Prof Nissim Ezekiel : The Hungry Generation

Prof Nissim Ezekiel : The Hungry Generation The Hungry Generation Movement in Bengali literature, which took Calcutta by surprise in 1961, and became instantaneously known through TIME magazine, has withstood all odds, and is now a historical and cultural force to reckon with. The movement has grown to uncontrollable proportions. All sorts of groups have emerged at various places in West Bengal claiming to be of Hungry Strain. The major Hungry Generation writers and poets are in their late forties now: Subimal, Malay, Basudeb, Subhas, Saileswar, Pradip and others. They have always been at the receiving end from the media due to their uncompromising stand. Except for Debi Ray, who broke with the Hungries quite early, none of them are invited to participate in the national or regional TV and radio programmes, official workshops/seminars/recitals/readings. The Hungry writers, better known as the Hungry Generation, are immensely popular among students and young writers today, as they are considered the voice of conscience in a Bengali society shattered by internecine political struggles of the post-partition years. Interesting, though, the Hungry Generation writers, poets and artists do not function as a group any more. But they remain the only avant garde figures in Bengali literature, always experimenting, always questioning, expressing themselves in ultimate terms. “The Movement”, as the renowned critic Dr Uttam Das has said, “is an important event in the history of Bengal”. Malay Roychoudhury(b. 1939), the towering avant garde poet who pioneered the Hungry movement in Bengali literature, is a legend by himself. Still uncompromising, and therefore not supported by the Bengali media, all his collections have so far been published by his friends and relatives. Despite being hailed by TIME magazine as an outstanding poet, he remains as controversial as he was in 1961 when he entered the literary scene in Calcutta with a whiff of liberated form, and an uninhibited approach towards expression of Indian thought concerning self and society, love and destruction, politics and despair. Malay had given up writing sometime in 1966 after some of his friends has betrayed and testified against him. But he returned with a vengeance in 1983, and took the Bengali scene by storm. His poems have been translated into almost all Indian languages as well as into Spanish, German, French, Russian and Italian. He has translated Ginsberg, Lorca and Neruda into Bengali. Malay’s collection of verse includes Shoytaner Mukh, Jakham, Kabita Sankalan, and the recently published collection revealing violence, fear and agony, in Medhar Batanukul Ghungur. Although once the leader of the fierce Hungry Generation movement, Malay now lives the life of a recluse in Bombay. The poets of the younger generation look at him with awe and inspiration. We feel he is the ultimate representative of his kind of poetry. (Courtesy: Prof Nissim Ezekiel, Editor, The Indian P.E.N., Mumbai, 1987)