ECOCRITICISM: A NEW THEORY OF READING LITERATURE

ECOCRITICISM: A NEW THEORY OF READING LITERATURE

                                                                    

The basics of eco-criticism are no new things to Indian literary minds. Many elements of this new critical discourse abound in Rabindranath Tagore and Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay. Those can be traced back in the Vedas and the Upanishads. And numerous suggestions and implications of this theory can be found in the cultural life of numerous tribes of India as the Santals, the Totos, the Ravas and the Mahalis. But it being considered as a literary theory is a recent development. At different phases of history, at different places thinkers and litterateurs have expressed concern at environmental plundering and misuse of natural resources which court disaster and destruction of Mother Earth. Many thinkers describe environmental crisis to be the crisis of civilisation.

  Though eco-criticism is a theoretical development of the 90s, William Rueckert used the term `eco-criticism` in 1978. In his article `Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Eco-criticism`, Rueckert has made a comparison between literary activities and biological activities. He thinks that poetry like trees and plants store energy from the collective vital energy of the human society. Rueckert‘s theory implies that poetry is a power-store that can be used to bring a change inhuman consciousness. According to Rueckert aesthetics is not something in isolation of life and society. Rather it is something emerging out of life and directed to the welfare of life. And this life is the collective life of the flora and fauna of the world.

 Like Rueckert, Sueellen Cambell, too has treated a literary theory as an action or an activist movement that can create a jerk, adequately powerful for the society and human consciousness to change. Cambell believes that litterateurs and environmentalists are revolutionary minds who can think ahead of other people.

 The book which proved instrumental in getting eco-criticism accepted as a literary theory is The Eco-criticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology (1996) edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm. In this book Glotfelty defines eco-criticism as `the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment. ` He regards ecocriticism, like Marxism and feminism is an activist methodology that can initiate activist movements to change human consciousness to make it caring for Nature.

 Another book which contributed to the growth of ecocriticism as a literary discipline is Lawrence Buell’s book The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing and the Formation of American Culture (1995). Buell thinks that seeds of ecocriticism can be traced back in Walden Diary of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). Thoreau advocates a nature-centric life which does not use Nature simply as the source of resources for consumption but a part of life. Thoreau’s attempt was to go beyond the homocentric philosophy of life upheld by the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Modern life meant for consumption and comfort is no life to Thoreau. He writes: I did not wish to live what was not life. Accounts of his diary are accounts of a search for an alternative life beyond modernism.

 Masanubo Fukuoka (1913-1987), a Japanese agriculturalist and philosopher thought of an alternative method of agriculture and an alternative life style. In spite of being trained in modern agriculture and an expert in pesticide, Fukuoka could discover the dark sides of modern agriculture exclusively dependent on technology, chemical fertilizers and pesticides. He suggested Natural Farming, a system of farming that keeps tilling and chemical fertilizers away. He built up his own farm to prove efficacy of his philosophy of Natural Farming. In 1975 he published a seminal book on natural farming` One Straw Revolution`. This book, though it does not use ecocritical terminologies should be regarded a work which links literature, philosophy, agriculture and environmental issues.

 Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) elaborately discussed the impact of pesticides on birds. Modern agriculture has minded human hunger at the cost of other components of Nature. The title of the book suggests that human beings will have to see the advent of a spring without bird-music. Here we can read a poem by Ralph Hodgson (1869-1915):

                                                               I saw with open eyes

                                                               Singing birds sweet

                                                                Sold for people to eat

                                                                 Sold in the shops of

                                                                 Stupidity Street.

                                                                 I saw in vision

                                                                 The worms in the wheat

                                                                 And nothing for sale

                                                                 In the shops of

                                                                 Stupidity Street.

                                                                (Stupidity Street, Ralph Hodgson)

Hodgson means to say that Nature will take care of us if we take care of Nature. By destroying Nature we pave the way of our own destruction. Indiscriminate killing of the flora and fauna as well as destruction of biodiversity is a wrong way of development. Due to assimilation of theoretical elements of numerous thinkers from diverse field ecocriticism has grown up as a multidimensional and multi-perspective theory. So Buell describes ecocriticism to be `a multiform inquiry extending to a variety of environmentally focussed perspective more expressive of concern to explore environmental issues searchingly than of fixed dogmas about political solutions...`

 ASLE(The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment) , an organisation formed in 1992 has played the most important role in popularising ecocriticism all over the world  and strengthening the philosophical foundation of this theory by publishing research articles on environmental issues in its famous journal `ISLE` (Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment).

