Following our Sunday talk with ‘the legend’ of Hungry Generation Malay Raychaudhuri, I felt the need to tidy up my thoughts on my ‘object of research’ and to look retrospectively at my journey through the countercultural movement of 1960s West Bengal known as Hungryalism. I find myself now at the very end of a long path, after years of searching, collecting, reading and (struggling) to understand what those ‘tropical Kerouacs and gangetic Ginsbergs’, as Jyotirmoy Datta named them, had to say about life, sex, and India in the age of decolonization. That is where the urge of putting pieces together comes from. What have I found in the Hungries? How did I get there? My oral defense will soon take place: so please! Let me share a few memories with all of you few readers of this piece, as a means to exorcise all tensions and frustrations of this hard and precarious moment in our history.
My interest for Bengali language and literature started quite early in my undergrad studies. At that time, I joined classes of Hindi, Sanskrit and Indian religions and philosophies, with great enthusiasm to learn all ‘truths’ about India, this exotic country of our disenchanted imaginations. When I reached Calcutta (my first ever Indian experience) for a project of translation I fell in love with the city and its people, started to learn Bengali quite informally, through self-learning, a few courses, as well as through direct contact and dialogue with friends, students and professors in my Bengali circle. That was my magical start of the ‘oriental’ journey, with continuous ups and downs along the way.
Later the Hungries would come and punch me on the face to let me get a snort of Calcutta’s dirty underbelly. It was the end of an old way of looking at ‘the exotic other’: the dream of an authentic, local and vernacular India had ended, as I turned my eyes to a world of transgression, multilingualism, ambiguity and contradiction as they were captured in India’s literary cultures following the fall of British colonial rule.
Some of the Hungryalists in 1965 (i.e. Malay, Saileswar, Juliet, Samir) with Nepali poets in Kathmandu (Source: hungryalist.wordpress.com)
My Hungry pull
What struck me at first about the Hungry Generation movement were two things. The first was the curiosity for their sentence for obscenity in 1964: how provocative and shocking have these poets been to a middle-class reader of that epoque? I was curious to see to what extent their poetry could be defined ‘ashlil’ (obscene) and what was that obscenity about. The second was the ‘silence’ on this movement that existed in academia, in literary histories as well as in the public sphere. Issues of freedom of expression, obscenity and censorship were coming up quite strongly after 2010 and especially with the rise of the BJP and return of ideologies of hindutva in the public sphere. If many people were positively surprised and even amused by my choice, reactions from some of them were certainly ones of perplexity and, to a certain extent, of hostility towards my choice of ‘returning voice’ to transgressive actors of the Bengali middle-class. Why would a young Italian lady want to know about these wild obscene authors who spoke of sexuality in their poetry, something rather un-lyrical, instead of reading Tagore and Saratchandra or studying any other (less problematic) icon of the Bengali canon? Now I can totally see their point.
I later discovered the many interesting – yet contrasting – sides of this literary counterculture in the Bengali language and why were they perceived as problematic and controversial to mainstream literary culture. Their poetics of desecration, of irony and parodic mocking coexisted with other shades of these men’s behaviour: the sexually depraved, hyper-masculine and the misogynist.
Travel and Encounter
Long before my encounter with the Hungries, my research had been oriented to exploring literature in the vernaculars and looking into questions of translation and reception of literary texts across the globe. After I got my masters, I came up with the idea of working on “little archives” and “cheap” literary materials in South Asia: those repositories of ‘ephemeral’ material and ‘fragmented’ knowledge that lies uncatalogued and scattered over a number of libraries throughout the globe. I was struck – and certainly disoriented! – when I found a great number of their letters, manifestoes, leaflets and magazines disseminated through small archives from West Bengal to the United States.
Chaotic and fragmentary were also my personal encounters with the living legends of that 1960s ‘hunger’. As were my interviews too, of which I tried to keep track with inexpert recordings done with an ordinary smartphone – including the noises from Calcutta’s roads on the background. How I wish I could go back with better equipment, a well-organized planner and smart questions! But no matter how messy and unorganized my materials were, my hosts were always helpful and available to satisfy my thirst for questions. I cherished my long Sundays of mishti and chaat (and chats) with Samir and wife Bela Raychaudhuri in Bansdroni; the visits, photo shoots and talks with Malay and Shalila di in Mumbai; my meeting with Debi Roy in Howrah, Pradip Chaudhuri in Calcutta, Shakti Chattopadhyay’s daughter Titi Ray at a Coffee Day in Park Street; the poet and Bukowski translator Subhankar Das and his friends in Qasbah; the Hungry painter Anil Karanjai’s wife Juliet Reynold in Delhi and many others. And that virtual space of poetic ‘elsewhere’ where I daily met with Phalguni Roy, his irony as well as anguish. Nurturing these different relationships over time has meant a lot for me and for my research. Meeting them and their entourages has given me a more concrete sense of the ‘person’ behind the writer and the Hungryalist, and it helped me to get things into perspective.
Perhaps at that time I did not know why I was so determinate to explore these enfants térribles of Bengali poetry, these performers of a violent and predatory masculinity, especially as a non-Bengali woman. But looking retrospectively I can say that the perplexity and hostility of some people was already revealing certain traits that I found more intriguing in this avantgarde movement. And that was their perception as dirty, immoral, shocking, perverted, disgusting and therefore dangerous individuals for middle and highbrow readers; their sexual ambiguity and linguistic ‘in-betweenness’; their marginalization and even denunciation in mainstream discussions on literature even inside Bengal. It was precisely my ‘disfunctional’ positioning – young woman hailing from a southern city in Europe, speaking to a northern European academic audience and to elderly Bengali poets – vis-à-vis those who once were rebellious naughty boys that made this ‘clash’ of perspectives all the way more enriching and intriguing.
