Prakalpana Movement
Encyclopedia
The Prakalpana Movement of Kolkata
was sparked off in the Bengali language
on September 6, 1969, by Vattacharja Chandan
with the assistance of Dilip Gupta and Asish Deb. They later declared the day as "Prakalpana Day" because to them "the earth stood still" on the natal day of the movement. Swatotsar, the journal of the movement was published by Vattacharja Chandan
and named by Dilip Gupta. Swatotsar was dubbed to be an "anti-magazine" for, in keeping with its iconoclast
ic content, the magazine was printed to be read in Asian style—i.e. from back to front. In addition, Swatotsar was shaped like an axe blade, an axe (according to its editors) to be used against the roots of conventionalism. Up to that time, modern Bengali literature and art had been over-burdened by colonial styles, adaptations and ideas such as Surrealism
, Absurdist literature, the Beat Generation
, Existentialism
, Concrete poetry
, free verse
, blank verse
, etc. Consequently, the Prakalpana Movement seeks, as its goal, the defining and promulgating of a brand new, indigenous genre of literature for the literary world of the new millennium.
in the beginning of the nineties, wrote:
Vattacharja Chandan, the creator of the concept of this movement initially coined the term Prakalpana, deriving it from Prabandha(essay)+ Kabita(poetry)+ Galpa(story)+ Natak(drama). But later in order to make the new form globally more acceptable and perceptible, he extended the purview, span and scope of Prakalpana as the convergence of: P for prose, poetry, opera + R for story, drama + A for art, essay + K for kinema + L for culture + N for song, novel...etc.
, visual poetry
, free verse
or other pre-conceived forms or meters, but was created from a mixing of prosaic and poetic rhythms and got its name from the pioneering, similarly named Bengali and English poems by Chandan.
Ashish Deb had left Swatotsar after the first issue and he came back for a short stint in 2005. Dilip Gupta had deserted the movement in 1978 and returned after almost eight years in the eighties. From the very beginning of the movement it did not solely depend on the contributions from the members of the group only as usually like other movements. On the contrary over all these long years, countless non-commercial Indian as well as writers and artists from around the world have contributed to this movement, which have always fertilized and revitalized the movement with longer life and global ambience. To name some of them are: Dilip Gupta, Asish Deb, Sukla Mojumdar, Hitabrata Roychoudhury, Rabindra Bhattacharya, Satya Ranjan Biswas, Bablu Roy Choudhury, Shyamoli Mukherjee Bhattacharjee, Ramratan Mukhopadhyay, Nikhil Bhaumik, Baudhayan Mukhopadhyay, Braja Chattopadhyay, Arun Kumar Chakraborty, Paresh Mandal, Rishin Mitra, Debkumar Basu, Laxmi Paul, Utpal, Tapas Bandopadhyay, Syed Asrar Ahmed, Ashok Bosu, Kashinath Mandal, Amar Das, Sandip Chattopadhyay, Amit Kashyap, Bandyopadhyay Soumitra, Tapon Ghosh and Tapas Ghosh (brothers), Bibhu Padhi, Ramtanu Datta, Niva De, Shaswata Shikdar, Vattacharja Chandan, Ruj Sukumar, Banhisikha Bhattacharya, Goutam Mitra, Sidhartha Ranjan Choudhury, Uttar Basu, Nasim A Alam, &c....(India); and Fern G. Z. Carr (Canada), Mary Rudbeck Stanko, (Canada); Hugo Pontes, Jose Roberto Sechi (Brazil); Alfred A Walker, Gerald England, John Light (UK); Amari Hamadane (Algeria); Giovanni Malito, (Ireland); Carla Bertola, Gloria Persiani (Italy); Jesse Glass
,(Japan); Michael Scherba (Kazakhstan); Christian Burgaud (France); Jorge Ignacio Nazavel Cowan (Cuba); and John Byrum, Richard Kostelanetz
, Don Webb, John M. Bennett
, Madison Morrison, Sheila Murphy
, Guy R Beining, Susan Smith Nash, Jessica Manack, Margarita Engle, Ray Succre, Charlene Mary-Cath Smith, Geof A. Huth, Jeramy Dodds
, t winter-damon, Derek White, Holden, Brett K. Fletcher, Mick Cusimano, Jim Dewitt &c.....(USA).
Reviews of Kobisena and Prakalpana Literature in the much-read US review magazine Factsheet Five
and currently in Zine World and other reviews on line along with the enlistment in the International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses, and Poet's Market, enabled the movement to get submissions from different parts of the world.
