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in Cuttack, Sunday, April 15, 2012

Literature

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Through Eastern Eyes

The early encounters between westerners and Odias gave rise to many different kinds of feelings among the natives, but awe was not one of them. Gradually the coming of British as rulers inspired a feeling of wonder and high regard among Odias. These encounters also aroused a strong curiosity among the educated Odias to visit England, the home of the superior masters. Madhusudan Das started the trend, and others followed. Many of these early Odia travellers to England have left memorable accounts of their experiences in the distant land. Author Jatindra K Nayak sifts through some of them.
hen the British, t h e French and the Dutch first arrived in Odisha as traders or travellers they must have aroused amusement and JATINDRA K NAYAK curiosity but not awe. In fact, early narratives written by western travelers who passed through Odisha record the contempt they often had to endure during their meetings with local representatives of Mughal or Marhatta rulers and the discomfort and hardship they had to cope with in the course of their journey through what struck them as a difficult and inhospitable terrain. We do not have accounts of these early encounters with white westerners written by Odias. Maybe they exist somewhere but they are not available. We have to wait until the latter half of the nineteenth century for accounts written by Odias about their perceptions of the British and their occasional interactions with them. By this time the relationship of the natives with the British has undergone a radical transformation: Odisha has been colonized and the British have arrived as rulers. In the prose fiction written by Umesh Chandra Sarkar, Fakir Mohan Senapati and others towards the end of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth, British officials, doctors and judges make their appearance and inspire awe and wonder in the natives. They accompanied by white missionaries looked down on local cultures and sought in every way to establish their innate superiority in all areas of life. No wonder, then, that, many in Odisha who were used to viewing them with amusement mixed with contempt in the past now came to look upon them as representatives of a higher civilization worthy of emulation. It was therefore but natural for members of a middle class, largely created by the new education system put in place by the British in Odisha, to feel an intense curiosity about the land their masters belonged to. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Pandit Harihar Das, a Sanskrit scholar who knew Greek and who wanted his students to learn English, wanted to visit England and made necessary preparations for his trip. Unfortunately he lost his mind and died very young and his dream of paying a visit to England remained unfulfilled. The first Odia who undertook a voyage to England, was Madhusudan Das. The first Odia graduate, the first Odia vakil and the first Odia to become a minister under British rule also had the distinction of being the first Odia to sail to the land of the colonial masters. He left India for England in April 1897 and returned home on November 13, 1897. We are lucky that he has left a fascinating account of his stay in England which is full of sharp observations and humour. While in England Madhubabu paid a visit to TE Ravenshaw who was Commissioner, Odisha Division during and after the devastating famine of 1866. Of this visit Madhubabu writes: 'Mr. Ravenshaw took me all over the house, his gardens and all over his belongings. I had strawberries and gooseberries from the trees, lovely bunch of

The first Odia who undertook a voyage to England, was Madhusudan Das. The first Odia graduate, the first Odia vakil and the first Odia to become a minister under British rule also had the distinction of being the first Odia to sail to the land of the colonial masters. He left India for England in April 1897 and returned home on November 13, 1897. We are lucky that he has left a fascinating account of his stay in England which is full of sharp observations and humour.
grapes from the hot house and flowers from the green house. He took me over to the cowshed and his dairy. I saw the ferrets he uses to shoot rabbits as also his ground where I saw several rabbits and pheasants. I saw his horses; judging from the good animals he has I should think that he is a good judge of horse race and takes interest in his horses.' Using only a few words, Madhubabu effortlessly and vividly describes how a highly placed colonial official in India quelling peasant and tribal uprisings and dealing with famines has settled into the sedentary life of a contented country gentleman in England. Of Indian students pursuing higher studies in England Madhubabu did not form a very favourable opinion. He says: 'These young men - I mean some of them make themselves known as Indian princes; that is the character they are known to the shopkeepers they deal with. A haircutter asked me the other day if I was a prince. I told him I wish I was born a prince for at my age I would have developed into a king.' In course of time other Odias followed Madhusudan Das's example and travelled to England. Most of these went there to receive higher education. These include Madhusudan's adopted daughter, Soilabala Das, who sailed to England to study at a college of teacher education and Bhubanananda Das, Pranakrishna Parija, Nrusingha Charan Mohanty and Haranarayan Singh. Nearly all of them have left accounts of their journey to and residence in England. Soilabala was surprised to see that the waters of the Red Sea were not red at all and was shocked when she noticed how the behavior of British passengers changed on board the ship. Bhubanananda Das claimed in one of his articles published in the Utkala Sahitya that Madhusudan Das's trip to England taught him how to modernize a backward province like Odisha. Time was when every high school student in Odisha went through 'My Experiences at Cambridge' by Pranakrushna Parija as it was included in a prescribed text. But one travelogue relating to an Odia's experience of living in England for a few years stands out from those written before Independence. This records with great sensitivity and intelligence the attempt of a colonized Indian to come to terms with and negotiate the land of his colonizers and to construct an appropriate response to it. In the late 1930s, Mayadhar Mansingh sails for England in a Japanese ship with the aim of doing his doctorate in English literature at a British university. Of course, like all Indians abroad he notes everything that appears strange and different in this new land but he goes further than them. He subjects British culture, economy and polity to a thorough scrutiny and seeks to learn lessons that would prove useful in regenerating his own colonized nation. Consider his thoughts on dresses Indians should adopt in order to achieve greater efficiency: 'The sahib and the Indian are no different from each other; only the dress the sahib wears confers on him a distinction. ..I think Indians should give this matter thought. The Turks and the Japanese

