Odia Books

Sitakanta Mahapatra born in 1937 ,he is a poet, essayist and translator, obtained his M.A. in Political Science from the University of Allahabad and joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1961. He then studied at Cambridge University. He also held a Homi Bhabha Fellowship (1975-77) for studying the modernisation process of the primitive communities of odisha. Presently he is Home Commissioner to the Government of odisha.

He published his first collection of poems, Dipti O dyuti (Radiance and glow) in 1963. It contains some well-known poems like ‘Basra darpanare suryasta’ and ‘Jarasabarara sangita’. Ashtapadi (1967) comprises eight long poems which draw heavily on Indian and world mythology in respect of their imagery and insights. The model is obviously T.S. Eliot. Similar efforts in Modern odia poetry had been made before by Guntprasad Mohanti in his ‘Kalapurusha’ and other poems. Several passages in Ashtapadi bear close resemblance, both thematic and rhythmic, to passages in Guruprasad’s poems.

The success of Ashtapadi, therefore, does not consist in any technical innovation on the part of the poet. Rather it relates to the fund of scholarship the poet brought into modern odia poetry, a scholarship which is impressive in its range and variety. Secondly, Ashtapadi made the writing of long poems quite fashionable.The book, however, is the first elaborate statement of Sitakanta’s themes: Time, Death, Redemption. His next Sabdara akash (Sky of words) won him the Sahitya Akademi Award for the year 1974.

It explores these themes with characteristic vigour. The Eliotian death-in-life condition is still the poet’s major concern. But a faint gleam of hope is already visible in the surrounding darkness. The poems in Sabdara akash are relatively free from the verbosity of Ashtapadi and are formally better executed. In Samudra (Sea, 1977) and (Painted river, 1979) the hope of man’s redemption is more pronounced. In these two collections the them.atie concerns of the poem ‘Solon’ in Ashtapadi are further elaborated. The speaker, very much the lonely man on an island like Solon, seeks to establish a meaningful relationship with the sea, the symbol of the welter of human experiences, in a bid to transcend it. He struggles to conquer time in time.

The sea is also the symbol of the depth and power of individual consciousness. But the world of Sitakanta is so much steeped in myth and rituals that the familiar world, the one in time, is lost sight ot Instead of experiencing a sense of release the reader feels as if he has been led into a blind alley. The language and the imagery are repetitive. The same is the drawback of Chitranadi but for its replacement of the sea metaphor by the river. The old man who appears again and again on the scene is no other than Solon.

FURTHER WORKS: Quiet Violence (Calcutta, 1970), The Empty Distance Carries (Calcutta, 1972), The
Other Silence (Calcutta, 1973), The Wooden Sword (Calcutta, 1973), Old Man in Summer (Calcutta, 1975), Staying in Nowhere (Calcutta, 1975), Bhinna akash bhinna dipti (Cuttack, 1978), The Curve of Meaning (Calcutta, 1978), Barefoot into Reality (Calcutta, 1978), Gestures of Intimacy (1979), Nihsamga manisha (Cuttack, 1980).

BIBLIOGRAPHY: B. Das. ‘The Metaphysical Mode of Modem odia and Sister Languages’ in Indian Literature (January-February, 1979); Dasarathi Das, Adhunika kavya jijnasha: chitrakalpa (Cuttack, 1974);H. Mallik and L. Jena, ‘Kavi Sri Sitakant Mahapatramka saha eka sakhyatkara’ in Istahara (July-September,
1979); Jatindra Mohan Mohanty, ‘Sitakant Mahapatramka kavita’ in Kavita, Vol. II (1964).

Odia Books By Sitakanta Mahapatra

Sabdara Skash
Bhinna Akash Bhinna Dipti
Dipti O Dyuti
Basra Darpanare Suryasta
Jarasabarara Sangita
Ashtapadi