In 1997 Vattacharja Chandan, representing Bengali Literature with Sunil Gangopadhyay
and a few others, participated in the Asian Literary Leaders' Conference in Washington DC,USA, where he had informal discussions with some international writers on the movement. When he presented Kobisena to poet Derek Walcott
, the Nobel laureate wrote on it:'With thanks'. His visit to some other countries including Bangladesh helped spread to some extent the gospel of this movement abroad.
To reach the common non-literary audience, several issues of Kobisena and Prakalpana Literature were published with consumer datebooks which proved popular.
In addition to the artists and mail art
ists like Jorge Ignacio Nazavel Cowan, Syamoli Mukherjee Bhattacharjee, Mick Cusimano, Christian Burgaud, Carla Bertola, Vattacharja Chandan, Norman J. Olson, Hugo Pontes etc., they have also published the works of eminent artists like Rabindranath Tagore
, Ramkinkar Baij
, Mukul Dey
, Sunil Das
, Rabin Mandal, Ramananda Bandyopadhyay, Pranabesh Maity &c.
Here are samples how the international neutral critics are viewing this movement:
Rabindra Bhattacharya left the movement thereafter soon. But Kobisena has been continuing its run still today, piloted by the same editor to publish its new kind of Sarbangin Poetry and to popularize poetry through public performances of poetry reading even in unlikely places like outside the corn field in a village, in front of book stalls of Bengal Cultural Conference, at Kolkata Book Fair, or Kolkata Art Fair, in spite of being encountered by other stall owners which hampered their sales due to the gathering of large crowd attracted by their open readings. In 1973, Kobisenas even stormed into the East Zone Cultural Conference, convened by the government, in procession with posters and festoons and questioned the organizers as to why the new poetry and poets had not been included as the subject of discourses, which resulted in pandemonium and hurried closure of the day's session and thereafter the capture of the dias by the Kobisenas and rejuvenate the session. Besides they kicked off crazy extempore readings at fairs, train, street, beneath the statue, even on the merry go round as well as at countless literary fests and seminars in different grounds and halls. Just as one was the Prakalpana Litfest 2009 on 6 September, the Prakalpana Day in Jibanananda Sabhaghar, Kolkata. Many eminent persons had graced these occasions in different times, to name some of them: Nagarjun
, Monindra Roy, Sunil Gangopadhyay
, Prakash Karmakar, Madison Morrison, Amitava Dasgupta, Ananda Ghoshhajra, Sandipan Chattopadhyay
...&c. On several occasions Kobisenas used painted hats, belts and peculiar attires and musical instruments to attract the audience. The performers of poetry who in different times made their marks were Bablu Roy Choudhury, Rabindra Bhattacharya, Kashinath Mandal, Narak Das, Ashok Bosu, Arun Kumar Chakraborty and Vattacharja Chandan. Chandan even uses his music and songs with his performance of poetry. Since the eighties Kobisena has been published bilingual to reach the global shore. So far it has fortyfour issues infrequently published. And this small pamphlet has been an avid traveller around the world. But as to how it has fared, let us read a bit of unaffiliated independent reactions:
Dilip Gupta : 303-0020
Charlene Mary-Cath Smith : E-M-I-T
Amari Hamadene : The Algerian Summer
Bablu Roy Choudhury : Really Nothing Loses
Edward Mycue : DIS DOCUMENT
Vattacharja Chandan : Words
Peyman Javadi : Zero to Zero
Norman J. Olson : To The Military Minded
Utpal : Meaning World
seem to have been arranged and deranged on the lines of prakalpana form, which paradoxically is not at all short story. And also the sporadic use of signs, symbols, pictures and henceforth considered unliterary material are being used now in some literature as has been used by Prakalpanites and Kobisenas long ago. Nowadays adopting the western ways and styles is the trendy high tide, rampant and go with the flow downstream everywhere else as in Bengali Literature and art since the colonial days. But being based in Bengali literature
, export of the indigenous new concepts of Prakalpana, Chetanavyasism, Sarbangin Poetry, Flow Verse... etc. into the global literary arena in reverse swing from India is an arduous task in the low tide against strong high tides to the upstream. This is more so especially for a non-commercial non-conforming yet non-confronting alternative movement like Prakalpana, being completely independent of the myth of main stream establishment and anti-establishment and new media communications.
This goal might seem however implausible and ambitious to be achieved by an independent alternative literary and art movement like Prakalpana, but not to its artificer and mentor Vattacharja Chandan, who has been spearheading the Movement in each and every theory and practice so far without bothering for any obstacles from the very beginning. And with his world vision catalog, he still wants to gear up this movement, simply and solely banking on the virtual latent support of some independent, known and unknown brand new and old band of writers, artists and readers scattered around the world. His immediate associate Prakalpanite teammates currently include Dilip Gupta, Ramratan Mukhopadhyay, Nikhil Bhaumik, Bablu Roy Choudhury, Syamoli Mukherjee Bhattacharjee, Boudhayan Mukhopadhyay, Kalyan Bandyopadhyay, Debjani Das and Utpal.