In the end, after years of spotting and collecting, reading, translating and often misunderstanding; coming back to the same poems months later, re-translating and re-interpreting, I realized that my exploration was not a linear procession of ‘comprehension’, of positive validation of my findings, at all. By contrast, one of the triggers was the impossibility of understanding, the aporia of ‘translation’, of putting into words, feelings that have always lied at the heart of the anthropological experience.
About the author
Daniela Cappello is a doctoral candidate at Heidelberg University. She has recently submitted her thesis on the poetry of the Hungry Generation, exploring issues of sexuality, masculinity, and transgression in their Bengali writings. She has edited a Bengali translation of Gramsci’s 25th Prison Notebook and authored articles on translation and comics. Among many other things, she loves hula hoop dance, playing guitar, and writing unfinished stories.
‘Thankfully, Bengalis do have a sense of humour’ : Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury
reviewbengaluruBooks, Poetry, Interviews
Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury
is a Bengaluru based poet and writer. She has three books to her credit
– ‘Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen: Bengali Cinema’s First Couple’ (non
fiction), ‘Where Even the Present is Ancient: Benaras’ (poetry) and ‘The
Hungryalists’ (non fiction). In the year 2013, ‘Uttam Kumar and
Suchitra Sen: Bengali Cinema’s First Couple’ was nominated for Crossword
Book Awards in 2013. Maitreyee is organiser of Bengaluru Poetry
Festival, and poetry and fiction editor of The Bangalore Review, a
literary journal. Maitreyee’s writings can be found in journals both
national and international. She lives in a house with a family of dogs
and poetry. In an exclusive interview with
Bengaluru Review, Maitreyee shares her experiences with writing her
latest book, ‘The Hungryalists’, which chronicles a poetic revolution in
Bengal during the ‘60s. Let’s start on a lighter note. In the Preface (Introduction) to
the book, you mention that some poetic licence has been taken with the
romantic angle in Malay’s (Roy Choudhury) life in the interest of the
book being in the format of narrative non-fiction. How much or to what
degree that poetic licence has been taken, and was it done from the
viewpoint that a non-fiction title can generally be taxing keeping in
mind the general readership or that amidst the chaos, the commotion of
the Hungryalist movement, this aspect of the narrative would bring some
sense of calm to the storytelling? The form of narrative non-fiction
allows some creative license in the presentation of the narrative. In an
attempt to make the book more interesting, I used some of this creative
licence in the description of Malay’s love interests. I wanted the
characters to be alive for the audiences for which details about them
had to be understood from intuition from the description given to me by
Malay and others. There were no photographs or detailed descriptions
that I could fall back on while describing the characters, hence how
Naseem Appa bent over Malay while making love to him or Tara’s interest
in travel was up to me to describe. The letters between Malay and Tara
are also part of that creative licence used to highlight the nature of
their relationship. The degree of poetic license in the
book is in its presentation. The framework of the story and its many
nuances, events, anecdotes, letters between the Hungryalists themselves
and the other characters like Allen Ginsberg are all factual. Amongst the initial members who formed the Hungry generation,
Malay is still alive. You’ve interviewed him several times as you were
writing the book. Tell us something about him, his temperament as a
poet, his philosophy as an artist, something which might not be known
from any book(s)? Malay was extremely helpful and warm
throughout the journey of this book. He extended every possible help to
me and the book would have been impossible without his generosity. I
haven’t seen him in the act of writing, but I found him extremely aware
of the poetry scene both in Bangla as well as English. What many might
not know is that he is extremely sharp even at his age, prolific as a
reader and very internet savvy – something that is rare for people his
age. In Chapter 1, it is mentioned that Haradhan Dhara, one of the keys
members of the Hungry generation had adopted the name Debi Rai, and the
same was printed in the first printed Hungry manifesto because he was a
Dalit writer living in the slums. What do you have to say about issues
like these in context to our present times? How difficult is it still to
get published especially by a big brand for an upcoming writer who
hails from such a background? I don’t think the caste of a writer
matters today, at least I haven’t seen or felt any such thing in the
world of Indian English writing. In fact writers belonging to such
castes, who might have something different to say or add to the regular
narrative probably stand a far better chance of being published today.
But today the issues that affect the Indian English writer are somewhat
different. There are open discussions on social media amongst writers
about class barriers amongst other things. Having said that I’m not very familiar with the scene in vernacular writing, hence can’t comment on that. To quote a couple of lines from Chapter 5, “Bengalis are anyway a
timid race, and when attacked physically, the intellect in them is
puzzled about the necessity of action.” Your comments? No book is complete without something of the author or his/her
observations creeping in. In this case the observation is laced with a
sense of humour. Like every other race I’m allowed to criticise my
brethren and myself. Thankfully Bengalis do have a sense of humour and I
hope they’ll take these observations in the right spirit. In the book, Malay is quoted casually saying, “If poetry did not
show the way, what else would?” In the context of our current
establishments and state of affairs, how much or how much do you not
agree with this? In every age, poetry has shown the
way. This stands true for the present circumstances too. Contrary to
what publishers keep telling us about poetry not being popular, I see
more and more people turning to poetry. It is solace, direction giver
and home for the lost soul. Let’s talk about Ginsberg (Allen). It seems that he as a literary
figure along with his chronicles during the ’60s in India served as big a
role as probably, let’s say, letters from Malay’s love interest to
string the narrative of this book together. Your comments on that? The role played by Allen Ginsberg in
this story cannot be wished away by anyone. He plays a rather large role
in highlighting the cause of the Hungryalists to the Western media and
literati. I wish to set this record straight once and for all here to
all the fans of the Hungryalists too, Ginsberg’s role as far as the
Hungryalists are concerned is one of generosity and camaraderie.