 Ecocriticism is now a subject of study in different parts if India. In West Bengal Pannalal Dasgupta, a socialist thinker and the founder of Tagore Society attempted to make environmentalism a social movement. His meen-mangal festival and the concept of dharmogola demand collaborative efforts for conservation of Nature and elimination of economic exploitation from the society. The meen-mangal festival makes us aware that we must care the rivers and give something to the rivers in return for what they give us.

 We can read the seminal books of Vandana Shiva (1952) in relation to ecocriticism. Her books such as Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge (1997) and Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply (1999) exposes the ulterior motive of the American Patent laws and the rhizomatic ways of functioning of new capitalism to ensure the plunder of natural resources, the Pancha bhuta as described in the  Indian scriptures. Vandana Shiva’s writings add a postcolonial perspective to the theory of ecocriticism. In this regard we can remember activists like Medha Patekar and Arundhati Roy.

 A study of Rabindranath from this new perspective is rewarding. To Rabindranath Nature is a living soul. His literature advocates a close relationship between Nature and human beings. The play Muktodhara foresees the environmental activism.

Postcolonial theory pioneers the causes of the marginalised. It demands adequate importance to be given to the `other`, the margin. Ecocriticism too upholds the causes of `Nature-other`. Humanism speaks of homocentric values. It thinks that man is last word of this universe; all natural resources as water, food grain, soil, air and other creatures are meant for his consumption and gratification. And that’s why human civilisation is now at stake. Ecocriticism looks for way out of this crisis. And hence ecocriticism is not a mere literary theory but a comprehensive philosophy of an alternative life.

MOVEMENTS IN BANGLA POETRY

 

Movements in Bangla Poetry  

Movements in Bangla poetry is a rarely discussed subject in the contemporary critical literature of Bangla. Few numbers of books have been written on this subject. And I apprehend that discourse in English on this subject is sadly very inadequate .But studies in this field could be helpful to comprehension of recent Bangla poetry in particular and poetry experimental anywhere in the world in general. Impact of these literary movements on the future poetry and possibilities of emerging new poetry out of the literary activism are poetical fields of studies.

The movements in the realm of Bangla poetry which proved instrumental in initiating changes in language and structure of Bangla poetry are Hungry Generation Movement, Shruti Andolon, Shastrobirodhi, Dhwamsokalin Kabita Andolon and Neem Sahitya Aloron. All these movements were in some way or other directed to defy the established canon of Bangla Poetry and succeeded to some extent to extend the periphery of poetic expression in Bangla. The present study is an attempt to survey the history of these literary movements along with their manifestos.

Hungry, Hungryalism and Hungry Generation are three slightly different names of the same movement which was considered a potential threat to the contemporary established canon of poetry and the taste of the general readers. The movement was conceived by Malay Raychoudhury who chalked out the outline of this movement after rounds of discussion with Samir Raychoudhury, Malay’s elder brother and a Bangla poet of the 50s and Shakti Chattopadhyay, an eminent poet who used to visit frequently Samir’s house at Chaibasa in Bihar. In 1962 the first bulletin of the movement `Hungry Generation` came out and it declared Malay the father of the movement, Shakti the leader and Debi Roy  the publisher. The movement was first conceived as a poetry-movement but later on it did not remain limited to poetry but branched out to other genre of literature. A number of poets, essayists and novelists as Sandipan Chattopadhyay, Utpalkumar Basu, Samir Raychoudhury, Subo Acharya, Shaileswar Ghosh, Subhas Ghosh, Prodip Choudhury, Subimal Basak, Shambhu Rakshit and Phalguni Roy joined this movements and added a huge momentum and numerous dimensions to it. Among the new participants Sandipan and Utpalkumar broke away from the Krittibus Group, led by Sunil Gangopadhyay.And this departure made the existing members of Krittibus Group a little antagonistic to those of the Hungry Generation Group.

Let us read a few points of Hungry manifestoes:

1.      To reject traditional forms of poetry and allow poetry to take its original forms.

2.      To break loose the traditional association of words and to coin unconventional and ... unaccepted combination of words.

3.      To present in all nakedness all aspects of the self.

4.      To transmit dynamically the message of the restless existence and the sense of disgust in a razor sharp language.