The Prakalpanites simply want to plant and spread the seeds of a few new Chetanavyasist species in the literary and art world. But whether they will weather the storm or wither away in some unfavorable literary climate, or forest and flower in a new earth in the new millennium, only the future will say. But so far their spirit is, as one daily newspaper once commented:
And as of this time,
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
was sparked off in the Bengali language
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
on September 6, 1969, by Vattacharja Chandan
Vattacharja Chandan
Vattacharja Chandan , is a bilingual writer, poet, composer and mail artist. He was born in 1944 in the small town of Tamluk , which was the ancient Indian port of Tamralipta in West Bengal. Chandan came to Kolkata after finishing his high-school studies at Tamluk Hamilton High School...
with the assistance of Dilip Gupta and Asish Deb. They later declared the day as "Prakalpana Day" because to them "the earth stood still" on the natal day of the movement. Swatotsar, the journal of the movement was published by Vattacharja Chandan
Vattacharja Chandan
Vattacharja Chandan , is a bilingual writer, poet, composer and mail artist. He was born in 1944 in the small town of Tamluk , which was the ancient Indian port of Tamralipta in West Bengal. Chandan came to Kolkata after finishing his high-school studies at Tamluk Hamilton High School...
and named by Dilip Gupta. Swatotsar was dubbed to be an "anti-magazine" for, in keeping with its iconoclast
Iconoclast
An iconoclast is someone who engages in iconoclasm—destruction of religious symbols or, by extension, established dogma or conventions.Iconoclast may also refer to:...
ic content, the magazine was printed to be read in Asian style—i.e. from back to front. In addition, Swatotsar was shaped like an axe blade, an axe (according to its editors) to be used against the roots of conventionalism. Up to that time, modern Bengali literature and art had been over-burdened by colonial styles, adaptations and ideas such as Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, Absurdist literature, the Beat Generation
The Beat Generation
The Beat Generation is a film by MGM starring Steve Cochran and Mamie Van Doren, with Ray Danton, Fay Spain, Maggie Hayes, Jackie Coogan, Louis Armstrong, Vampira, and Ray Anthony...
, Existentialism
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
, Concrete poetry
Concrete poetry
Concrete poetry or shape poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on....
, free verse
Free verse
Free verse is a form of poetry that refrains from consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern.Poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, is not free. Free Verse displays some elements of form...
, blank verse
Blank verse
Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul Fussell has claimed that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."The first...
, etc. Consequently, the Prakalpana Movement seeks, as its goal, the defining and promulgating of a brand new, indigenous genre of literature for the literary world of the new millennium.
A Tiny Literary Revolution
Steve LeBlanc who interviewed Vattacharja ChandanVattacharja Chandan
Vattacharja Chandan , is a bilingual writer, poet, composer and mail artist. He was born in 1944 in the small town of Tamluk , which was the ancient Indian port of Tamralipta in West Bengal. Chandan came to Kolkata after finishing his high-school studies at Tamluk Hamilton High School...
in the beginning of the nineties, wrote:
" For all the cliches, deserved or not, and despite its ponderous social problems, Calcutta has, for the past 20 years or so nurtured a tiny literary revolution by the mysterious name of Prakalpana Literature. Championed by its founder and chief conspirator Vattacharja Chandan, Prakalpana Literature--the name of the movement and the title of its own bilingual (Bengali and English) chapbook lit-zine has tried to define a whole new kind of writing, one that draws from all genres, drama to poetry to fiction. For an obscure literary movement, Prakalpana has drawn fans far outside the borders of India including underground American writers and mail art fans from around the globe"...
Vattacharja Chandan, the creator of the concept of this movement initially coined the term Prakalpana, deriving it from Prabandha(essay)+ Kabita(poetry)+ Galpa(story)+ Natak(drama). But later in order to make the new form globally more acceptable and perceptible, he extended the purview, span and scope of Prakalpana as the convergence of: P for prose, poetry, opera + R for story, drama + A for art, essay + K for kinema + L for culture + N for song, novel...etc.
Influence
Since visuals are frequently used in Prakalpana, some critics think that the movement features concrete or visual poetry. Actually, Prakalpana is more narrative fiction than poetry, though poetry and visuals might be used in parts of Prakalpana if the concerned writer finds it suitable to mix genres in the same piece of writing. The resulting form is Prakalpana only—not any other of the discrete ingredients. Moreover, Swachhando or Flow verse, the rhythm of Sabangin Poetry, is also not concrete poetryConcrete poetry
Concrete poetry or shape poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on....