Acknowledging that role does not take away from the Hungryalists their
fame, innovation and spirit. Success sometimes lies in taking everyone
along. In a broader perspective, what do you think have been the outcomes
of anti-establishment movements in poetry and literature like these,
the A-Kavita movement in Hindi literature and of course, the Hungryalist
movement in Bengali, both of which drew inspiration from Beat poetry
and its generation? I think the biggest contribution of
any of these movements whether in India or outside is to show to people
what can be possible with literature, how it can be moulded to give rise
to new language, diction and emotion and gain new territory. It is the nature of all creative art
to find the new, to add perspective to what has already been said and to
evolve- in that sense and more literature has only gained from these
movements. If you were asked to define what poetry means to you in a single word, what would it be? Two words. Soul Connect. Malay Roychoudhury with Maitreyee Bhattacharya Choudhury (Source : Hungry Generation)
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.
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).
In
a recent forum on contemporary Bengali poetry, I was somewhat taken
aback to hear that the most important influence on post-1960s bangla
kobita was the visit of the American
Beat poet, Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), and his partner, Peter Orlovsky
(1933-2010), to Calcutta in the early 1960s. Having created waves with
his 1956 poem, "Howl", the 36-year old poet was in search of
alternatives to the capitalist JudeoChristian way of life and living as
he had experienced them in the United States of America and hoped to
find, if not peace, at least some kind of understanding that would help
him come to terms with both his own sense of disenchantment with his
country as well as his mother's mental breakdown and death -- and this
he hoped to find in the exotic East. In India, Ginsberg did all the
things we have come to associate with a certain kind of naïve,
over-earnest Westerner, whose attitude to this multifarious land is made
up of equal parts condescension and befuddlement -- a sort of
well-meaning, if unthinking, Orientalism of the kind so delightfully
analysed by Edward Said in his 1978 book of the same name.
INDIANS STILL WORRY ABOUT WHAT THE WEST THINKS, EVEN ABOUT ART AND POETRY Perhaps
Ginsberg's closest associate in India was the Bengali poet and
iconoclast, and founding member of the Hungryalist Movement, Malay
Roychoudhury, who had already, "created" (in his own words) the
"Manifesto of the Hungry Generation" in November 1961. The Manifesto
makes for interesting, if somewhat tame, reading now, nearly 60 years
after its composition, but there is something that seems to link its
opening lines to those of Ginsberg's best-known poem.
This
is how "Howl" opens: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed
by madness, starving hysterical naked,/dragging themselves through the
negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,/angelheaded hipsters
burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the
machinery of night…" And this is the opening of the first Hungry
Manifesto: "Poetry is no more a civilizing 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. Poetry
is an activity of the narcissistic spirit." These two texts, composed
six years apart, SAMANTAK DAS continents away from each other, by two
authors who did not know of the other's existence, seem to share a
similar view of language/poetry as needing to wholly destroy and
re-assemble itself in order to convey something real about the spirit of
their age. So it is no wonder that these two poets took an instant
shine to each other, and remained lifelong friends. Of course,
Roychoudhury was not the only Bengali poet Ginsberg befriended during
his sojourn in India. Others, including Sunil Gangopadhyay, Sakti
Chattopadhyay, Samir Roychoudhury (Malay's brother), Sandipan
Chattopadhyay, Binoy Majumdar, Utpal Kumar Basu, Basudeb Dasgupta,
Saileswar Ghosh, and many more, came into contact with -- and were
suitably impressed and shocked by -- the openly gay Beat poet, who often
introduced Orlovsky as his "wife".
So, yes,
Ginsberg, and his morals and mores, did have an impact on these young
Bengali poets, but just how significant was that impact? This is not the
time or place to go into the debates and discussions and dissensions
that arose between these Bengali poets in later years, with a
considerable amount of name-calling and mud-slinging, especially during
Malay Roychoudhury's prosecution for obscenity, in 1965-66, but it is
surely significant that even today Bengali intellectuals are more likely
to talk about Ginsberg's influence on Bengali poetry, rather than the
other way around.
To what, I have been wondering
since the day of that fateful poetry forum, can this be attributed, this
constant over-valuation of the Westerner, often to the detriment of our
own artists and creators? From well before the 19th century, the West
has thought in terms of a social and cultural hierarchy where there are
three clearly defined stages of development: `savagery' (such as found
in African and so-called `primitive' societies, such as those of the
native Australians, Americans, or our own tribes); `barbarism' (found
among pre-Christian Western societies such as that of ancient Greece,
and in India or China); and `civilization' (found only in the
advancedWestern, that is, Christian, nations). Accord- ing to this
formulation, every society must go through these three stages, ascending
from savagery through barbarism to civilization. Lewis Henry Morgan's
Ancient Society or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from
Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization, published in 1877, was, and
remains, the classic statement of this position, and has inspired
thousands of anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, and thinkers
at large, including Friedrich Engels, whose The Origin of the Family,
Private Property and the State (1884) was directly inspired by Morgan's
work.
