives in Andheri, 
who is six years older than me. Sometimes I ponder
 over the problem of gathering people to take me to 
the crematorium when I die. I wanted to get cremated 
where my mother was cremated. Or the best thing would
 be to donate the body. That depends on the condition
 of the body after my death. My wife is agreeable to
 this proposition. If she dies first, I also do not have
 any reservation. Problem is that because of arthritis
 I am not able to sign, my wife has to do it
 every time when I visit a bank.

Jayeeta : Now a days your life and literary 
works are subject to research and dissertation.
 Readers in Kolkata want to know more about it.

Malay : It  has started from about ten years back. 
First Ph D was written by Bishnuchandra De and
 M Phil was written by Swati Banerjee in 2007. 
Marina Reza had come from USA for a research 
project on the Hungryalist movement. Daniela Limonella
 is working on the subject at Gutenburg University. 
Rupsa Das, Probodh Chandra Dey have
 written M Phil papers. Nayanima Basu, Nickie Sobeiry,
 Jo Wheeler from BBC, Farzana Warsi, Juliet Reynolds,
 Sreemanti Sengupta have written about our 
literary movement. Maitreyee B Chowdhury has written 
a book titled The Hungryalists which have been published 
by Penguin Random House. I know about them because 
they had contacted me. Some researchers do not contact
 me and approach Sandip Dutta’a Little Magazine Library
 for information, such as Rima Bhattacharya, Utpalkumar 
Mandal,Madhubanti Chanda, Sanchayita Bhattacharya, 
Mohammad Imtiaz, Nandini Dhar, Titas De Sarkar, 
S. Mudgal, Ankan Kazi, Kapil Abraham and others.
 Udayshankar Verma wrote his Ph D dissertation at
 North Bengal University, he did not contact me,
 neither did he cover the entire literary movement. 
He could have gathered more information and
 documents had he contacted Dr Uttam Das.
 Deborah Baker did not meet any of us nor 
did she visit Sandip Dutta’s Library and wrote 
abracadabra in The Blue Hand based on what 
Tarapada Roy told her.  Rahul Dasgupta and 
Baidyanath Misra have edited a collection of
 research papers and interviews titled
 Literature of The Hungryalists : Icons and Impact ; 
this book have photographs of all the Hungryalists. 
Samiran Modak has collecte the issues of Zebra 
edited by me in 1960s and published it recently ; 
he is trying to anthologize all Hungryalist periodicals.

Jayeeta : You have worked in various genres of literature.
 Do you have any other subject in mind to write about ?

Malay : I am thinking of writing a fiction on a Baul 
couple who in their youth were involved in Naxal 
movement and the other in anti-Naxal or Kangshal gang. 
The fall in love after renouncing their earlier role when
 they become Bauls. But I am unable to construct the 
characters around them to carry the fiction forward.
 The idea came after reading Faqirnama by Surojit Sen.
 Since I do not have personal experience about these
 mendicants I could not proceed further. Here also
 the woman is elder and has more experience for 
having changed partners several times. They call 
themselves Mom and Dad. Sarosij Basu has 
requested to write an essay on the present social 
conditions of the country, nationalism, patriotism,
 riots, beef eating, suppression of undercastes etc 
for his periodical Bakalam,. I have started writing
 under the title of Vasudaiva Jingovadam.
 Problem is, I am unable to sit at the computer for long.

Jayeeta : You seem to be like Homer’s Spartan heroes.
 You do not care about being attacked, people
 talking against you, writing against you. 
Where from do you get the life-force ? Who is your inspiration ?

Malay : Your question seems to be based on
 your experience of having watched
 Hollywood-Bollywood films. Is it ? Rambo, 
Thor, Gladiator etc heros. I was handcuffed
 and a rope tied around my waist during my
 arrest for having written Stark Electric Jesus.
 I was made to walk in that condition with seven criminals.
 After the Khudharto group testified against
 me in the Court, nothing bothers me,
 lot of people of the Establishment write against me, 
abuses me, specially the disciples of Khudharto group. 
When I started writing, Kulsum Apa, Namita Chakraborty, 
our Imlitala helping had Shivnandan Kahar and Dad’s 
helper at his photo-shop introduced me to poets. 
The latter two had by-hearted Saint poets
 and would quote from them for scolding us. 
My wife and son do not have any interest in my writing. 
My daughter has but she does not have much time,
 recently she suffered from a cerebral stroke as well.
 I do not know whether there is really anything called
 inspiration. I think I am my own inspiration, when
 I walk the streets inspirations keep on getting
 accumulated in my brain.