, visual poetry
Visual poetry
Visual poetry is poetry or art in which the visual arrangement of text, images and symbols is important in conveying the intended effect of the work. It is sometimes referred to as concrete poetry, a term that predates visual poetry, and at one time was synonymous with it.Visual poetry was heavily...
, free verse
Free verse
Free verse is a form of poetry that refrains from consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern.Poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, is not free. Free Verse displays some elements of form...
or other pre-conceived forms or meters, but was created from a mixing of prosaic and poetic rhythms and got its name from the pioneering, similarly named Bengali and English poems by Chandan.
Prakalpana World
Prakalpana Sahitya:Prakalpana Literature magazine began its journey in 1977 to bring all the forms of Prakalpana literature and Sarbangin poetry movement under a single umbrella, as Swatotsar was publishing mostly Prakalpana. So Swatotsar was closed after more than ten years of its existence in 1979 having published twenty issues, in favour of Kobisena and Prakalpana Literature. Bilingual Prakalpana Literature has been publishing Prakalpana, Sarbangin Poetry and all other kinds experimental and avant-garde poetry, apart from essay, review, literary news, letter and artwork from around the globe. It has published sporadically twenty three issues so far.Ashish Deb had left Swatotsar after the first issue and he came back for a short stint in 2005. Dilip Gupta had deserted the movement in 1978 and returned after almost eight years in the eighties. From the very beginning of the movement it did not solely depend on the contributions from the members of the group only as usually like other movements. On the contrary over all these long years, countless non-commercial Indian as well as writers and artists from around the world have contributed to this movement, which have always fertilized and revitalized the movement with longer life and global ambience. To name some of them are: Dilip Gupta, Asish Deb, Sukla Mojumdar, Hitabrata Roychoudhury, Rabindra Bhattacharya, Satya Ranjan Biswas, Bablu Roy Choudhury, Shyamoli Mukherjee Bhattacharjee, Ramratan Mukhopadhyay, Nikhil Bhaumik, Baudhayan Mukhopadhyay, Braja Chattopadhyay, Arun Kumar Chakraborty, Paresh Mandal, Rishin Mitra, Debkumar Basu, Laxmi Paul, Utpal, Tapas Bandopadhyay, Syed Asrar Ahmed, Ashok Bosu, Kashinath Mandal, Amar Das, Sandip Chattopadhyay, Amit Kashyap, Bandyopadhyay Soumitra, Tapon Ghosh and Tapas Ghosh (brothers), Bibhu Padhi, Ramtanu Datta, Niva De, Shaswata Shikdar, Vattacharja Chandan, Ruj Sukumar, Banhisikha Bhattacharya, Goutam Mitra, Sidhartha Ranjan Choudhury, Uttar Basu, Nasim A Alam, &c....(India); and Fern G. Z. Carr (Canada), Mary Rudbeck Stanko, (Canada); Hugo Pontes, Jose Roberto Sechi (Brazil); Alfred A Walker, Gerald England, John Light (UK); Amari Hamadane (Algeria); Giovanni Malito, (Ireland); Carla Bertola, Gloria Persiani (Italy); Jesse Glass
Jesse Glass
-In America:Glass first began to write and publish experimental poetry in c. 1972. Starting in 1976, he edited and published the mimeographed Goethe’s Notes Magazine and Goethe's Press from his family home in Westminster, Maryland...
,(Japan); Michael Scherba (Kazakhstan); Christian Burgaud (France); Jorge Ignacio Nazavel Cowan (Cuba); and John Byrum, Richard Kostelanetz
Richard Kostelanetz
Richard Kostelanetz is an American artist, author and critic.He was born to Boris Kostelanetz and Ethel Cory and is the nephew of the composer Andre Kostelanetz....
, Don Webb, John M. Bennett
John M. Bennett
John M. Bennett is an American experimental text, sound, and visual poet.- Writing and publishing :As well as steadily producing and distributing his own work, Bennett, through "Luna Bisonte Prods", a small press founded in 1974, has published thousands of limited edition items by writers who...
, Madison Morrison, Sheila Murphy
Sheila Murphy
Sheila E. Murphy is an American text and visual poet who has been writing and publishing actively since 1978. She currently lives in Phoenix, Arizona.She earned:...
