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Fakirmohan Senapati was born in 1843,He is an eminent odia novelist and short story writer, is regarded as one of the founders of the Modern Age in odia literature. He was engaged in literary activities during the last phase of the nineteenth century and enriched odia literature with numerous creative works, including poems and an autobiography, besides fiction. The founding father of several branches of literary art, his works are rich with the portraits of characters drawn from life. He satirises old customs and superstitions,and frowns upon the evils of the so-called civilised society of today.

He was left an orphan in his infancy and was brought up by his grandmother. The old lady, under the
influence of local superstition, vowed to make him a Fakir (mendicant) if the child survived the serious illness in his childhood. After his recovery he was made to beg from door to door in observance of the vow for a few years during religious festivals. Hence he was nicknamed Fakir, and was subsequently known as Fakirmohan while his original name Brajmohan was totally forgotten. Poverty, ill health and neglect made Fakirmohan earn his living the hard way. For want of money,
English education remained an unfulfilled dream in his life.

He worked on odd jobs to begin with – as a petty employee in the Salt Department, a worker in the sail manufacturing industry, a clerk in the District Collector’s office, and finally as a school teacher. Later, he was able to set up a printing press at Balasore and edited a newspaper. But again he gave up the press and editing to accept administrative jobs in various feudatory states of odisha, such as Nilgiri, Dampara, Dhenkanal, Keonjhar and Pallahara as Assistant manager and Dewan.

His aquaintance with John Beams, the Collector of Balasore, was of immense benefit to him. In 1898 he attended the Madras session of the Congress and in 1918 presided over the session of the Utkal Sammilani,an organisation which strove for the integration of odia speaking areas scattered in different provinces into a separate province.

In the last part of the nineteenth century, odia was about to be discontinued as a subject and as medium of instruction in schools for want of text books. The rich and ancient literature of odisha had not yet been published and existed only in palm-leaf manuscripts. Fakirmohan visualized that odia literature could survive only through publication of books and journals. He set up a printing press at Balasore in 1868 and brought out two journals named Bodhadayini and Balasore sambad bahika. His first short story ‘Lachhamania’ was published in one of these journals and it may claim to be the first short story written in modern Indian literature.

To meet the shortage of text-books for primary and Middle English schools of odisha, Fakirmohan wrote and published books on history and grammar and translated the biography of Iswarchandra Vidyasagar from Bengali. He also translated in parts the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, Shrimad Bhagavad Geeta, Harivamsha purana and some Upanishads in simple and idiomatic odia. Utkal bhramana (1892) may be considered to be his first creative work with a stamp of originality.

The soul of Utkal and its hopes and aspirations are humorously projected in this long poem of about 1300 lines. The next thirty years of his life are packed with intense creative activities. Apart from his poems, it is mainly through his fiction that Fakirmohan achieves glory. The best among his novels are Chhamana athaguntha (Six and one-third acres of land, 1898), Lachhama, Mamu and Prayaschitta (1915).

All his novels except Lachhama depict the contemporary society. It can safely be said that in these
novels, there is a unique combination of idealism and social realism. The characters are portrayed in simple and colloquial language, with deep psychological insight. The lucid descriptions are rich with humour and satire. He was a contemporary of the great Bengali novelist Bankim Chandra but started writing later.Fakirmohan’s novels are untouched by contemporary political events, and reflect a certain originality and foresight rare in his day.

Ignoring, the romantic and imaginative traditions of the age, Fakirmohan took ordinary, down-to-earth people as characters in his fiction, an act that made his literature revolutionary and progressive.The odia short story also begins with Fakirmohan. In his twenty and odd short stories, he gave new directions to the genre with his intimate knowledge of human psychology and capacity for vivid expression. From the point of view of plot construction, characterisation and technique each story has an individuality of its own.

Apart from artistic considerations, the stories have also a reformistic undertone. They deal with the social, political and cultural life of odisha and reflect the transformation of odia society from the old to the new during the preceding century. Fakirmohan has no peer in the delineation of characters. He depicts the hopes and frustrations, joys and miseries, simplicity and duplicity of ordinary village folks.

In stories like ‘Rebati’, ‘Randipua Ananta’, ‘Patent medicine’, ‘Suna bohu’, ‘Dhuliababa’, ‘Daka munsi’,‘Barei Bisal’, ‘Bagala baguli’ he strikes a balance between character and environment, making each story a flawless work of art. Besides, he has also written a few essays in Fakirmohan made a substantial contribution to modern odia lyrics also. His lyrics are the outcome of deep personal emotions. The early demise of his wife and eldest child had a profound effect on his emotional life and the grief finds expression in collections of poems like Puspamala, Pujafula and Upahara.

Fakirmohan is the first poet of odisha, who composed lyrics on the life of the tribals. He is also the first poet to have composed extremely readable poems on mundane things of life. As he was adept in story telling, he also wrote ballads which bear the stamp of his personality. Even though he was influenced bymodernism, he had great respect for traditional poetry. He makes ample use of traditional and popular sayings of odisha.

Fakirmohan has contributed substantially to practically all genres of odia literature, but he will perhaps be remembered best as the father of odia fiction. BIBLIOGRAPHY: J.B. Mohanty (ed.), Fakirmohan parikrama; N. Samant Roy, Vyasakabi Fakirmohan; Surendra Mohanty, Fakirmohan samikhya; S. Das, Jugasrasta Fakirmohan. (J.B.M.) .

Rebati
Randipua Ananta
Suna bohu
Dhuliababa
Bagala baguli
Daka munsi

Chhamana Athaguntha
Lachhama
Prayaschitt