Jayeeta : Tell your devoted readers about your
 present daily life.

Malay : Do you think I have devoted readers ? 
I do not think so. I get up first in the morning,
 wife gets up late, as she does not get good sleep 
during night, takes homoeopathic medicines during
 the night. After brushing I do some free hand exercise, 
taught to me by the physiotherapist. Drink a glass 
of lukewarm water to keep bowels clean.
 Prepare breakfast, oats. Then while reclining 
on the easy chair I go through The Times of India. 
I do not get Bengali newspaper in our locality.
 It is an area of Gujarati brokers who purchase 
one Financial Times which is consulted for the
 share market news by dozens of persons. 
I have never invested in shares and do not 
find any interest in talking to them.
 If I request the hawker he will deliver four days’
 Bengali newspaper in a bunch. 
Then I go through the little magazines received by post. 
After physiotherapy I prepare tea, green tea.
 By that time my wife gets up and serves oats and fruits.
 I complete my breakfast. Her breakfast is 
completed around Eleven. Then I go to the market. 
Fish is delivered by the shop whenever we ring them
 for a particular type of fish. I do not eat meat anymore
 though my wife loves it but unless you go to the butcher
 you will not get good portion ; my daughter in law, 
whenever she comes from Saudi Arabia on holidays, 
she brings cooked meat. About eleven I sit at the desktop
 and start thinking ; browse through Facebook and Emails.
 Take bath at about one, have lunch with my wife,
 then have a nap. From six I repeat at the desktop. 
I write during this time. Now a days I am translating 
foreign poets. After having dinner, take a sleeping
 pill and go to bed. This the time to brood and lots 
of ideas come swarming.

Jayeeta : These days poets are being categorised
 in to decades ; they are being categorised on the basis
 of the districts they live in as well as subjects 
they specialize in. What is your opinion ?

Malay : It is a time induced phenomenon. 
Time will sieve out those who are not attuned to
 a particular time. The number of poets have 
increased in the districts. When such anthologies
 are published we would be able to have an
 idea of the effects of local diction and ecology 
of the space in their poems. I do not know to 
which district I belong. Ancestors had come from
 Jessore to Calcutta and settled at Barisha-Behala 
of Calcutta. One of the descendant settled at Uttarpara
 in Hooghly district in 1703, I am from his bloodline.
 Now the Villa he built has been demolished and
 I have sold off my portion. Then I stayed in a flat at 
Calcutta’s Naktala. Thereafter came to Mumbai after
 donating all my books and furnitures etc. The house I
 once left, I have never gone back to live there again.
 I have not spent my life in the same room, same house,
 same locality, same city.

Jayeeta : Literary periodicals have now 
discovered micro-poems. What is your idea about it. 
Should an Editor specify the number of words or lines ?
 The poet finds himself at sea in such cases.

Malay : This also has happened because of increase 
in number of poets. To accommodate a large number 
of poets in a particular issue of the periodical
 such publications have come into vogue. 
But Ezra Pound had written imagist poems 
after being influenced by Chinese and 
Japanese poems. He had written a poem 
titled “In a Station of the Metro” which is the best
 short poem ever written. Here it is:

The apparition of these faces in the crowd ;

Petals on a wet, black bough.

Jayeeta : Tell us about your international 
connection, your introduction to World literature.
 Have you been fascinated by any foreign
 poet or writer? With whom your friendship 
 has been quite close ? Are they present day 
foreign readers aware about your work ?

Malay : During the Hungryalist movement
 I had known Howard McCord, Dick Bakken,
 Allen Ginsberg, Laswrence Ferlinghetti, 
Margaret Randall, Daisy Aldan, Carol Berge,
 Daiana Di Prima, Carl Weissner, Allan De Loach
 and others. During my arrest Police had seized 
all letters which I did not get back with many books, 
manuscripts and other things. These days people 
from print and electronic media visit me for interviews.
 BBC representatives had come for their
 Radio Channel 3 and 4 programmes. 
Daniela Limonella had visited a few times, 
she is writing a dissertation on our movement ; 
my wife also loves her. I do not know whether 
you have read Maitreyee B Chowdhury’s book
 “The Hungryalists” published by Penguin.
 Baidyanath Misra and Rahul Dasgupta has 
edited an anthology of dissertations by 
academicians along with interviews of some of us.
 Recently painter Shilpa Gupta visited and presented 
me with sets of colours, brushes etc to enable me 
to paint.I have started experimenting with colours.
 In Mumbai students often visit for collecting
 information. Recently a Turkish periodical has
 written about me and translated my poem
 Stark Electric Jesus. Turkish writer Dolunay Aker
 has interviewed me which will be published in 
Turkey shortly.