According to this scheme we Indians can, at
most, aspire to be among the very best of the barbarians. We still have
some time to go before we can be admitted to full membership in the club
of truly civilized (=
Western) cultures. Could it be because of this that a Bengali
intellectual, speaking in Calcutta in 2019, in Bangla, of the
relationship between Ginsberg and modern Bengali poetry, seems
enthralled by the idea that Ginsberg it was who rejuvenated Bengali
verse, rather than the other way round? Is this the root cause why such
intellectuals seem to mimic the 54-year-old position enunciated by TIME
magazine, which had declared in 1964 that it was Ginsberg who had
provided an "inspirational assist" to Calcutta's Hungry Generation? One
of the abiding images from Hollywood is that of the weary traveller in
some arid landscape whose diminishing strength is inversely proportional
to the number of slow-circling vultures overhead. These birds begin as
mere specks and gradually grow in size as they come closer and closer to
the ground with every faltering step of the fast-fading hero or
heroine. Even children are not spared. In the 1994 animated Disney
feature The Lion King, young Simba runs away from his pride and is on
the point of turning into vulturelunch when the irrepressible duo of
warthog and meerkat (Pumbaa and Timon) rescue him with their
savoir-faire and oft-chanted motto of "Hakuna matata" ("No worries"). It
has often struck me that those of us who are allegedly in the business
of analysing culture and cultural artefacts are like vultures: circling
overhead, waiting to pounce when the adversary is too weak to defend
her/himself. But vultures are not all bad. Like all scavengers, they
perform the vital function of taking away remains that other predators
aren't interested in, often helping prevent the spread of disease, thus
helping to keep the environment clean, and playing an important part in
the food chain (The Lion King's "circle of life").
Instead
of being mimic-vultures preying on the weak Oriental from an Occidental
position of strength, perhaps we should simply stop worrying ourselves
about what the West thinks of us, our cultures, our societies, or our
work, and get on with the actual business of art, or indeed any other
human activity, including the analysis of what is created by art. Which
is something both the Beats and the Hungryalists would probably have
agreed with, had their members and movements still been around. The
author is professor of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, and
has been working as a volunteer for a rural development NGO for the last
30 years.
Malay Roychoudhury's Poetry of Dissent Translated from Bengali to English.
Protest in Poetry ( First stage translation by Mahashweta Bose, finalised by the author ) )
Nay-Ballad
From uncoiled wings of the burning swan after sea of blood was born out of green caterpillar that skin sheared moon from cloud’s underbelly ordered waves to abolish horoscopes on crabs’ breasts . On the evergreen epiglotis of lotus full to the brim the pollen fiddling honey bee waved her double scarf searched for drunk village of pride red beating crowd humming songs sleeping side by side of worried distance . ( Translation of ‘Na-Ballad’. Written on 15 August 1999 )
A Quasi Governmental Report
Unarmed military offered prayers One tin water is for ten rupees . Underground river cut off from source Habitually disgusted because of envy . Strong words used for sealing border Public Works Department has broken . Since at the day’s end in share market A woman’s body cut in two with sickle . Postal ballot in hand amid tomato field Lying pristine with great expectations . Ambitious pair of shoes for parliament Let them say whatever face betray . As if rice field is scared of Tiger’s roar Daughter of cultivator is in ministry . Tired cuckoo-man grieving due to son’s death From football field corner in direct shot . Solved the problem of freedom movement On the forehead of dead that was the truth . ( Translation of ‘Ekti Adha-Sarkari Protibedan’. Written in 1996 )
Sonpur Fair, Evening of Gumrahi Tart
Sliding jute curtain flickers in tent lantern dot beauty gait her small coins in betel box was counting tobacco scent in broken wine glasses . half naked on rope cot coin colour country liquor leather shoes well oiled beat stick resting at corner and yellow stain turban cheese-penis landlord . atoned in elephant shit put red petticoat on shoulder switched song amplifier hemp torn milk wet eye on eye sharp dark depends on who is beneath . myrobalan under tongue betel nut cutter in waist box full of scent tobacco corset on blown breast strung undies on string one suck tumbling tart . artificial hair on bamboo pole hypnotized hornet-man mosquito on naked bum his thighs are of mafioso one and five coins for police she is whatever fair or pure . ( Translation of ‘Shonpur Mela, Gumrahi Baier Sandhya’ L
Ruffian
I who am a swapping lapwing’s bullet ridden sky
was born out of drowned water filled bison’s horn in idle-eye noon beneath the pearly neem tree was enjoying black blonde’s adornment of soft-paw brows in rain drenched gold-flower tucked in coiffure’s knot
. I who am standing in front of grilled horizon of meadow-dawn on the trampled foot-printed grass of mourning sun’s wet-earth heard nightlong wood mite’s buzz in my last wallowed bed thought why should purposefulness be bad my dear is not there art of sweat-salt in labour of post a chair holds . I who asked gallinules what taste do you get from wings of butterflies like chipko playing bride of thrice-wed groom’s hoof-sound headgear am in a ship evading lighthouse’s beam a saw-teeth shark in the Secretariat cage-lift with a clerk having breasts of Jamini Roy painting bawled shrieks of rider throwing stallion’s bridle snapping neigh . I who am a whispering song sung in cricket’s musical notation have trapped Hilsa fish shoals’ colours in vagina shaped nets beneath the fig tree of hanged martyrs during freedom movement from corners of caterpillar-chewed perfumed lemon leaves flying out in sky from nape shaved hillock of stone chip proprietor ( Translation of ‘Tapori’. Written on March 1, 1990 )
Crematorium, 1992
During a paddy husk flying noon, from the corpse of a white-owl, gnat children
were stealing butter
with their hands having fragrance of rice crispies
picked up lightly the throttled shrieks of last akanda flowers
in the brittle breeze of Jaisalmer
sickly happy
at the spiraling city, blood drenched minute hand of wall clock
and the faces were beaming in wood fire warmth
pigeons fluttered making sounds of torn documents, just a bit
of living one’s own life
from those colours of sunset eyebrows, on the sad boat at web-tide
dead body wrapped in coarse mattress
I walked towards the gold rimmed estuary
in my palm I held the split moment of a knotted storm
at the breast beating grief of thrown parched rice
that was only mine
The Clapper
Then set out after repeated warning the grizzly
Afghan Duryodhan
in blazing sun
removed sandal-wood blooded stone-attired guards
spearing gloom brought out a substitute of dawn
crude hell’s profuse experience
Huh
a night-waken drug addict beside head of feeble earth
from the cruciform The Clapper could not descend due to lockdown
wet-eyed babies were smiling
.