According to the Hungry poets poetry emerges out of disgust and poetry defies all norms of tradition. Malay Raychoudhury wrote `Prochando Baidutin Chhuter `. The poem treats the subject of sexuality with that degree of frankness hither to unknown to Bangla poetry.  The poem is an explosion of vital energy in an unconventional manner. It was not accepted by the readers. A court case was filed against the Hungry poets. Due to lack of sufficient evidence everyone except Malay Raychoudhury was relieved. Sunil Gangopadhyay, being requested by Allen Ginsberg, the famous poet of the Beat Generation Movement stood for Malay in the court  though he had a great dislike for Malay`s poetry. Malay ultimately was released from charge.  He for time being left writing and the Hungry Movement gradually subsided. Malay Raychoudhury, Shaileswar Ghosh and Phalguni Roy are three important Hungry poets. Phalguni Roy’s `Noshto Atmar Television` is an important contribution to the store of Bangla Poetry. Hungryalism ended but its rebel spirit is often felt in the works of angry young poets.

Shruti Andolon followed Hungryalism but its character and spirit were very different from those of Hungry Generation. Hungry Generation had a spirit of activism but Shruti Andolon was purely an effort of creating a new kind of poetic idiom in Bangla. This movement was a collaborative effort of five young poets—Pushkar Dasgupta, Paresh Mandal, Mrinal Basuchoudhury, Sajal Bandopadhyay and Ananta Das. Shruti Movement got off with the publication of the 1^st issue of the magazine Shruti in April, 1965. The name of the movement alludes to the Vedas, called Shruti as being transmitted orally. It suggests that the poets, associated with this movement must honour the tradition. In the manifestoes of Shruti the poets associated with this movement assert:

1.      Poetry does not have any responsibility of explaining anything and propagating any theory or maxims.

2.      Poetry is no shouting and no lecture. Poetry does not advocate political socialism, hungry cries, sexual groaning and other biological out-bursts.

3.      Poetry is expression of intimate realisation. It is very personal and inward-looking.

4.      Poetry does not orbit around a single idea; many ideas and many views meet in a single   piece of poetry. Poetry comes out of complicated process of assimilation.

5.      Poets should be educated and cultivated. They should get them initiated to the works of the great masters of the world.

A careful reading of these points proves that Shruti poets did know very well the works of Mallarme and other masters associated with surrealism and futurism. Paresh Mandal knows French and Pushkar Dasgupta is a great scholar of French language and literature. The 2^nd point needs a little bit explanation. It means to assert that Shruti poets do not approve indiscriminate uses of sexual references as rampant in Hungry Generation poets. The 5^th point refers to T.S. Elliot’s essay `Tradition and Individual Talent`. Shruti poets give up punctuation marks and skilfully use spaces and geometric structures in their writings. They have attempted to explore the dhwani (sound) and drishya-rupa (visual significance) of words and arrangement of words. Let us read a poem:

                                                                     Roads

                                                                     Buses

                                                                     Tramcars

                                                                    Vehicles

                                                             

                                                                     Roads

                                                                     Pavements

                                                                     Shops

                                                                      Lights

                                                                       Cries

                                                                       

                                                                       Roads          

                                                                       Hawkers

                                                                       People

                                                                        Roads

                                                                         Roads

                                                                          Roads

                                                    (Roads and, Pushkar Dasgupta, translation mine)

We are trained to understand a word in association with other words. A word gets meaningful within a sentence. But here each word gets suggestive without any association of other parts of speech as verbs and qualifiers. This poem looks like a concrete poet or pattern poem. Shruti movement is still living in the ongoing tradition of writing pure poetry in Bangla.