, Guy R Beining, Susan Smith Nash, Jessica Manack, Margarita Engle, Ray Succre, Charlene Mary-Cath Smith, Geof A. Huth, Jeramy Dodds
Jeramy Dodds
Jeramy Dodds is a Canadian poet.Born in Ajax, Ontario, Dodds grew up in Orono, Ontario. He studied English Literature and Anthropology at Trent University, Medieval Icelandic Studies at The University of Iceland, and has worked as a research archaeologist in Canada...
, t winter-damon, Derek White, Holden, Brett K. Fletcher, Mick Cusimano, Jim Dewitt &c.....(USA).
Reviews of Kobisena and Prakalpana Literature in the much-read US review magazine Factsheet Five
Factsheet Five
Factsheet Five was a periodical mostly consisting of short reviews of privately produced printed matter along with contact details of the editors and publishers....
and currently in Zine World and other reviews on line along with the enlistment in the International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses, and Poet's Market, enabled the movement to get submissions from different parts of the world.
In 1997 Vattacharja Chandan, representing Bengali Literature with Sunil Gangopadhyay
Sunil Gangopadhyay
Sunil Gangopadhyay , is a celebrated Indian poet and novelist.-Early life:...
and a few others, participated in the Asian Literary Leaders' Conference in Washington DC,USA, where he had informal discussions with some international writers on the movement. When he presented Kobisena to poet Derek Walcott
Derek Walcott
Derek Alton Walcott, OBE OCC is a Saint Lucian poet, playwright, writer and visual artist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 and the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2011 for White Egrets. His works include the Homeric epic Omeros...
, the Nobel laureate wrote on it:'With thanks'. His visit to some other countries including Bangladesh helped spread to some extent the gospel of this movement abroad.
To reach the common non-literary audience, several issues of Kobisena and Prakalpana Literature were published with consumer datebooks which proved popular.
In addition to the artists and mail art
Mail art
Mail art is a worldwide cultural movement that began in the early 1960s and involves sending visual art through the international postal system. Mail Art is also known as Postal Art or Correspondence Art...
ists like Jorge Ignacio Nazavel Cowan, Syamoli Mukherjee Bhattacharjee, Mick Cusimano, Christian Burgaud, Carla Bertola, Vattacharja Chandan, Norman J. Olson, Hugo Pontes etc., they have also published the works of eminent artists like Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
, Ramkinkar Baij
Ramkinkar Baij
Ramkinkar Baij was an Indian Santhal sculptor, known as the Pioneer of Modern Indian Sculpture. He was one of the first Indian Adivasi artists to understand the language of modern Western art and use it in his sculptures...
, Mukul Dey
Mukul Dey
Mukul Chandra Dey was a student of Rabindranath Tagore's Santiniketan. He is considered as a pioneer of drypoint-etching in India....
, Sunil Das
Sunil Das
Sunil Das is an Indian expressionist painter. He is popular for his paintings, Bull Series and woman.-Early life:Sunil Das was born in Calcutta, India....
, Rabin Mandal, Ramananda Bandyopadhyay, Pranabesh Maity &c.
Here are samples how the international neutral critics are viewing this movement:
- "...the other day, I received a brilliant small press mag from India, Prakalpana Literature, written half in Bengali and half in English, and filled with oddities from around the world. I am not sure that I can describe the delirious enthusiasm of this magazine, it begins with "Global Litmosphere", a report on various obscure works from France, Ireland, Taiwan, Ukraine, UK, US, India and even Canada. This leads into a hundred pages of tightly-packed prose, poetry, comics, drawings, and commentaries, some in Bengali, some
"A collaborative effort by Indian writers and western writers.... It seems a positive gesture in establishing communication between different literary and
Kobisena the Poet Troop
In September 1972 at a convention in Vidyasagar Hall in Kolkata, triggered off a new outfit named Kobisena (meaning Poet troop) of the poetry by the poetry and for the poetry. Accordingly a pamphlet of four pages , edited by Vattacharja Chandan and published by Rabindra Bhattacharya was out in December, being the mouthpiece of the Sarbangin Poetry Movement—the poetry front of Prakalpana Movement. About Sarbangin Poetry (Kobita) Steve LeBlanc observed:
" In order to separate prakalpana from collage poetry and other forms of experimental literature, Chandan introduces the concept of 'Sarbangin Kobita'-- poetry that grows out of proper imagination, feeling and realization. Sarbangin Kobita reveals what Chandan describes as chetanavyasism (wholeness of cosmic matter and revealed sense) while utilizing the wholesome and artful repetition of words and visuals, sonorous and mathematical effects in Flow Verse rhythm. The term Sarbangin itself derives from Chandan's poem 'Kobitaay Sarbangin Amritakharan' and an accompanying theoritical essay 'Sarbangin Kobita Jagga' published in Kobisena, a sister publication of Prakalpana
Rabindra Bhattacharya left the movement thereafter soon. But Kobisena has been continuing its run still today, piloted by the same editor to publish its new kind of Sarbangin Poetry and to popularize poetry through public performances of poetry reading even in unlikely places like outside the corn field in a village, in front of book stalls of Bengal Cultural Conference, at Kolkata Book Fair, or Kolkata Art Fair, in spite of being encountered by other stall owners which hampered their sales due to the gathering of large crowd attracted by their open readings. In 1973, Kobisenas even stormed into the East Zone Cultural Conference, convened by the government, in procession with posters and festoons and questioned the organizers as to why the new poetry and poets had not been included as the subject of discourses, which resulted in pandemonium and hurried closure of the day's session and thereafter the capture of the dias by the Kobisenas and rejuvenate the session. Besides they kicked off crazy extempore readings at fairs, train, street, beneath the statue, even on the merry go round as well as at countless literary fests and seminars in different grounds and halls. Just as one was the Prakalpana Litfest 2009 on 6 September, the Prakalpana Day in Jibanananda Sabhaghar, Kolkata. Many eminent persons had graced these occasions in different times, to name some of them: Nagarjun
