Hungryalist movement did continue after 1965

   The movement did continue after 1965      

 Malay Roychoudhury interviewed by Nishtha Pandey

Nishtha : In your own words, can you explain briefly why the movement ended? Were the reasons purely political?

Malay : People thought that the movement ended after I left Kolkata in 1967 consequent upon my exoneration at High Court and my getting a job in Agricultural Refinance & Development Corporation, Lucknow. I was from a Patna slum called Imlitala and did not have any knowledge of agriculture and rural life. I had to gain knowledge by reading about rural life. The movement was continued by other members but they did not give publicity to their magazine “Khudharto '' as I did by distributing leaflets and pamphlets which reached readers quickly ; nobody had to pay. Leaflets/pamphlets  had a greater reach as some of them were in English as well. “Khudarto” was in Bengali and Kolkata Centric. In fact seven issues of “Khudharto’ were published as an anthology by Sahitya Academy. Unfortunately those who published “Khudharto '' took a decision to have only a few writer friends as contributors. I used to increase the number of participants which included writers, poets, dramatists, cartoonists and painters. The movement took roots in North Bengal and Tripura in 1975-1980 but then again they were not publicized. Politics played a role as far as the then West Bengal government wanted to stifle our voice, arrested us and charged me for my poem Stark Electric Jesus. When my elder brother returned to Kolkata and started a literary magazine called HAOWA39, and I got transferred to Kolkata, interest among younger generation writers about our movement received attention. I was requested to write about the movement by a magazine of Bangladesh which was republished in Kolkata by a publisher and published again by another publisher with lots of photographs. After Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Choudhury wrote The Hungryalists published by Penguin Random House, the movement again got an Indian attention.

Nishtha : Performing poetry was a big part of the Hungry Movement, it aimed at raising people from their passive state. Is there a particular performance that is striking to you, or stands out more than the others?

Malay : There were a few of them. One was at the cemetery of Michael Madhusudan Dutt, limited to us only, though Tridib Mitra and his girlfriend Alo Mitra had distributed cards of the event among writers and poets. The one which attracted a crowd was at Howrah station when I stood upon a bench at platform number one and read the Bengali version of Stark Electric Jesus loudly. Tridib Mitra read his poem Hatyakand. Third was at country liquor den Khalasitola on Jibananda Das’s birthday when Abani Dhar got up on a table and sang a song ; he had worked as a ship mate for some time. This became news in the next day's newspapers and literary magazines. The incident has also been included in the book ‘A Poet Apart’ by Klinton B Seely, on Jibananda Das’s life and poetry.

Nishtha : The Hungry Movement was a combination of the literary and the political when at its peak. How did this come about? Did one aspect stem from the other or were both of them intertwined from the beginning?

Malay : Both of them were intertwined from the very beginning as Hungry Generation manifestos were issued not only on literature but also on politics and religion etc. The then daily ‘Jugantar’ wrote its main editorial on consecutive days about our political manifestos. Our poems, short stories and drama had political overtones. Politics came automatically as the movement itself was a reaction to the plight of refugees at the Sealdah railway station. 

Nishtha : Caste equality was an important fight that was led by the Hungryalists. Can it be the sole reason why the movement always garnered unwanted attention from the literary elite of Bengal, and eventually from the state?

Malay : I do not think so. Elitist literary magazines did not publish under-caste works. We wondered loudly as to why they were excluded from Buddhadeva Basu, Sushil Roy, Sunil Gangopadhyay’s poetry magazines. Haradhan Dhara had to change his name to Debi Roy, since Dhara means cultivator caste, so was Sambhu Rakshit. Sunil Gangopadhyay ridiculed Haradan Dhara in letters to his friends. Actually the then Establishment was dominated by upper castes. It is the elites who requested Kolkata Police to take action against our movement. 

Nishtha : Do you think the movement’s delicate position in a postcolonial country, in post-independent Bengal, affected the fate of the movement, particularly the end, compared to let’s say the Beats in America?

Malay : The Beats came from rich families. Very rich families, when you think of Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs. We were paupers compared to them. Saileswar Ghosh, Subhash Ghosh, Basudev Dasgupta, Pradip Choudhuri came from refugee families. Haradhan Dhara had to work as an errand boy at a tea stall ; his mother collected garbage from vegetable markets. Falguni Ray did nothing.  came from a slum. We did not get publishers for our books for more than two decades.

Nishtha: Do you think the friendship with Allen Ginsberg propelled the Hungry Movement in any way? Did his visit act as a catalyst for the movement?

Malay : Yes it did. Not in India but in America. In India prominent Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi writers wrote about our movement in the papers/magazines of their languages. Allen Ginsberg sent our manifestos and bulletins to Lawrence Ferlinghetti who published them in four issues of his City Lights Journal. This attracted other editors and writers of various little magazines in the USA, Latin America, Europe, Turkey and Arab world.  Research is being done in those activities by academicians now. You may find them in academia.edu. But his visit can not be termed as a catalyst. Our movement started in November 1961 and Ginsberg came in 1962. He met my elder brother Samir in 1962 and came to meet me at Patna in April 1962. My photographer father was annoyed with Ginsberg when he found out that Ginsberg was taking photos of lepers, beggars, destitutes, half-naked sadhus. He eventually made money by printing them in India Journals and Exhibiting them in various studios. He was, like other foreigners, an Orientalist.