in a bouquet of darkness in forced dreams
The Clapper wept when learnt about red-linen boat’s drowned passengers
in famished yellow winter
white lilies bloomed in hot coal tar
when in chiseled breeze
nickel glazed seed-kernel
moss layered skull which had moon on its shoulder scolded whole night
non-weeping male praying mantis in grass
bronze muscled he-men of Barbadoz
pressed their fevered forehead on her furry navel
.
in comb-flowing rain
floated on frowning waves
diesel sheet shadow whipped oceans
all wings had been removed from the sky
funeral procession of newspaperman’s freshly printed dawn
lifelong jailed convict’s eye in the keyhole
outside
in autumnal rice pounding pink ankle
Lalung ladies
echo forgets to shriek back sensing the beauty of sweat’s fragrance
.
thereafter
Operation Bullshit
ulcer in mouth
numb-penis young rebel’s howl on the martyr platform
non-veg heart daubed in onion paste
black eyed flowers
drenched lotus flower suffered from pneumonia
cloud’s forced roar on a hookah smoking octogenarian train
and lightning covered with gold laced spider web
frog-maid dropped a fat toad from her back
.
creamy hell-fairy of Babylon
fed medicine tablets to north facing clouds
swirling green fireflies on castor-oil lamp
splints of songs from the crown of ruffled hair comet-face princess
swan with blood-stained feet
prayed for a spring season for the repatriated armies
who arranged green-bed farmland for the shot-dead rebel’s parents
sulphur mist spread through secret savanna of lion-skin poachers
marriageable horseman The Clapper
Heigh ho
.
suffering from angst of a little unrecognition
the garden which lifted the betel-nut palms on little finger
in long distance cyclone
below the lamppost
covered by clothes of rain
that broken gait is his form
the profile which searched for relaxing waves
the universe in tandava trance
mouth blocked with leucoplast tape inside a temple
The Clapper
.
when fire separates from smoke
within that flash
the epiglotis
feels bitter between two heart beats
feverish rebels invade through sluice-gate
palash flowers united themselves in blooming red during the cyclone
just like futureless in zoos
in the last breeze
tin-bordered clouds exploded firecrackers
as if The Clapper will appear just now
.
in the morning the sweeper gathered all clappers assembled during night
in painless love
shoved sick Ganges river in a bag
one or three colour flapping rainbow
food plates were found in graves
bone columns fell due to wails of exploiteds
nobody is happy
when asked how are you replied
fine
handed over rings of barbed wire from their waist
.
after the oath ceremony of depraved
corpse collectors started visiting towns and villages
people prayed for their right to cry
somewhere else The Clapper
in fractured health
was trying to correct the songs of birds
in star flickering darkness
pillow hugging rainy nights
fish smelling asthma of slippery catfishes in Palamou Jehanabad Rohtas districts
on the eyelids of snail-chin old woman gray dusts of salt-petre-sulpher
.
for listening to songs of small wide-eyed fishes of half rotten Hooghly river
winter’s fine moult came out of cobra-girl’s attire
suddenly a porcupine
kapok flowers in red wedding dress
young sunflower stared on the side
healthy crab danced in hot oil raising her two scarlet hands
white muslin soft fairies leaped in rice-bowl
after he wept in darkness The Clapper smiled in light
listened to the jingle of shackles with which he was tied to hospital bed
nightlong tick tock of incarceration of the table clock
.
( Translation of Bengali poem ‘Hattali’ )
Blood Lyric
Abontika, my house was invaded midnight in search of you Not like her not like him nor like them Comparable not to this not to that not to it
What have I done for poetry plunging into lava-spewing volcano ? What are these ? What are these ? Result of searches at home of Poetry ? Bromide sepia babies from Dad’s broken almirah of Poetry ! Mom’s Benares sari torn out of hammered box of Poetry ! Breaths are recorded in the seizure list of Poetry ! Show me show me what else is coming out of Poetry ! Shame on you; girl’s half-licked guy ! Die you die of Poetry ! Wave piercing sharks chew up flesh & bone of Poetry ! AB negative sun from small intestine knots of Poetry ! Asphyxiated speed stored in impatient footprints of Poetry ! Delicate tart-glow in piss flooded jail of Poetry ! Mustard flower pollen on prickly feet of bumblebee of Poetry ! Hungry farmer in dirty loincloth on salty dry land of Poetry ! Rotten blood on feathers of corpse eating vultures of Poetry ! Sultry century in faded humid spiteful crowd of Poetry ! Black death shrieks of intelligence in guillotine of Poetry ! You die you die you die why didn’t you die of Poetry ! Fire in your mouth fire in your mouth fire of Poetry ! You die you die you die you die you die of Poetry ! Not like her not like him nor like them of Poetry ! Comparable not to this not to that not to it of Poetry ! Abontika, they came in search of you, why didn’t take you along !! ( Translation of Blood Lyric ) Mumbai 2011
Nail Cutting and Love
Tagore, this is for you after one fifty years : who clipped your nails in offshore lands– that foreign lady ? Or the chick adulators ? There isn’t any photograph of yours with your hands placed on laps of young ladies cutting nails ; your feet on Ocampo’s knee ?
