Odia Books

Jagamohan Lala was born in 1838 the village of Mahanga in the district of Cuttack. During the Mughal reign; his ancestors came from Bihar as royal employees and settled down in odisha. Jagamohan served under the British Government as a Deputy Collector for some time. He had built a permanent stage named ‘Radhakanta Rangamancha’ in his village in 1875.

Jagamohan knew three languages, viz. odia, English. and Bengali and his first literary work was a long poem Bhramabhangana (1868) based on the 18th century English poet Parnell’s work The Hermit. Odisa Bijay was a collection of his historical essays. Jagamohan has two dramas to his credit, Babaji (1877) and Sati (1886), published by the Cuttack Printing Company. In spite ot some technical flaws, Babaji, the first odia drama, is remarkably modern.

Jagamohan seems to have been interested in depicting events happening in the contemporary society,
instead of picking them from mythological or imaginary stories. Both his dramas were written against the social background of his time. He vehemently condemned the social evils, the moral degradation of ‘Babas’,maladministration, profligacy and torture-methods of the feudal kings. Humour and suspense are absent in Jagamohan’s works and that could be the reason why he was not as popular a dramatist as Ramshankar even though the plots of his dramas were very powerful.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: N.B. Samantaray, Odiya sahtiyar itihas (1964); Ratnakar Chaini, Odiya natakar udbhab
vikas (Books & Books, Cuttack, 1st edition, 1979); Vinayak Mishra, Adhunik Odiya sahityar itihas (1968).

Odia Books By Jagamohan Lala

Bhramabhangana
Odisa Bijay
Babaji
Sati