                                                                       

Shastrobirodhi Andolon was a movement in Bangla short-stories. In March,1966 the 1^st issue of `Ai Dashak`, a little magazine came out with the manifesto of Bangla short-story movement, Shastrobirodhi Andolon. The exponents of this movement were young writers as Subrato Sengupta, Ramanath Roy, Shekhar Basu, Kalyan Sen and Ashis Ghosh .The manifesto says:

1.      We would speak of our personal experience in our stories.

2.      We are weary of realism.

3.      Masterpieces of the past are good for the past; they are not good for us.

4.      Persons attempting to find a plot in story will be shot.

   The 2^nd point speaks of breaking away from realism and attempts to promote magic realism which is to be looked for in traditional Bangla folktales. Elements of magic realism come to dominate the future fictional works of Ramanath Roy. Balaram Basak who later joined this movement is another exponent of magic realism in Bangla fiction. The 4^th point which has been taken from Mark Twain’s The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn gives emphasis on removing straight-forward narrative from the story. Let us read a story `Balar Achhe` (Let Me Have My Say) by Ramanath Roy:

                                   I’ve something to say

                                   It needs a high stool,

                                   A good voice

                                   I don’t have a high stool,

                                   Not even a good voice

                                   None lent me a stool which I wanted to borrow

                                  My effort to mend my voice failed

                                   But I must speak what I’ve

                                   To say

                                  I’ve some papers

                                 I’ve a pen

                                 I’ve a table...

                            The bright moon gets stuck to the sky; the apartment is full to brim with light...

The story means to say realism is insignificant, dream can make everything possible. Ramanath Roy and Balaram Basak brought a significant change in the narrative style of Bangka short-story. Shastrobirodhi Andolon was a movement in the fictional genre but it attracted poets like Arunesh Ghosh. And the movement attempted to remove the tendency of narrating a story in poetry.  Few poets now bother to write for the elocutionists and the telefilms-makers.

 

Dhwamsokalin Kabita Movement got started in 1967 with publication of the 8^th issue of the Bangla poetry magazine Samprotik (December, 1967). The participating  litterateurs were Probhat Choudhury, Pobitra Mukhopadhyay, Kanankumar  Bhowmik, Rabindu Biswas, Subimal Mishra and Chandi Mandal.Among them Chandi Mandal and Subimal Mishra  was an innovative short-story writer. Later on other few poets like Dipen Roy, Tusharkanti Choudhury and Robin Sur took part in this literary movement. They brought out two manifestoes of this movement, the 1^st one in the 8^th issue of Samprotik (December, 1967) and the 2^nd one in the 10^th issue of Samprotik (December, 1968).We can sum up the goals and slogans of those two manifestoes by in the following:

1.      No lecturing posture should there be in poetry and philosophical propaganda should be eliminated from poetry. The lecturer in a poet is to be beheaded.

2.      Poetry is no artificial formulation. It is the heart-felt expression of personal experience, emotional and cerebral which a poet has realised and achieved from life around.

3.      No rootless discourse, but such discourse which is deeply rooted in our indigenous culture is the poetic goal of this movement.

A number of important poems  such as Ami Mephistopheles  ( Myself Mephistopheles) by Probhat Choudhury, Ibliser Atmodarshan (Self-realisation of Iblis) by Pobitra Mukhopadhyay and Projapati Baname Khalilullar Srijanbad ( Butterflies versus Khalilulla’s Creativity) by Kanankumar Bhowmik were the results of Dhwamsokalin Kabita Movement. Each of these poems is rooted in some myths. And the poets have chosen the rebels as their alter-egos. Mephistopheles and Iblis here stand for the marginalised others .These three poets were active members of the leftist movement of West Bengal which was directed to achieve economic, social and political rights for the have-nots .Dhwamsokalin Kabita Movement was in that sense a socio-literary movement. Let us read a few lines from Ami Mephistopheles (Myself Mephistopheles):

                                I’m Mephistopheles who once

                               Used to crawl like the reptiles on the bed in the dark

                               Now floating in the primordial fluid

                               I suck up energy from mother-body

                               I’m growing up in boiling blood, gradually taking a form,

                               Preparing myself for a battle,

                               As if on coming out of womb I can get into a phosphorus flame...

                                                                                  (Part 9, translation mine)

                             

This poem is a revolt to the maladies of the contemporary society and at the same time an attempt to break away the over-lyrical tradition of Bangla poetry. A revolting self speaks here. It heralds the ultra-left voice to be heard very soon in the political life of West Bengal. Dhwamsokalin Kabita Movement cantered round the Bangla little magazine Samprotik mainly. But later on another magazine Kabita Sambad supplemented this movement. Dhwamsokalin Movement was short-lived because some of the key persons got directly involved in politics in 1969. In spite of that it produced a huge impact on Bangla poetry of the succeeding generation. To liberate Bangla poetry from romantic decadence Dhwamsokalin Movement along with other movements of 60s played a vital role.