Nagarjun
Nagarjun was a major Hindi and Maithili poet who has also penned a number of novels, short stories, literary biographies and travelogues, and was known as Janakavi- the People's Poet.-Early life and education:Born Vaidya Nath Mishra, in 1911, into a Maithil Brahmin family...
, Monindra Roy, Sunil Gangopadhyay
Sunil Gangopadhyay
Sunil Gangopadhyay , is a celebrated Indian poet and novelist.-Early life:...
, Prakash Karmakar, Madison Morrison, Amitava Dasgupta, Ananda Ghoshhajra, Sandipan Chattopadhyay
Sandipan Chattopadhyay
Sandipan Chattopadhyay was a Bengali writer. In 1961 he wrote the book "Kritadas Kritadasi" it changed the landscape of Bengali fiction and created a niche for himself...
...&c. On several occasions Kobisenas used painted hats, belts and peculiar attires and musical instruments to attract the audience. The performers of poetry who in different times made their marks were Bablu Roy Choudhury, Rabindra Bhattacharya, Kashinath Mandal, Narak Das, Ashok Bosu, Arun Kumar Chakraborty and Vattacharja Chandan. Chandan even uses his music and songs with his performance of poetry. Since the eighties Kobisena has been published bilingual to reach the global shore. So far it has fortyfour issues infrequently published. And this small pamphlet has been an avid traveller around the world. But as to how it has fared, let us read a bit of unaffiliated independent reactions:
- " This is an eight sided issues focusing avant garde/ experimental poetry which frequently includes graphics in the body of the work. The pamphlet is unusual in several ways, It is bilingual, printed in Bengali and English, and it carries the exhortation Please copy this issue and distribute anywhere in the globe....The poetry found in Kobisena is full of the same concerns poets write of everywhere: relationship and family, life and love, existence and imagination. This small pamphlet provides some interesting work, strong enough to make the reader pause for reflection." –John Crook in New Hope International Review Online, UK.
"...there's a definite charge that comes with having something this weird show up in your mailbox. The poems are adorned with faces and illustrations that have been xeroxed and xeroxed to the point where their resolution is beginning to degenerate: I can't tell you if these are part of the poem or just layout ornamentation together, which, far from detracting, is part of the appeal some people in India cobbled this fragile packet of meaning together and somehow it traveled from person to person until a stranger sent it to me in Chicago and I put the words on the Internet and they found way to you. Musing on this process makes this strange document a potent testament to both the durability and the ephermerality of human communication. Like holding a grain of sand that came from halfway around the world". –JPB in Invisible-City.com
Sample Sarbangin Poems
Brett K. Fletcher : IMIM ancient No I was N Times of antiquity Yet IM 2 Morrow Though time is A Passing phase IM life And death is NO stranger IM A Stranger IM |
Dilip Gupta : 303-0020
'303' I'm full in three (3) I come To naught in zero (0) Again I become full in three (3) In full-in naught-in full playrolls thus eternal; '0020' He who is naught, never be full, So, come to naught twice (00) Then, my egotism puts me
Again, come back to naught (0)! |
Charlene Mary-Cath Smith : E-M-I-T
June rainlet replace July lightning bold that's my memory of you |
Amari Hamadene : The Algerian Summer
Oh Algeneralities! There was all to purge in the bran-tub of our bodies The intuition was deployed out there until the tame tips of our eyebrows specified (who remembers again?) of the smirk of the French schoolmistress who lapped up an ice-cream cone (in bikini on its balcony), to the swarthy butcher (in front of her) who delighted himself and in the same attitude, codified his teeth with a matchstick, of the harmonious tracing of the hand of the bus driver who shrewdly rolled a cigarette to his ear, to the summer in roadstead, beach towel on the shoulder and a parasol tinkered with planks, carried to four, by children, Direction the beach > Oh Algeneralities! There is all to not forget from the souvenirs of our bodies ALL of these beautiful years clear-cut (remember you again?) of the tough oafs in dark glasses (put on the dog), to the runts going for a ride with a Hi-fi on the top of the seats of their motorcycles, of the poodle of the false blonde who pissed to the bottom of every arbor on the beach, to the burnt head of the Jamaican in dreadlocks who "tanned his hide" until the sunset, of the razor-shearers of the scorcher which smoked the North African spitroast lamb in our heads, to the strident din of cicadas behind furniture of the hotel rooms, and of the deep' do you remember again? (the only reality in here) and of the beggar outside the gate of the mosque, who on earth, meditated while having a forty winks on her chador, wrapped in a pillow, do you remember again?, and of the black moustaches of the entertainer who peered at us in the rear-view mirror of his dark Peugeot, do you remember again the tattoo in his arm? "You + Me = forever".
