Samar Sen (; 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 Asia. ...

, at the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

Early life and career

Sen was born in a well-known

Vaidya Vaidya (Sanskrit: ), or vaid is a Sanskrit word meaning "doctor, physician". Today it is used to refer to traditional practitioners of Ayurveda, an indigenous Indian system of alternative medicine. Senior practitioners or teachers were called ''Va ...

family. Sen's grandfather,

Dinesh Chandra Sen Rai Bahadur Dinesh Chandra Sen () (3 November 1866 – 20 November 1939)Sengupta, Subodh Chandra (ed.) (1988) ''Sansad Bangali Charitabhidhan'' (in Bengali), Kolkata: Sahitya Sansad, p.208 was a Bengali writer, educationist and researcher of ...

, was a well-known writer and member of the

Bangiya Sahitya Parishad Bangiya Sahitya Parishat is a literary society in Maniktala of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Established during the time of the British Raj, its goal is to promote Bengali literature, both by translating works in other languages to Bengali a ...

. 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 A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary. Australia The term "frontier" was frequently used in colonial Australia in the meaning of country that borders the unknown or uncivilised, th ...

'', published from

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

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

Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (Given name, ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and stateswoman who served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India from 1966 to 1977 and again from 1980 un ...

Poetry

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

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...

. 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 was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

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

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

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 ''

''. He was also known for his translations of

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

literature; he spent nearly five years in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

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 ( Maurice; 31 October 1903 – 5 August 1983) was a British economist known for her wide-ranging contributions to economic theory. One of the most prominent economists of the century, Robinson incarnated the "Cambridge Sc ...

and

Satyajit Ray Satyajit Ray (; 2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian film director, screenwriter, author, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligraphy, calligrapher, and composer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influ ...

; his deputy editor was the playwright and actor

Utpal Dutt Utpal Dutt (; 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 The ...

. 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. 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