May be the girls on whose shoulder Gandhi placed his wings, cut his nails. As you know, it’s so painful to reach the nail-cutter up to one’s feet at old age– oh, men like me without young girls for company are aware. Love’s strange demand from senile age.
Gossipers say Sunil Ganguly did have for each nail a struggling poetess. Joy Goswami also have had the same ; the girls closed eyes and jumped into muck. I’d seen Shakti Chattopadhyay’s lover clipping his nails in the small Chaibasa room. Does Sharat do same for Bijoya ?
Yashodhara, did Trinanjan ever cut your nails ? Subodh, have you ever took Mallika’s feet on your lap and cut her nails ? Just a glance at the feet of a poet tells you how lonely he is. Think of Jibanananda ; he has been searching for Banalata for thousand years for his nails to be cut. ( Translation of Nokh Kata O Prem ) Mumbai 2010
Immortality
Those who beat us to death after village court trial, they did not spare you as well, Abontika ! We rotten corpses drift in muddy Hooghly river ; what was our crime ? You are Party boss’s wife, I am just an uncivil nobody. There were endless praise of communism in last 33 years ; nothing for lovers. For whose benefit were the tomes– whatever are left of the rotten corpses of lovers remain metamorphosed domestic bullocks yoked to grinding, useless party-worker. Better to exude on chariot of waves to the seas clutching each other in oceanic splendour. ( Translation of Amaratwa ) Kolkata 2006
Salt & Betrayers
Abontika, and had said, ‘Ah salty beauty heart of heart…scent of masculinity…’ That day, from Police custody to Court rope tied to my waist and handcuffed I walked along with murderers hoodlums; circus loving crowd on both sides of road.
The betrayers, who volunteered in court to testify against me, said, when they came down from witness-box, ‘No, the sweat was sweet and not salty ; thus no question of treachery could arise– and should not be marked as Betrayers.’ ( Translation of Noon O Nimakharami ) Kolkata, 2005
The Spam Mistress
This is interesting ! In a flash you entered my desktop with mail topless polygirl your smiling invite for a black night fling The hungry wolf in me looks at Baudelairian dark Venus. In funny English you’ve written on your belly you love me princess Africa hooker girl exposed trapdoor for love adorable soft thighs. What’s that, colour or blood on shaman-nails ?
Which country are you from, mischief-sissy ? Kenya Uganda Zambia Burkina Faso Congo Cameroon Sudan Niger ? I am sure you’ve ganged up in Mumbai’s Nijerwadi. How did you know I have never slept with an African chick ! Delightful to say the least your lighted lap sex appeal you know quite well . That’s why invite for an embrace. How many Rupees or Dollars for that experience you haven’t indicated ; just a call to meet at Meera Road Junction, where you’ll descend in flesh from digital beauty. ( Translation of Spam Premika ) Mumbai 2009
Green Godchild
Oh, so you are the divine beauty I read about in adolescence, whom Toulouse Lautrec, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Baudelaire, Van Gogh, Modigliani et all held on to waist curvature and took flights to healing sweetness of inebriated light blazing hallucinatory juice of green lichen on the coloured thighs of sizzling dance girls who broke rhythms and picked up their contorted feelings on paper or canvas
At De Wallen crowds in Amsterdam wide mouth I ogle at almost naked showcased blonde dark brown ladies sourced from all over the world pink halo tinkling in semi-dark rooms twenty minutes fixed missionary style. I count Euros in my pocket and switch to the old controversy of form versus content : which generates more happiness and how is Absinthe different from others ? The guide retorts, ‘Why don’t you sleep yourself and see semen turning green !’ ( Translation of Sobuj Devkanya ) Amsterdam, 2007
Love Returns or Love Does Not Return
Saw you Abontika squatting on a milestone in gracious moonlit midwinter your back and chest still carrying 44 year old dust and dry grass wale mark of rashes all over your body due to moon’s crime, aha, result of peity you were shivering may be due to a vortex of hookworm in abdomen your ivy strand golden hair flowed down your shoulders up to waist seated on the signstone completely naked on third day of November guides of death in guise of mosquitoes sang Death Metal around your head you do not remember the last lover who deserted you at this place. I said, ‘Abontika, do you still possess the 9mm pistol with which you had killed me ?’ Waving your Naxal hand you brought down the pistol from air and emptying all bullets on my chest you said,’Ya, here it is !’ I scooped out 44 year old bullets from my chest and placed on your invisible hand– You said, ‘That’s good, we shall meet again Comrade.’ ( Translation of Prem Pherey Pherey Naa ) Mumbai 2009
Elopegirl
