Binoy Majumdar

Binoy Majumdar (Bengali: বিনয় মজুমদার) (17 September 1934 – 11 December 2006) was a Bengali poet. Binoy 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). 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.