Jayeeta : When did you start writing poems ? 
Why ? Because your elder brother Samir used to write ?

Malay : In 1958 my Dad had presented me 
with a beautiful diary in which I started writing. 
At that time I wrote both in Bengali and English. 
Samir started writing after me. When Sunil Gangopadhyay
 visited our Patna residence he evinced interest 
and Samir gave him some of my poems which 
Sunil published in his magazine “Krittibas”. 
Later Sunil became very angry because of
 the Hungryalist movement. In an interview to 
 “Jugashankha” Sunil had told Basab Ray that
 “Malay deliberately took the opportunity as 
I was in America at that time.”

Jayeeta : Without going into the details of Hungryalist
 movement I would like to ask whether the poetic diction 
of that time had any influence of Nicanor Parra or
 Beat Generation poets ?

Malay : To be frank, till then I had not read them.
 In fact I was not aware about their names. 
Foreign poets meant romantic British poets.
 In my poems you will find influences of Magahi
 and Bhojpuri diction because of my childhood 
spent at Imlitala slum of Patna. I read Beat literature 
after Lawrence Ferlighetti and Howard McCord 
sent me some books. Moreover all Beat prose 
and poems have not been written in same style. 
We in the Hungryalist movement did not follow
 the same diction and style. Some of my friends 
after joining CPI ( M ) party started writing in a different vein.

Jayeeta : The poems you had written during 
the first phase were different from your present 
day style and diction. During the first phase there
 were elements of disruption. Their syntax and diction
 structures were astounding. In the subsequent phase
 your family life, experience have weighed 
upon your work; poetry has become like deep 
sea and up-wailing.

Though there is no similarity, 
even then one may find out that you are the author. 
Tell us something about it.

Malay : During that phase my poems had 
testosterone, adrenalin. We used to fund our own 
broadsides and periodical and felt free to write as we 
pleased. We were in a world of drugs and Hippie Colony.
 Now after having read so much and experience
 of touring almost entire India, the changes have come
 automatically. In between I did not write for fifteen
 years and concentrated on reading.

Jayeeta : Do you think Postmodern poetry 
is being written in Bengali ?

Malay : Yes, definitely. What is known as postmodern
 features are seen in the poems of almost all
 contemporary poets. Some young writers compose 
wonderful and stunning  lines and images ;
 I rather feel jealous. You may read Barin Ghoshal. 
Alok Biswas, Pronab Pal, Dhiman Bhattacharya. 
But there are differences between postmodern 
philosophy and postmodern literature.

Jayeeta : Who are the contemporary poets 
you love to read, in Bengali as well as in foreign languages ?

Malay : In Bengali, Binoy Majumdar, Manibhushan 
Bhattacharya,  Falguni Roy, Kedar Bhaduri, 
Jahar Senmajumdar, Yashodhara Raichaudhury, 
Mitul Dutta, Anupam Mukhopadhyay Helal Hafiz, 
Rudra Muhammad Shahidulla, Pradip Chowdhuri’s
 “Charmarog” -- I am not able to remember all the
 names immediately. In foreign poets I would name 
Paul Celan, Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelu, John Ashbery, 
Amiri Baraka, Yeves Bonneyfoy, Jaques Dupan.
 I am not naming more ; you may start searching
 for influences. Recently I have started translating 
most of the European Surrealist poets, Arab, 
Turkish and Russian poets and I am sure there
 may be influences creeping in to my own poems.
 Though I do not write much.

Jayeeta : Lot of research is going on about 
Hungryalist movement and your work in English.
 Do you feel proud about it ? Do you think you
 have achieved what you had started for ?

Malay : Nothing happens to me. Those who 
used to denigrate and attack me, I suppose they
 feel distressed. A few days ago Kamal Chakraborty 
had expressed his anguish. Actually I was offended when
 Kamal agreed to publish a poetry collection of mine. 
However the book was a disaster in publishing 
with newsprint papers and ordinary cover 
compared to his own book. But I no  longer keep my books
 and do not bother about them. 
Publisher Adhir Biswas agreed to publish
 all my books but backed out because of unknown reasons; 
he also told other publishers not to publish my books. 
Calcutta Literature scene has become quite dirty.