Neem Sahitya Aloron was another literary movement in Bangla. Unlike the literary movements of 60s Neem Sahitya Aloron was not Kolkata-centric. It got started on the 3^rd February, 1970 with the publication of the 1^st issue of Neem Sahitya, a Bangla little magazine in Durgapur, away from Kolkata. The exponents of this movement preferred the word `Aloron` (stir) to `Andolon` (movement) because they wanted to create a kind of literature, vibrant with wild life-force and direct experience. So called aesthetic and rhetorical paraphernalia were completely ousted from literature. Sudanshu Sen, Biman Chattopadhyay, Robindra Guha and Mrinal Banik initiated this movement in Bangla literature. Some of the slogans which Neem Sahitya raised are listed here:

1.      Literature is no result of experience but experience itself, unchanged and unedited.

2.      Phenyl is not enough to remove bad smell of decadent literature; one should pour some nitric acid into one’s consciousness.

3.      There’s no such thing as good taste in literature. Anything, if it emerges out of life is worthy of being treated as a subject of literature.

4.      Please commit suicide whenever ambition becoming a writer starts haunting you.

Some of these slogans are humorous. Some of them were directed to attack and irritate the popularly established writers of the-then writers as Niharranjan Gupta, Shankar, Shaktipada Rajguru and some poets of romantic-lyrical trend. Let us read a Neem- poem by Sudanshu Sen:

                   The man lies flat on the happy cross-road.

                   Traffic jam. Whistle. He coughs and shrieks.

                   Yet we should say

                   This is a clever archer. The sun is nonsense.

                   The man lies flat.

                   A stripe of infertile land of his body-length

                  Hears hilarious roars in blood. Eyeful mustard-flowers.

                   Two showers of rains make his body slippery.

                  What a shame! Rent of three rupees for wooden cot is due.

                  The land-lady spits.

      (Adoration: A Horizontal Poem, translation mine)

Neem Sahitya Aloron was a strong revolt against the commercial values of literature that hegemonic newspaper-houses propagate. It ended with breathing fire untimely like the other literary movements but the spirit of defying the canonised norms of literature still continues.

A close study of these movements in Bangla Poetry adequately proves that they produced a great impact on the future Bangla poetry. These movements succeeded to some extent the concept of brand in literature. They demystified the fact publishing houses and literary academies have full control on growth and direction of literature. The flourish of countless little magazines, a peculiar feature of Bangla literary culture could not be possible without the continuous bombardment of these movements over the canonised literature and its patronisers in the publishing houses and the academic institutions. Hundreds of poets write without expectations of official recognitions and prizes. They have got these guts of being indifferent to the big patronisers because of these movements. Now every small town has its own little magazines and a group of writers. And so, experimental writings abound in contemporary Bangla literature. This can be delineated as the reawakening of the periphery in the literary space. The bazaar of literature now fails to dictate terms because the little magazine culture has built up a counteractive power-structure that rhizomatically works and paralyses the hegemony of big publishing houses. All these achievements are due to the literary movements which Bangla poetry witnessed in the 60s and the 70s.

MOVEMENTS IN BANGLA POETRY

MOVEMENTS IN BANGLA POETRY




     Movements in Bangla poetry is a rarely discussed subject in the contemporary critical literature of Bangla. Few numbers of books have been written on this subject. And I apprehend that discourse in English on this subject is sadly very inadequate .But studies in this field could be helpful to comprehension of recent Bangla poetry in particular and poetry experimental anywhere in the world in general. Impact of these literary movements on the future poetry and possibilities of emerging new poetry out of the literary activism are poetical fields of studies.

The movements in the realm of Bangla poetry which proved instrumental in initiating changes in language and structure of Bangla poetry are Hungry Generation Movement, Shruti Andolon, Shastrobirodhi, Dhwamsokalin Kabita Andolon and Neem Sahitya Aloron. All these movements were in some way or other directed to defy the established canon of Bangla Poetry and succeeded to some extent to extend the periphery of poetic expression in Bangla. The present study is an attempt to survey the history of these literary movements along with their manifestos.

