Binoy Majumdar

Binoy Majumdar (বিনয় মজুমদার) (17 September 1934 – 11 December 2006) was a Bengali poet who had received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2005.

Binoy Majumdar was born in Myanmar (erstwhile Burma) on 17 September 1934.

His family later moved to what is now Thakurnagar West Bengal in India.

Binoy loved mathematics from his early youth.

He completed 'Intermediate' (pre-University) from the Presidency College of the University of Calcutta.

Although he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering graduate from Bengal Engineering College, now renamed Indian Institute of Engineering Science & Technology, (IIT) Calcutta, in 1957, Binoy turned to poetry later in life.

He translated a number of science texts from the Russian to Bengali.

When Binoy took to writing, the scientific training of systematic observation and enquiry of objects found a place, quite naturally, in his poetry.

His first book of verse was Nakshatrer Aloy (in the light of the stars).

The period from 1958 to 1962 saw Binoy's poetry thrive.

Apart from Phire Esho, Chaka, he wrote other books, such as: Nakshatrer Aaloy (In the light of the stars), Eeshwariyo (Godly), Adhikantu (Excessive), Aghraaner Anubhutimala (The emotions of the month of Aghran), Balmikir Kabita (The Poetry of Balmiki).

However, Binoy Majumdar's most famous piece of work to date is Phire Esho, Chaka (Come back, O Wheel, 1960), which was written in the format of a diary.

The book is dedicated to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, a fellow-Calcuttan and contemporary of Majumdar.

Professor Narayan Ch Ghosh has written number of articles on the writings of Binoy Majumder analysing mathematical aspects of Binoy's poems.

According to Ghosh Phire Esho, Chaka(Come back, O Wheel) published during 1960 was reflection of Binoy's mind for recalling progress - wheel symbolizes.

Professor Ghosh had described 'Balmikir Kabita' of Binoy Majumder was continuation of Ratnakar Balmiki (first poet) through 'Balmikir Pratibha' by Rabindranath Thakur.

Ghosh stated that Binoy's poem 'Eka Eka Katha Bali'is a Lyrics to Lonely Talk like a vision of poetic melancholy by John Milton Or like 'Teach me half the gladness/That thy brain must know;/Such harmonious madness/ From my lips would flow,/The world should listen then, as I am listening now' by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Though he knew his predecessor Bankim Chandra, first successful Novelist in Bengali - Binoy's mother tongue, had written 'Keo Kakhno Eka Thakiona' (No one lives alone).

During the 1960s, he had joined the Hungry generation movement for a short time but departed because of differences with its leader Shakti Chattopadhyay.

However, he had published several poems in the Hungryalist bulletins and one of them viz., 'Ekti Ujwal Maach' became quite famous and popular among academicians.

After his disagreement with Shakti Chattopadhyay and Sandipan Chattopadhyay, he had himself written a Hungryalist broadside against them.

He was supportive of Malay Roy Choudhury during his 35-month-long trial.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Binoy was affected by severe mental illness.

He tried to commit suicide several times, and stopped writing poetry altogether.

Also, the medical treatment he received was inadequate.

He moved to the outskirts of Calcutta, in Thakurnagar, and lived with local town folks, a stranger amidst strangers.

Binoy had passed into obscurity in his later years, suffered from senility and lived in social seclusion and neglect.

He did not have a family.

An anthology of Binoy's poems was published by Dey's Publishing House of Calcutta under the name Binoy Majumdarer Srestho Kabita (Selected Poems of Binoy Majumdar) in 1981.

Binoy's poetry has been appreciated by literary critics.

He won several awards such as

Binoy died in his maternal home in Shimulpur, Thakaurnagar, West Bengal, on 11 December 2006.

The book, Phire Esho, Chaka, opens with the lines:

Binoy Majumdar died on 11 December 2006, at the age of 72.

Binoy has often been regarded by critics as a true successor of Jibanananda Das, the poet who revolutionized Bengali Poetry in the post-Tagore era.

Like Jibanananda, Binoy drew his material from bountiful nature, the fields and the jungles and the rivers and the fauna of Bengal.

But Binoy's originality lay in his attempt to relate the various elements of nature to one another through objective logic and scientific enquiry.

In this respect, some critics like Aryanil Mukhopadhyay, refer to the genre of his work as scientific field journal.

Binoy Majumdar was bold and revolutionary in the depiction of sexuality in Poetry.

He abundantly used vivid imagery which were sensually potent and Freudian in essence.