Samar Sen ( bn, সমর সেন; 10 October 1916 – 23 August 1987) was a prominent Indian

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

poet and journalist in the post-Independence era.Old Poetry Website retrieved on 4 February 2007
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Education

Samar Sen was a graduate of the

Scottish Church College Scottish Church College is a college affiliated by Calcutta University, India. It offers selective co-educational undergraduate and postgraduate studies and is the oldest continuously running Christian liberal arts and sciences college in A ...

, at the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a public collegiate state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered one of best state research university all over India every year, ...

Early life and career

Sen was born in a well-known

Vaidya Vaidya (Sanskrit: ), or vaid is a Sanskrit word meaning "traditional practitioner of Ayurveda", an indigenous Indian system of alternative medicine. Senior practitioners or teachers were called ''Vaidyarāja'' ("physician-king") as a mark of respe ...

family. Sen's grandfather,

Dinesh Chandra Sen Rai Bahadur Dinesh Chandra Sen ( bn, দীনেশ চন্দ্র সেন) (3 November 1866 – 20 November 1939)Sengupta, Subodh Chandra (ed.) (1988) ''Sansad Bangali Charitabhidhan'' (in Bengali), Kolkata: Sahitya Sansad, p.208 was a ...

, was a well-known writer and member of the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad. His father, Arun Sen, an academic, noted, "I am the son of an illustrious father and the father of an illustrious son!" Samar Sen, along with Subhash Mukhopadhyay, belonged to the second generation of modern Bengali poets. He gave up poetry fairly early, however, and devoted the better part of his later life to Marxist politics and journalism. He was the editor of the leftist newspaper '' Frontier'', published from

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

, which was banned during the period of the Indian Emergency (1975 -1977) declared by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Poetry

Samar Sen, like his poetic contemporaries, grew up under the gigantic impact of

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

. Yet Sen was perhaps the first to 'break' with the lyrical romanticism of Tagore and introduce "modern" concerns (disenchantment, decadence, avant-garde urban perspectives) into Bengali verse. Through his work, the influence of French and English

modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

was first translated into Bengali verse; at the same time, the convergence of modernism and

Marxism Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...

was evident early on in his poetic thought and style. His poetry was somewhat over-shadowed by his very original journalism, produced while he served as editor of the legendary '' Frontier''. He was also known for his translations of

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

literature; he spent nearly five years in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

working as a translator, although later in life he became doubtful about bureaucratic Communism.Samar Sen sankha, Anustup, Anustup Prakashani, Samar Sen also edited the radical journal ''Now'', publishing a galaxy of prominent scholars and writers, including

Joan Robinson Joan Violet Robinson (''née'' Maurice; 31 October 1903 – 5 August 1983) was a British economist well known for her wide-ranging contributions to economic theory. She was a central figure in what became known as post-Keynesian economics. B ...

and Satyajit Ray; his deputy editor was the playwright and actor

Utpal Dutt Utpal Dutta () (29 March 1929 – 19 August 1993) was an Indian actor, director, and writer-playwright. He was primarily an actor in Bengali theatre, where he became a pioneering figure in Modern Indian theatre, when he founded the "Little Th ...

. In his private life Sen was a man with a wry sense of humour, sometimes acerbic but often lethally accurate. He never regretted the sacrifice of what could have been a comfortable material life, supported by conventional measures of bourgeois success. His loyalty was always to the downtrodden. Adobe Scan 24-Jun-2022 1 (1)

Some critics mourn his abandonment of poetry as a loss to Indian literature, reasoning that his acute perception and extraordinary command of languages would have continued to produce memorable verse of lasting significance. Sen decided, however, that poetry was a luxury in a world of gross deprivation and injustice and decided he would instead dedicate himself to agitating on behalf of the poor, regardless of the cost to himself. He remained committed to this cause for the rest of his life, despite experiencing significant poverty himself.

Tribute

* ... He is comparatively modern poet without being progressive. He has dedicated his first work to Muzaffar Ahmad. I pray that it should mean something more than a mere personal allegiance ... Brevity is its (his poems') soul ... Samar Sen is an up-to-date representative poet. He needs to be progressive by informing himself with a sense of history. He has also yet to be symbolic. Still there is no doubt of his being a poet of a particular genre. (Dhurjati Mukherji) * We talk about being rid of the influence of Rabindranath agore as if we take it for granted that the influence of Rabindranath is inevitable in a young Bengali poet's endeavour. But what amazes me is that this young poet has never been under the influence of Rabindranath. (Buddhadeb Basu)

Quotes

---- * Among those who are penning modern Bengali poetry, most of them haven't joined a political movement, and that's sad. But many of them are powerful writers and have impacted the middle class society. Reason? Because many of them have brought changes in their perspective and expression, breaking the ivory tower of a mere aesthetics of truth, beauty and goodness and by being conscious of the disgust and the multi-layered failure of the middle class life. * In these times of dereliction and dismay, of wars, unemployment and revolutions, the decayed side of things attracts us most ... Perhaps that is because we have our roots deep in the demoralized petty bourgeoisie and lack the vitality of a rising class. * Our poetry (Bengali poetry) is basically without a tradition. Samar Sen was founder-editor of the weekly magazine ''Frontier'', first published in 1968.

References