Hungry, Hungryalism and Hungry Generation are three slightly different names of the same movement which was considered a potential threat to the contemporary established canon of poetry and the taste of the general readers. The movement was conceived by Malay Raychoudhury who chalked out the outline of this movement after rounds of discussion with Samir Raychoudhury, Malay’s elder brother and a Bangla poet of the 50s and Shakti Chattopadhyay, an eminent poet who used to visit frequently Samir’s house at Chaibasa in Bihar. In 1962 the first bulletin of the movement `Hungry Generation` came out and it declared Malay the father of the movement, Shakti the leader and Debi Roy  the publisher. The movement was first conceived as a poetry-movement but later on it did not remain limited to poetry but branched out to other genre of literature. A number of poets, essayists and novelists as Sandipan Chattopadhyay, Utpalkumar Basu, Samir Raychoudhury, Subo Acharya, Shaileswar Ghosh, Subhas Ghosh, Prodip Choudhury, Subimal Basak, Shambhu Rakshit and Phalguni Roy joined this movements and added a huge momentum and numerous dimensions to it. Among the new participants Sandipan and Utpalkumar broke away from the Krittibus Group, led by Sunil Gangopadhyay.And this departure made the existing members of Krittibus Group a little antagonistic to those of the Hungry Generation Group.

Let us read a few points of Hungry manifestoes:

1.      To reject traditional forms of poetry and allow poetry to take its original forms.

2.      To break loose the traditional association of words and to coin unconventional and ... unaccepted combination of words.

3.      To present in all nakedness all aspects of the self.

4.      To transmit dynamically the message of the restless existence and the sense of disgust in a razor sharp language.

According to the Hungry poets poetry emerges out of disgust and poetry defies all norms of tradition. Malay Raychoudhury wrote `Prochando Baidutin Chhuter `. The poem treats the subject of sexuality with that degree of frankness hither to unknown to Bangla poetry.  The poem is an explosion of vital energy in an unconventional manner. It was not accepted by the readers. A court case was filed against the Hungry poets. Due to lack of sufficient evidence everyone except Malay Raychoudhury was relieved. Sunil Gangopadhyay, being requested by Allen Ginsberg, the famous poet of the Beat Generation Movement stood for Malay in the court  though he had a great dislike for Malay`s poetry. Malay ultimately was released from charge.  He for time being left writing and the Hungry Movement gradually subsided. Malay Raychoudhury, Shaileswar Ghosh and Phalguni Roy are three important Hungry poets. Phalguni Roy’s `Noshto Atmar Television` is an important contribution to the store of Bangla Poetry. Hungryalism ended but its rebel spirit is often felt in the works of angry young poets.

Shruti Andolon followed Hungryalism but its character and spirit were very different from those of Hungry Generation. Hungry Generation had a spirit of activism but Shruti Andolon was purely an effort of creating a new kind of poetic idiom in Bangla. This movement was a collaborative effort of five young poets—Pushkar Dasgupta, Paresh Mandal, Mrinal Basuchoudhury, Sajal Bandopadhyay and Ananta Das. Shruti Movement got off with the publication of the 1^st issue of the magazine Shruti in April, 1965. The name of the movement alludes to the Vedas, called Shruti as being transmitted orally. It suggests that the poets, associated with this movement must honour the tradition. In the manifestoes of Shruti the poets associated with this movement assert:

1.      Poetry does not have any responsibility of explaining anything and propagating any theory or maxims.

2.      Poetry is no shouting and no lecture. Poetry does not advocate political socialism, hungry cries, sexual groaning and other biological out-bursts.

3.      Poetry is expression of intimate realisation. It is very personal and inward-looking.

4.      Poetry does not orbit around a single idea; many ideas and many views meet in a single   piece of poetry. Poetry comes out of complicated process of assimilation.

5.      Poets should be educated and cultivated. They should get them initiated to the works of the great masters of the world.

A careful reading of these points proves that Shruti poets did know very well the works of Mallarme and other masters associated with surrealism and futurism. Paresh Mandal knows French and Pushkar Dasgupta is a great scholar of French language and literature. The 2^nd point needs a little bit explanation. It means to assert that Shruti poets do not approve indiscriminate uses of sexual references as rampant in Hungry Generation poets. The 5^th point refers to T.S. Elliot’s essay `Tradition and Individual Talent`. Shruti poets give up punctuation marks and skilfully use spaces and geometric structures in their writings. They have attempted to explore the dhwani (sound) and drishya-rupa (visual significance) of words and arrangement of words. Let us read a poem:

                                                                     Roads

                                                                     Buses

                                                                     Tramcars

                                                                    Vehicles

                                                             

