Bangla Lit: Subhankar Das, Hungry Generation, and Graffiti-Kolkata [UPDATED]

an OW report by Tim Hall

If I had any doubts about the power of the Outsider Writers Collective (I didn’t), or the World Wide Web (I didn’t), or even social networking tools (I didn’t) they would have been wiped away recently when I was Facebook-friended by Subhankar Das, a Kolkata (that’s Calcutta to us) bookstore owner, poet and translator who has recently launched an English blogzine, Graffiti-Kolkata, to spread the word on the major–and majorly overlooked–Bangla Lit scene now making a push for our shores.

The basis for the Bangla Lit scene is the Hungry Generation Movement, which was was founded in November 1961 by Malay Roychoudhury, whose work and ideas, and deep connections with his spiritual and cultural roots had a major and life-changing impact on the Beats in general and Allen Ginsberg in particular. [Update: Subhankar explained in a follow-up email that he is part of a group of alternative/underground writers who "appreciate the Hungry Generation but do not follow them" --TH]. I’ve written a short blog post that has more links here, but I also dashed off two questions to Subhankar to give him a chance to introduce himself to the OW community.

Can you tell me about your book store? What does it stock, who are your customers generally, and how is it doing?

This shop once belonged to my father and he used to retail undergarments and ready made clothes for kids.I ran it for sometime but after his death I changed it to a book store.

With our kind of books it is very difficult to meet even the monthly expenses so I introduced a photocopying machine in the shop.But this fuck machine needs a kind of powder-ink to run. After a year I realized this ink is ruining the books of the store so I was bound to sell the machine off.

The rent bills, electricity bills were mounting and there was no one to turn to….it was almost the end of the line kind of situation…and lo here comes my long lost artist friend, who wants some space to show her talent and of course was more professional than me .

I created a mezzanine floor for my books and kept the rest of the shop for her talent and in return she takes care of the monthly bills.

We only stock books and little magazines of the underground scenario and related themes, that way we are very conservative and want to stay like that.

We are always with the young, mostly students. Though we have also a number of followers among  teachers who collects our books at regular intervals.

I feel we have failed to initiate the young generation.We who are in our mid forty’s may buy some more time but if the youth is not with us we are nowhere.I feel sad for this uneducated electric bastard generation of fame seekers…I am on TV therefore I exist types.No one reads a book these days.We have reached a saturation point of 400 loyal readers but after that I don’t know…Bangladesh has a better situation because the whole country speaks Bangla but in out country it is just a regional language.We have created situations so that our books are now selling in Bangladesh. It is a tough game Tim but we did not give up.

Is there as much apathy towards outsider, unconventional, or otherwise underground literature in Kolkata as there is here in the USA? Is there a corporate-owned “literary fiction” industry over there that controls access to “serious” writing and completely denies the existence of your movement?

Bengali literature in kolkata and India is ruled by Anand Bazar Patrika group of publications.Once a one man show business house now a corporate of course. If you do not write in there magazine or are not related with them, you are not a writer , no one at all.So no one publishes you. Another establishment is the ruling communist party(ha ha) of West Bengal who shot down farmers who protested against land grabbing operation of the government.They think we are the roughes of literature who are funded by the CIA.

Now comes the exiting part. We also have 100s of little magazines who serves the need for these corporates in disguise and make money with government sponsored advertisements.

Naturally the movement becomes diluted and the Ananda Bazar (The daily Newspaper) makes a small comment on little magazines, compares them with bundles of mosquitoes in the dark.

They even control the distribution of books.They have their own logistics. Anandabazar or any news paper or commercial popular magazine must carry your regular advertisements of books or you must have some rave reviews in some commercial magazine, then they can think of keeping your books in their stores for distribution.

Little magazines still can be displayed in 4 ,5 places in Kolkata but for books there is hardly any place, which also motivated us for starting this book store.