Writers

Gangadhara Meher was born in 1862,he is an eminent poet, was born in a family of weavers. He studied up to the fifth class and served the zemindar of Barapali as a judicial clerk: He was one of the main architects of the Odia renaissance which had begun around 1876 with the publication of Radhanatha Ray’s Kavitavali. He has been described as a ‘swabhaba kavi’ or natural poet. Poetry came very naturally to him. He is also regarded as one of the greatest poets of nature in modern Odia.

Meher did not publish his first work, Rasaratnakara (The ocean of rasa), because of what he considered to be its outdated style. It was a narrative poem depicting the story of two mythological characters, Usha and Aniruddha, written during 1885-92. Indumati (1894), his first published work, is a narrative poem or kavya dealing with a character from Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsam.

His style, with its rhetorical flourish reminiscent of Upendra Bhanja and the Sanskrit poets is old-fashioned. But its success, from the poet’s point of view, lay in its approval by Radhanatha Ray. It is noted for its psychological probing of character. The chief inspiriation of Utkal Lakshmi is patriotic. The poem is a fantasy. On a full-moon night goddess Prajna escorts the poet to a temple where he meets the moon-god and Rohini who, he learns, have been born in the world as Maharaja

Puranachandra of Mayurabhanj and the genius of Utkala respectively. A little later the poet sees the Spirit of Utkala in the form of a beautiful woman being worshipped by the rivers and mountains, the woods and lakes of odisha. Through this poem Meher paid his respects to the Maharaja who was a great patron of art and literature and also to the genius of Radhanatha Ray. Kichaka badha (The killing of Kichaka, 1905) and Ayodhya drishya (1910) are again narrative poems dealing with an episode from Sarala Dasa’s Mahabharata and with the story of the Ramayana respectively.

Kichaka badha celebrates the triumph of good over evil through the death of its protagonist, who is presented as the very embodiment of lust. Ayodhya drishya has Kausholya as its protagonist instead of Rama and depicts her motherly sentiments rather in a haphazard manner. Padmini (1910) narrates the story of a brave Rajput woman of Indian history. The two subsequent kavyas, Pranayaballari (The creeper of love, 1914) and Tapaswini (The female ascetic, 1914), however, are the supreme examples of his narrative art and his moral and spiritual vision.

The former is based on Kalidasa’s Abhijnana Shakuntalam and portrays Shakuntala as the very embodiment of ideal love. Kalidasa’s heroine can exchange angry words with Dushyanta when he ill-treats her but not Meher’s Shakuntala who is all simplicity, tenderness and tolerance. Tapaswini is entirely about Sita and her suffering when she is banished by Rama. Its subject-matter is drawn from Valmiki’s Ramayana, Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsam and Bhavabhuti’s Uttararamacharita. Towards the end of this poem of eleven Cantos, Sita sends her sons to the Ashwamedha yagna of their father, and a vision gives her an insight into her happy future.

Fortitude is the keynote of her character. The process of her coming to terms with her sufferings and her fmal surrender to God’s will have been described in an intensely dramatic manner. Besides its religious theme, Tapaswani is noted for its perfect structural organisation. The poem is an epic of human endurance. Meher’s lyrical work has been published in two collections entitled Kavita kallola (1912) and Arghyathali (The plate of offerings, 1918). The five poems of the first volume are chiefly patriotic whereas those in the second are cast in an ironic mould focussing on human follies and foibles.

Some of them like “Garba” “Tanku madhya bolithanti dharma avatara” and “Andhakararara atmaphrasada” are bittlerly satirical. Arghyathali also contains poems like ‘Bhakti’, which is an impassioned expression of the poet’s religious feelings, and ‘Madhumaya”, a celebration of the beauty of the world. “Bharati bhabana” (1923) is a song of protest against the oppressive rule of the British. The other poems Meher wrote after 1918 have been published in his collected works under two titles, Kavita mala and Krishaka sangita. The latter consists of poems on agriculture most of which are in a humorous vein. Meher’s lyrical poems are noted for its wide range of feelings. He also has written half a dozen essays in authobiography, biography and literary criticism of indifferent merit.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Asit Kavi, Odiya sahityare Gangadhara (Cuttack, 1967); Birakishor Das, Swabhabakavi
Gangadhara (Cuttack, 1963, 75) Bhagabana Meher, Pitri prasanga (Cuttack, 1977); Gouri Kumar Brahma,
Tapaswini o Meher sahitya (Cuttack, 1978); Sarata Chandra Pradhan, Kavyadhara o kavimanasa (Cuttack,
1976).

Odia Books By Gangadhara Meher

Rasaratnakara
Usha
Aniruddha
Indumati

Poems

Bhakti
Madhumaya
Bharati Bhabana
Kavita Mala
Krishaka Sangita