Malay Roychoudhury : Hungryalist Legend & Pioneer Anti-Establishment in Bengal : Abhijit Pal

                                    In every country whenever a poet departed from the beaten path and searched for a new one, older traditionalists became very angry and tried to create problems for him. Many poets had to face humiliation and abuse for such new ventures. Very often they have had to face punishments for their works. They had to fight through their life to establish themselves. In this connection one specially remembers modern French poet Charles Baudelaire. He was kept at a distance by traditionalists during his lifetime. It is obvious that the leading light of Hungry Generation literary movement would face such attacks during his creative time. For this poet Malay Roychoudhury was even put up in lock-up and sentenced by court. Picking up the word Hungry from British poet Geoffrey Chaucer's ...

Malay Roychoudhury's journey from the Hungryalist movement to Magic Realist writing is a logical step in view of his vast experience of having traveled through the length and breath of India. He has visited more than three hundred villages in his lifetime and met people from all walks of life, specially poor peasants, carpenters, fishermen and under caste families who depend on handicrafts. His famous Magic Realist novel is that of journey of the heart of Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore's grandfather Prince Dwarkanath Tagore. The story is based on a real event. Dwarkanath was in London when he died but his family members did not bother about him as they thought that he has departed from the Indian path and has become a lecher, drunkard and a person who ate all sorts of meat. The journey of the heart is by a steam ship of those days. It is carried by his devoted servant Hooli who, being a Hindu, has a right to be born as many times as he likes, whereas Dwarkanath being a Bra...

                                                       It was obvious that Malay Roychoudhury ( 1939 ), who was born under the sign of Leo and spent his impressionable childhood in Patna's Imlitala slum will be the force behind the Hungryalist movement, the first Anti-Establishment counter cultural movement in West Bengal. With his leadership qualities and ability to organize he gathered around himself about thirty to forty young men to launch the Hungryalist movement from his Patna residence on 1st November 1961. He masterminded to hand over the editorship of the one-page mouthpiece to an under-caste named Haradhon Dhara who at that time lived in a Howrah slum. Malay Roychoudhury was well educated with good academic results and his command over Bengali was immaculate. His English also was admired by Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ca...