Jayeeta : Syllables or rhymes, what should be followed ?

Malay : I do not count syllables.
 I write based on breath spans.

Jayeeta : You tell us to keep updated with 
foreign poetry but in poetry is it not necessary
 to maintain Bengali sentiment and own Bengali diction ?
 If one follows foreign poetry, can it be called 
copying or following ? Jibanananda Das and
 many other poets had to face such complaints?

Malay : If one reads poems in other languages
 one may have an idea as to in which way world poetry 
is moving. There is no need to copy.

Jayeeta : In fictions, writers during Hungryalist 
movement had not used local Bengali diction or
 dialogoues  of the marginal society. What could be the reason ?

Malay : At that time most of the writers were 
Calcutta-centred. When muffassil writers started
 writing marginal people and their voice entered literature.
 In 1965 Subimal Basak Had written “Chhatamatha”
 in Dhaka’s kutty peoples language. Rabindra Guha 
and Arunesh Ghosh had also brought the lingo of 
the local and marginal.

Jayeeta : In literature sexuality has entered as 
Art but entirely in explicit and uncompromising way. 
Readers are stunned. You people had brought

Activities of the bed and sex in creativity. 
I would talk about you. Sexuality has been 
highlighted in various ways, in poetry, sometimes 
through characters in fiction or in memoirs,
 specially in your life-based fiction “Arup Tomar Entokanta”. 
Please talk about it.

Malay : Sexuality existed in Sanskrit and Bengali
 literature from antiquity. During British rule, after 
the Evangelical Christians poked their nose in
 the syllabus of schools and colleges a new 
middle class appeared and they started hesitating 
with sexuality in literature. Thereafter the Brahmo Samaj 
people arrived, specially Rabindranath Tagore. 
When literature got out of the clutches of middle class,
 sexuality in literature got its rightful place.

Jayeeta : You had proposed to your would be wife 
Shalila the day after you two were introduced
 and she agreed instantly ; since Shalila’s guardians 
were hesitating to agree immediately, you had purchased
 rail tickets to Patna to elope. But when the guardians 
agreed you got married within a few days and returned
 to Patna with your wife. Did you think her behaviour 
to be strange for agreeing immediately.
 Did your parents react annoyingly to your decision ?

Malay : No. Shalila was a field hockey player, 
had reacted like a sports-girl. Moreover she did not
 have her parents. She wanted to get out of the 
oppressing establishment of maternal uncles. 
The uncles hesitated as Shalila’s income from 
her job was useful for them. If we had eloped then 
there would have been problems with her job which
 she did not want to quit. For getting a transfer to Patna 
she required legal documents. You are a teacher, 
you know how important it is for women to be financially
 independent. My parents were very happy when
 I reached Patna with Shalila. They thought I might become
 a lout if I do not get married.
But no rituals were performed at Patna. 

Jayeeta : After marriage you left your 
Patna job and joined Agricultural Refinance 
and Development Corporation at Lucknow, 
from there you went to Mumbai to join NABARD ;
 thereafter you came back to NABARD, Calcutta. 
Returning after so many years did you feel that the
 Hungryalist days are no more there at Calcutta ?

Malay : Only after going to Lucknow I came to
 know Indian village life. Prior to that I had no idea
 about cultivation, jute and cotton mills, 
carpentry, handicraft, tribal life etc.
 I did not know there were so many types of cattle, 
pigs, goats, camels and their breeding methods.
 I toured almost entire country. When I came to Calcutta,
 I took along Shalila with me so that she enters the 
houses of villagers to find out their way of life.
 I have utilised those information in my fictions
 as well as essays. What you said is correct. 
When I returned West Bengal the society 
had changed completely. Some critics have 
written that I was in a government job. 
That is not correct. The Finance Commission 
increases pays and pensions of government workers 
but my pension remains that same 
as I am not a government worker.

Jayeeta : Do you watch Bengali serials ? Films ?

Malay : Shalila watches some serials, 
but she does not stick to any one story.
 If she feels a girl is not being treated properly 
she shifts to another serial midway. 
During dinner time I also watch with her.
 Here in Mumbai there is no scope to talk 
and listen to people talking in Bengali. 
The Bengali serial is helpful in keeping in 
touch with the way people talk in present day 
Bengali. I watch short films also on my desktop 
but the problem is my sound system does not 
work properly ; the desktop is very old, it belonged 
to my son when he was in college. Moreover 
I am not able to sit continuously in front of the computer 
for a long time. 
I have not been to any cinema hall for about thirty years.