                                                                     Roads

                                                                     Pavements

                                                                     Shops

                                                                      Lights

                                                                       Cries

                                                                       

                                                                       Roads          

                                                                       Hawkers

                                                                       People

                                                                        Roads

                                                                         Roads

                                                                          Roads

                                                    (Roads and, Pushkar Dasgupta, translation mine)

We are trained to understand a word in association with other words. A word gets meaningful within a sentence. But here each word gets suggestive without any association of other parts of speech as verbs and qualifiers. This poem looks like a concrete poet or pattern poem. Shruti movement is still living in the ongoing tradition of writing pure poetry in Bangla.

                                                                       

Shastrobirodhi Andolon was a movement in Bangla short-stories. In March,1966 the 1^st issue of `Ai Dashak`, a little magazine came out with the manifesto of Bangla short-story movement, Shastrobirodhi Andolon. The exponents of this movement were young writers as Subrato Sengupta, Ramanath Roy, Shekhar Basu, Kalyan Sen and Ashis Ghosh .The manifesto says:

1.      We would speak of our personal experience in our stories.

2.      We are weary of realism.

3.      Masterpieces of the past are good for the past; they are not good for us.

4.      Persons attempting to find a plot in story will be shot.

   The 2^nd point speaks of breaking away from realism and attempts to promote magic realism which is to be looked for in traditional Bangla folktales. Elements of magic realism come to dominate the future fictional works of Ramanath Roy. Balaram Basak who later joined this movement is another exponent of magic realism in Bangla fiction. The 4^th point which has been taken from Mark Twain’s The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn gives emphasis on removing straight-forward narrative from the story. Let us read a story `Balar Achhe` (Let Me Have My Say) by Ramanath Roy:

                                   I’ve something to say

                                   It needs a high stool,

                                   A good voice

                                   I don’t have a high stool,

                                   Not even a good voice

                                   None lent me a stool which I wanted to borrow

                                  My effort to mend my voice failed

                                   But I must speak what I’ve

                                   To say

                                  I’ve some papers

                                 I’ve a pen

                                 I’ve a table...

                            The bright moon gets stuck to the sky; the apartment is full to brim with light...

The story means to say realism is insignificant, dream can make everything possible. Ramanath Roy and Balaram Basak brought a significant change in the narrative style of Bangka short-story. Shastrobirodhi Andolon was a movement in the fictional genre but it attracted poets like Arunesh Ghosh. And the movement attempted to remove the tendency of narrating a story in poetry.  Few poets now bother to write for the elocutionists and the telefilms-makers.

 

Dhwamsokalin Kabita Movement got started in 1967 with publication of the 8^th issue of the Bangla poetry magazine Samprotik (December, 1967). The participating  litterateurs were Probhat Choudhury, Pobitra Mukhopadhyay, Kanankumar  Bhowmik, Rabindu Biswas, Subimal Mishra and Chandi Mandal.Among them Chandi Mandal and Subimal Mishra  was an innovative short-story writer. Later on other few poets like Dipen Roy, Tusharkanti Choudhury and Robin Sur took part in this literary movement. They brought out two manifestoes of this movement, the 1^st one in the 8^th issue of Samprotik (December, 1967) and the 2^nd one in the 10^th issue of Samprotik (December, 1968).We can sum up the goals and slogans of those two manifestoes by in the following:

1.      No lecturing posture should there be in poetry and philosophical propaganda should be eliminated from poetry. The lecturer in a poet is to be beheaded.

2.      Poetry is no artificial formulation. It is the heart-felt expression of personal experience, emotional and cerebral which a poet has realised and achieved from life around.

3.      No rootless discourse, but such discourse which is deeply rooted in our indigenous culture is the poetic goal of this movement.

A number of important poems  such as Ami Mephistopheles  ( Myself Mephistopheles) by Probhat Choudhury, Ibliser Atmodarshan (Self-realisation of Iblis) by Pobitra Mukhopadhyay and Projapati Baname Khalilullar Srijanbad ( Butterflies versus Khalilulla’s Creativity) by Kanankumar Bhowmik were the results of Dhwamsokalin Kabita Movement. Each of these poems is rooted in some myths. And the poets have chosen the rebels as their alter-egos. Mephistopheles and Iblis here stand for the marginalised others .These three poets were active members of the leftist movement of West Bengal which was directed to achieve economic, social and political rights for the have-nots .Dhwamsokalin Kabita Movement was in that sense a socio-literary movement. Let us read a few lines from Ami Mephistopheles (Myself Mephistopheles):

                                I’m Mephistopheles who once

                               Used to crawl like the reptiles on the bed in the dark

                               Now floating in the primordial fluid

                               I suck up energy from mother-body

                               I’m growing up in boiling blood, gradually taking a form,

                               Preparing myself for a battle,

                               As if on coming out of womb I can get into a phosphorus flame...

