Hungryalists and the Beatniks: Malay Roychoudhury Interviewed Part-2

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Allen Ginsberg was influenced by Hungry Generation poetry.

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One may find in Allen Ginsberg's 'India Journals' that he is trying to write poems in the same form as that of HOWL and KADDISH but he is failing to regain the same breathing lines. This is because he had been attending to various Bengali poetry readings. Bengali poems did not have such long breathing lines as that of HOWL and KADDISH.  After Ginsberg came in contact with Anil Karanjai and Karunanidhan Mukhopadhyay in Benares he attended several functions where Ramcharitmanas of poet Tualsidasa  were sung with the help of harmonium tunes. Some of the Hungries in Calcutta also sang at Khasaitola the songs composed by them. Malay Roychoudhury had taken Ginsberg to his elder sister's house at Patna where Ginsberg say his nieces playing harmonium and singing at the same time. Ginsberg purchased a harmonium at Benares and carried it to USA for singing 'On The Tongue' poems just like to bards of Benares.                                                 
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The Beats hanquered for publicity whereas the Hungries do not have even photographs of that time

The internet is flooded with photographs of Beat writers and poets in various poses in various countries, in groups or solo. However, there are only handful of photographs of Hungries, not only on the internet but also with the relatives of Hungries. They Hungries did not give much importance to photographs and neither did they have the money to get photographed. During the movement the Bengali reporters were more interested in humiliating them in their columns than writing about them seriously. However, other than Bengali press, the reporters of other vernacular  press in India such as Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Malayalee wrote about them.
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Hungry Generation writers were 'Have-nots' whereas Beats were 'Haves'

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The Beat poets and writers, almost all came from affluent background. The Hungry Generation poets belonged to very poor families, inasmuch as Haradhon Dhara ( Debi Roy ) who edited the bulletin lived in a slum and was a Dalit--- the first Dalit in history of Bengali literature to edit a powerful mouthpiece. Subimal Basak and Abani Dhar came from Backward Class. Subhas Ghosh and Saileswar Ghose belonged to Other Backward Class.                                                     Tridib                                                                                                   Samir                                                                                                         Pradip                                                                                                         Malay                                                                                                        Karuna                                                     
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