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Bablu Roy Choudhury : Really Nothing Loses
1 day every sense of life in this systematic world becomes slave Echo fades ........... in the atoms........... of space ............. ....................... |
Edward Mycue : DIS DOCUMENT
You well and toasty warm? Life not dissing you? (dis for disrespect, disturbed, disregarded, etc.) When you spell it dys as in dyslexic, dysfunctional, dyscalcularic, it sounds maybe like "diced" as in chopped and diced. Better we should think distinguished and such more positive add-ons. though some days you kinda feel dismembered by all that went on. (funny isn't it that you get dis-membered, but that you are be-headed, can you be bemembered and disheaded?) Remember to forget? |
Vattacharja Chandan : Words
The restless night couldn't sleep as we are not asleep So many words stored in store to be restored in heart As we awake ↔ the world awakes ,, we sleep ↔ the world sleeps In the drowsy fragrance of chhatim flower ♥ arises how unspeakable sweet revengeful desire ♥ We are awake so we beget words words beget words words grow ,, Night grows in words Pain grows in words ,, eases in words Pain eases in words / Pain grows in words Night grows in words/ Words grow words Words beget words We are awake so we beget words |
Peyman Javadi : Zero to Zero
Echo after echo the bow is heard as well as the arrow, and row after row, heaven hosts the remains of the earth's romantic boasts by admitting the lonely souls who gave their all to be two, achieved their coup, died and finally turned charmless blue. |
Norman J. Olson : To The Military Minded
I am eaten by your uniform and huddled on the grass. My whispers are most comical but all of this will pass. .....for dinka diddle is my glop and oily rivers flow**** I will not count another drop until the flame is low. So winkle in the viddy-mouth and jab the sinkle star. for I have 8 fashion plate and am peeing in a jar. I am eaten by your uniform and huddled on the grass. My whispers are most comical but all of this will pass. |
Utpal : Meaning World
Yell.......Howl........Growl. ................................Everyone.. Who hears? None. Who hears whom? NONE. It's a vociferous world O Meaning ↔ less......les......es.... |
Literature That Crosses The Boundaries
It is uncertain how many, or if any, other movements in the modern literary world can be found like Prakalpana Movement, which has been running even after crossing the hurdles of four decades. Still the humble impact of Prakalpana Movement as arguably perhaps one of the most important among the experimental and avant garde literary scene in India that has a global presence at this point of time, is evident from the fact that the experimental short stories in Bengali literatureBengali literature
Bengali literature is literary works written in Bengali language particularly from Bangladesh and the Indian provinces of West Bengal and Tripura. The history of Bengali literature traces back hundreds of years while it is impossible to separate the literary trends of the two Bengals during the...
seem to have been arranged and deranged on the lines of prakalpana form, which paradoxically is not at all short story. And also the sporadic use of signs, symbols, pictures and henceforth considered unliterary material are being used now in some literature as has been used by Prakalpanites and Kobisenas long ago. Nowadays adopting the western ways and styles is the trendy high tide, rampant and go with the flow downstream everywhere else as in Bengali Literature and art since the colonial days. But being based in Bengali literature
Bengali literature
Bengali literature is literary works written in Bengali language particularly from Bangladesh and the Indian provinces of West Bengal and Tripura. The history of Bengali literature traces back hundreds of years while it is impossible to separate the literary trends of the two Bengals during the...