I could not find you in your bedroom , what a mess, am at a loss Abontika, which river has seduced you ? I unanchored my iceberg boat have a look, in Keleghai Churni Gumni Joldhaka Mayurakshi Kangsaboti rivers’ currents, no trace of scent of your sweat, am sad, the fishermen also could not find your blind touch, full-moon is in the dark, how would I manage, onions are not weeping, shit, bangles are clamourless, in which dream you have saved the kisses I could not locate, you could have informed someone, reflection of your face you had thrown away along with mirror, oh what a problem, at least you could have left behind bed sighs, why the almirah is empty, whom did you donate hair-oil from pillow and birth-mark of your navel I could not recognize the voice of your mind, toothbrush is without music slippers are without dance, why do you give such agony Abontika, your name used to be tied with your fallen hair, I could not find even after sweeping the floor, your office going road is waiting for you inside cobweb of spiders your fish-breath drawing routes on the palm has gone astray there, there, that bugger with whom you fled, his musical notes of shoe-marks are loitering on the marble floor ( Translation of Elopekanya ) Mumbai 2012
Stoniness
Midnight may be called a kind of colour dogs dislike stones too despise being locked up whole life within its breast if picked up by someone at midnight it hurts their solid guilt feeling it wakes up and listens to the dog’s moans why is there such difference with a dead snail which even after death has the right to nurture her lover’s gestures inside heart probably because of blessings of sighs of couples even a drunkard would not throw a dead snail at a dog would abuse if he steps on it and hurts himself but that is done by all lovers amid busy crowd in the flesh of the snail whispers of his lover continuously resonate to respond to sex-waves pity the stone without a female organ ( Translation of Pathorata ) Mumbai 2012
Counter Discourse
Relentless salty invite of sea was telling me I am not the same I used to be dear I am not because after my legs were tied to railing of a hospital bed
cultivators’ river and labourers’ river were flowing separately on both side of bed an enforced discipline in which the sun rises and sets only once throughout the day
if one has to draw comparison one would say it is not wedding vows of frog and snake when the half-wet seed has for the last time embraced its sprout
I knew I was not as I used to be as locks of all words have been opened days are such that roses refuse to bloom without bonemeal of saints at roots
and some bugger has spitted red at the corner of the sky and fled may be… may be… the raven seated upon the head of scarecrow
from the rag-stitched water of the pond during springtime noon I have cleaned and picked up the last piece of shadow of my own ( Translation of Counter Discourse ) Kolkata, 30 March 2000
Objectivity
Regaining consciousness in a trickle Hands & feet tied and mouth gagged on a railroad track The silent whole Shirt and trousers daubed in dew Whining crickets drone A rural gloom studded with night-chilled stars Can’t shout as mouth is wool of spew Ribs and shinbone smitten — not possible to move Stiff stonechips bite at back How beautiful is the world and peace everywhere allround calm A pinhead light is rushing on rail route piercing the one-eyed dark ( Translation of Pratyaksha ) 1986
Kurmitola, Jehanabad, 1989, Evening
Mother
while standing in waterweed, in the kitchen, in her petticoat, was caught
by police, her hair unkempt
in wintery autumn flying horses stored in glass jar held in left hand, knitted in loincloth
a comet from the yellow piece of cloud
she floated her boat made of hay, unconcerned, lilies within shouts of children
I know what will happen to her now
Abdul, Gafoor’s brother, was first to bring the news
but Mother gave up, hazy domesticity in the dusts of her brows
why did she conceal behind Goddess Kali’s lamp-oil
broken pulses and rice crumbs brought from Murshidabad
a little sun tainted skin, in unknown fear, palm on her chin, forgot her own name
damp shadows on her hung face
brain completely naked
in drizzling dewdrops, smiled a skinny deer
wooden shoes on snow, sky facing wolves, she cried whole day
the priest
drew blood in a syringe from her hand
pain at the corner of her lips, was tired to climb the stairs
( Translation of Kurmitola, Jehanabad, 1989, Sondhya )
To Save People of West Bengal
I do not know why inside pinkflesh jailhouse of a shark’s stomach during domesticated dangers in a wet honest alley of wayward rains when the 205 route bus carrying darkness on shoulders reached Babughat driver said go carefully to other side of river as it has gone for spawning to the sea you must be aware apart from rotten corpses other funerals have been banned
I do not know why in the No Entry zone where only scoundrels win saw the parasite-ear crater-mouth reporter counting with painless hands of Duhshasan ashes of last breath from burning pyre whose only job was to contradict other people’s opinion in the motherland of bugs
I do not know why men who prefer to lend tongue instead of ear to rumours when they made it free to board and eat for accepting disorder as peace victory arose from self named grave of poison smeared sheepfold everyone was shouting Hail Revolution but we do not want transferable jobs
I do not know why the day ditched girl inside frog-echo water-well floated upward — sweet memory of iron-weight at grocer’s shop was balancing wheat flour for Satyanarayan Puja demeanour was such as if southern breeze was tickling fishes brought on land
I do not know why faster than dementia of a wound’s remembrance of pain I saw funeral ants in a row carrying candy particles on corpse’s forehead ( Translation of Pashchimbanger Manushkey Banchatey Holey ) Mumbai, 17 February 1999
Democratic Centralism
To be honest I became plywood leader after giving up cultivation of teeth & nails when I am in disguise my real appearance slips out is there any original work other than self-hostility ? Tell me !