                                                                                  (Part 9, translation mine)

                             

This poem is a revolt to the maladies of the contemporary society and at the same time an attempt to break away the over-lyrical tradition of Bangla poetry. A revolting self speaks here. It heralds the ultra-left voice to be heard very soon in the political life of West Bengal. Dhwamsokalin Kabita Movement cantered round the Bangla little magazine Samprotik mainly. But later on another magazine Kabita Sambad supplemented this movement. Dhwamsokalin Movement was short-lived because some of the key persons got directly involved in politics in 1969. In spite of that it produced a huge impact on Bangla poetry of the succeeding generation. To liberate Bangla poetry from romantic decadence Dhwamsokalin Movement along with other movements of 60s played a vital role.

Neem Sahitya Aloron was another literary movement in Bangla. Unlike the literary movements of 60s Neem Sahitya Aloron was not Kolkata-centric. It got started on the 3^rd February, 1970 with the publication of the 1^st issue of Neem Sahitya, a Bangla little magazine in Durgapur, away from Kolkata. The exponents of this movement preferred the word `Aloron` (stir) to `Andolon` (movement) because they wanted to create a kind of literature, vibrant with wild life-force and direct experience. So called aesthetic and rhetorical paraphernalia were completely ousted from literature. Sudanshu Sen, Biman Chattopadhyay, Robindra Guha and Mrinal Banik initiated this movement in Bangla literature. Some of the slogans which Neem Sahitya raised are listed here:

1.      Literature is no result of experience but experience itself, unchanged and unedited.

2.      Phenyl is not enough to remove bad smell of decadent literature; one should pour some nitric acid into one’s consciousness.

3.      There’s no such thing as good taste in literature. Anything, if it emerges out of life is worthy of being treated as a subject of literature.

4.      Please commit suicide whenever ambition becoming a writer starts haunting you.

Some of these slogans are humorous. Some of them were directed to attack and irritate the popularly established writers of the-then writers as Niharranjan Gupta, Shankar, Shaktipada Rajguru and some poets of romantic-lyrical trend. Let us read a Neem- poem by Sudanshu Sen:

                   The man lies flat on the happy cross-road.

                   Traffic jam. Whistle. He coughs and shrieks.

                   Yet we should say

                   This is a clever archer. The sun is nonsense.

                   The man lies flat.

                   A stripe of infertile land of his body-length

                  Hears hilarious roars in blood. Eyeful mustard-flowers.

                   Two showers of rains make his body slippery.

                  What a shame! Rent of three rupees for wooden cot is due.

                  The land-lady spits.

      (Adoration: A Horizontal Poem, translation mine)

Neem Sahitya Aloron was a strong revolt against the commercial values of literature that hegemonic newspaper-houses propagate. It ended with breathing fire untimely like the other literary movements but the spirit of defying the canonised norms of literature still continues.

A close study of these movements in Bangla Poetry adequately proves that they produced a great impact on the future Bangla poetry. These movements succeeded to some extent the concept of brand in literature. They demystified the fact publishing houses and literary academies have full control on growth and direction of literature. The flourish of countless little magazines, a peculiar feature of Bangla literary culture could not be possible without the continuous bombardment of these movements over the canonised literature and its patronisers in the publishing houses and the academic institutions. Hundreds of poets write without expectations of official recognitions and prizes. They have got these guts of being indifferent to the big patronisers because of these movements. Now every small town has its own little magazines and a group of writers. And so, experimental writings abound in contemporary Bangla literature. This can be delineated as the reawakening of the periphery in the literary space. The bazaar of literature now fails to dictate terms because the little magazine culture has built up a counteractive power-structure that rhizomatically works and paralyses the hegemony of big publishing houses. All these achievements are due to the literary movements which Bangla poetry witnessed in the 60s and the 70s.