, export of the indigenous new concepts of Prakalpana, Chetanavyasism, Sarbangin Poetry, Flow Verse... etc. into the global literary arena in reverse swing from India is an arduous task in the low tide against strong high tides to the upstream. This is more so especially for a non-commercial non-conforming yet non-confronting alternative movement like Prakalpana, being completely independent of the myth of main stream establishment and anti-establishment and new media communications.
This goal might seem however implausible and ambitious to be achieved by an independent alternative literary and art movement like Prakalpana, but not to its artificer and mentor Vattacharja Chandan, who has been spearheading the Movement in each and every theory and practice so far without bothering for any obstacles from the very beginning. And with his world vision catalog, he still wants to gear up this movement, simply and solely banking on the virtual latent support of some independent, known and unknown brand new and old band of writers, artists and readers scattered around the world. His immediate associate Prakalpanite teammates currently include Dilip Gupta, Ramratan Mukhopadhyay, Nikhil Bhaumik, Bablu Roy Choudhury, Syamoli Mukherjee Bhattacharjee, Boudhayan Mukhopadhyay, Kalyan Bandyopadhyay, Debjani Das and Utpal.
The Prakalpanites simply want to plant and spread the seeds of a few new Chetanavyasist species in the literary and art world. But whether they will weather the storm or wither away in some unfavorable literary climate, or forest and flower in a new earth in the new millennium, only the future will say. But so far their spirit is, as one daily newspaper once commented:
" The blue blood of the Kobisenas' pen never dries up".
And as of this time,
"For literature that crosses the boundaries this is a good place to look".
Sources
- Swatotsar, number 1-20.
- Kobisena, number 1-44.
- Prakalpana Sahitya/Prakalpana Literature, number 1-23.
- Bangla Sahityer Nana Rup, by Suddhasatwa Basu, Akshar, Kolkata.
- Bangla Galpa-Kobita Andoloner Tin Dashak, by Sandip Dutta, Radical Impression, 1993, Kolkata.
- Shater Kobita: Chinha Binyas, by Prabuddha Bagchi, 1997, Patralekha, Kolkata.
- Interview of Vattacharja Chandan by Charjyapad, Kobipokhha 1390, Kolkata.
- Interview of Vattacharja Chandan by Harina Harinir, #3, Kolkata.
- Songs of Kobisena, (Interview of Vattacharja Chandan) by Steve LeBlank in Version 90, PMS Cafe Press, Alston, MS, USA.
- New Hope International Review, vol 14 number 6, 17 number 5, 18 number 5, Hyde, UK.
- Factsheet Five, number 28,34, 36, 61, Albany, NY, USA.
- Zine World, number 22, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA.
- Scavenger's Newsletter, number 52,127,165. Osage City, KS,USA.
- Offerta Speciale, number 37, Torino, Italy.
- Short Fuse, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
- Sarbangin Artmosphere, Vattacharja Chandan in Generator, Number 7. Mentor, OH, USA.
- The International Directory Of Little Magazines and Small Presses, Edited by Len Fulton, Paradise, USA.
- Filling Station, number 26. Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
- Pense Aqui, number 10,18. Rio Claro SP, Brazil.
- Prakalpana Quest: Sarbangin Poetry Sutra, vattacharja Chandan in Texture, number 6, Norman, OK, USA.
- Purba Bharatiya Sanskritir Ruprekha, (Page 271), Dr. Nilkanta Singh, West Bengal Government, 1977.
- Ananda Bazar Patrika, (Daily News Paper), December 30, 1973.
- Satyajug, (Daily Newspaper), August 4, 1975.
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- Jugantar, September 25, 1976.
- Dainik Basumati, (Daily Newspaper), October 18, 1976.
- Jugantar, September 14, 1976.
- Satyagug, February 21, 1977.
- Hindusthan Standard, (Evening daily), March 9, 1977.
- Jugantar, May 29, 1977.
- Ananda Bazar Patrika, October 24, 1977.
- Jugantar, January 19, 1978.
- Jugantar, February 9, 1980.
- Dainik Basumati, magh 19, 1387.
- Aajkaal (Daily Newspaper), May 11, 1981.
- Jugantar, May 15, 1981.
- Aajkaal, July 9, 1981.
- Amrita Bazar Patrika, (Daily newspaper), February 3, 1982.
- Dainik Basumati, March 15, 1982.
- Ananda Bazar Patrika, Shraban 23,1390.
- Amrita Bazar patrika, January 12, 1983.
- Satyajug, January 10, 1983.
- Desh, March 3, 1975.
- Desh, June 14, 1975.
- Ghoroa, April 9, 1980.
- Karah Khabar, Vol 1, number 5, September 16, 2009.
- Sahoj, Vol 10, number 1, January 2001.