To be honest I am a loose eagle haggard in dilapidated sky I feign to pretend and pass it on as life I lead domesticity in a hackery on swimmer dribbling stream
To be honest I hammer out stone from heart of stone and find through sandy glance rows of turtle-flesh eater gout sufferers searching for wing-flight smiles from drowned girl’s livid lips
To be honest while I weep during adulterated smoke offerings of ghee I create truth create death create up & down circles the snake was inside its hole I insert my hand to bewitch it as well. ( Translation of Ganatantrik Kendrikata ) Kolkata, 27 November 1999
The Empty Womb
After having layers of dust on ear lobes on breeze stitched paddy field when cobra children started dancing around me pointing nude fingers toward husky darkness I saw jingled sounds of sunrise amid whispers of rain the four squared universe seen through soft barrel hole of a rifle which was encircled by a thorn crowned slogan-wet wall
After the garden came forward to receive me dancing bells of cobra mom-dad were strewn all over grass and cobra housewife reminded several times she would expose and reveal the real thing
The lady whose beauty I had ravished just by a glance at her I could glean through twisted arms of her sexless embrace my horoscope on dazzling liquid breast of the crab licked with smooth kissing lips by cobra housewife
At the happy eating festival of the menu-card funeral the sick street dog licked its own shadow from bodyfur and over the bread crumbed map only then ant columns marched from one country to another ( Translation of Shunya Garbha ) Ahmednagar, 12 October 1997
Two Worlds
We know we are incapable of redemption but because of it why in your rain-echo drenched stingy lungs piranha shoals would swim wearing pink raincoats
Rumour is your veins carry ashen flight of one-dialect pigeons we’ve heard you used to tame fat-belly clouds with your blind vision you used to tuck donkey brays of your daily diary in your armpits and now you claim that even Karna of Mahabharata did not donate his vote
Everybody is aware that only coffin bearers are immortal since you did not get someone to talk to in darkness of semen you searched for an one-shot lover in clocktowerless city you scoundrels don’t you have any address or it is your sinister blood that the wrinkled mirror carries your pulpable image throughout the day
Shame shame shame you want back the breath after you breathe it out I thought you would apply your power of doubt instead you are shredding your prehistoric body-hair with ding dong cotton-gin
My best wishes you get both hands of Duhshasana of Mahabharata with which you may count the sparkles of flints in your fort of smoke ( Translation of Duti Bishwa ) 27 April 2000
Bite
India, Sir, how long will you carry on like this, really, I feel awful India, I ate your jail food for complete one month which means for 30 days No job since September 1964, you know India, would you mind lending me 20 bucks ? India, those guys are very bad, even rats are eating away your grains What did Suhrawardy advise you in the Control Room India ? O tell me — I am really happy, promise, I can make faces ! And I do not know where Kolkata is hurtling in this bitter renaissance India, why don’t you get a few of my pulp published in Nabokallol magazine I’ll also become saint, or guide us to Santiniketan We would be servant of literature, you would give me a set of cultural attire Let us go to country liquor den Khalasitola today evening, we would cook Bengali culture India, why aren’t you exploding an atom bomb, fireball suits the sky ! Do you want to try LSD ? Both of us would sunbathe at Nimtala crematoria India, here, take this handkerchief, wipe your specs In this election please help me win, I’d contest from Chilika lake Which lecture of yours is going to be published in tomorrow’s newspaper, India ? I have snatched the key from them which keeps you going India, I surreptitiously read the love letters written to you Why don’t you cut your nails ? There are dark patches beneath your eyes Why don’t you apply colour to your teeth these days ? You kill in revenge but blame us for murder when we follow you Don’t think I am just a cat’s paw How about a self-compromise eating one’s own heart India, withdraw Section 144 of Penal Code from paddy fields Send all great books to Vietnam, Huh Huh May be the war will stop India, tell me what exactly you want !! ( Translation of Kamor ) Hungry Bulletin, 26th January 1966.
Chicken Roast
Puff your plume in anger and fight, cock, delight the owner of knife smear sting with pollen and flap your wings. As I said : Twist arms and keep them bent roll the rug and come down the terrace after disturbed sleep Shoeboots—-rifle—whirring bullets—shrieks
The aged undertrial in the next cell weeps and wants to go home Liberate me let me go let me go home On its egg in the throne the gallinule doses asphyxiate in dark fight back, cock, die and fight, shout with the dumb
Glass splinters on tongue—breast muscles quiver Fishes open their gills and enfog water A piece of finger wrapped in pink paper With eyes covered someone wails in the jailhouse I can’t make out if man or woman
Keep this eyelash on lefthand palm–and blow off with your breath Fan out snake-hood in mist Cobra’s abdomen shivers in the hiss of feminine urination Deport to crematorium stuffing blood-oozing nose in cottonwool Shoes brickbats and torn pantaloons enlitter the streets
I smear my feet with the wave picked up from a stormy sea That is the alphabet I drew on for letters. ( Translation of Murgir Roast ) 1988
Repeat Uhuru
Hood-covered face, hands tied at the back…On the alter plank breeze frozen in bitter hangman’s odour who composes time ? Doctor Cop Judge Warden or None !
I unfurl myself in the dungeon cloud where salt-sweating history of dirt is tamed the rope quivers fast at first Weak jerks thereafter calm, with dumbness of bawl wherein bards and butchers repeat their fall I revive my rise.
This rising is singular. None other for the monster of words whose feet adore the ruined universe.
I don’t face the gallows every time to keep alive a dynasty of faith of those who are spawned for death.
Homology
I am ready to be mugged O deadly bat come Tear off my clothes, bomb the walls of my home Press trigger on my temple and beat me up in jail Push me off a running train, intern and trail I am a seismic yantra alive to glimpse the nuke clash A heathen mule spermed by blue phallus ass ( Translation of Monushyatantra ) 1986