have in no way lost their national pride by adopting European dress codes.' The independence enjoyed by women in England and the desire to be self-reliant animating everyone he met there impressed Mansingh. But he does not allow himself to be overwhelmed by his admiration of the positive features of his host country. War clouds had started gathering in the skies of Europe in 1938 and the Spanish Civil War was a burning issue. At a meeting Mansingh makes bold to observe, 'Spain is reaping the consequences of the terrible misdeeds it had committed in America in the 16thcentury. Europeans hungry for empires should beware. One day they have to pay for their misdeeds too.' The presence of destitutes in this land of plenty shocks Mansingh and he is not impressed by England's record in the field of agriculture. And yet, after all this fault-finding and criticism of specific aspects of British life Mansingh concludes, 'India lost its freedom as a result of its own shortcomings. The Germans and Russians can never provide ideals which Indians could ever emulate for they do not respect free speech. At the end of the day, we should look upon the British as our teachers, who would teach us how to get out of the mess in which we find ourselves.' This complex nuanced response to the land of one's oppressors and a cosmopolitan sensibility shaping it are not to be found in any other travelogues in Odia relating to England.

The perch
t's still there, the great banyan tree by the village pond. Even in those days, when I was a boy, I ISHWAR PATI marvelled at its tangled roots that twisted and turned over the bushes surrounding the tree. The intricate network of roots seems to have spread even more since I left the village almost ten years back. Now where is my seat among those twisted roots that used to be my favourite haunt? Ah, it's still there, very much intact! A freak elbowshaped crook formed by a meshing of the roots in mid-air, it formed a perch that was large enough to seat two children. But I often found myself sitting alone in its nestling comfort and dangling my feet over the water. Ten years! My, how time has flown! It seems only the other day that I overcame my initial fear and daringly climbed up the roots of the banyan tree. When I scaled my way nimbly up and settled in that crook, my chest was filled with pride. Where other children avoided it because of its precarious position, soon it was my pastime to climb up the tree to what I called 'my perch' and lean back against the branches to enjoy the cool breeze that caressed my skin. If there was a heaven on earth for a youngster like me, this was it. Even now, the perch draws me like a rusty yet powerful magnet. I have to cut through the heavy undergrowth that has overgrown the tree trunk over the years and wade through mud. I am no longer as nimble as when I was a boy. So I huff and puff as I lift myself laboriously up the tree. There, I finally make it to my perch! I plop down and dangle my feet as I used to do, splashing the water when the pond was full during the rains. I can't help as memories from my childhood come flooding in Splash, splash, my feet strike the water. Splash, splash, I hear other feet too. I look around. There's no one else on the tree. I

Loves labour never lost

SONIA DAS
HE genre that the author has chosen to write about deals with the lifestyle and problems of todays generation. The book is a work of fiction and the story revolves around the lives of two characters, Ayantika and Deb. Ayantika, who aspires to be a bank officer and an independent woman, while her mother wants her to get married and settle down. Deb, who is the protagonist of the novel, undergoes a transition in the sphere of love, from mere physical gratification to spiritual bliss. Ayantika meets Deb online. In due course their friendship blossoms into love. Apart from Deb and Ayantika there are Saurav, Tina, Vinod and Sagarika who experience change in relationships. All the characters face various complexities in their lives and overcome them in their unique ways. Career pressures, marriage blues and family demands are among the countless problems which they overcome assiduously. The common thread that binds all the characters in the novel is their 'confusion' and the 'seasonal' trajectory of transformation of the heart, from the winter of emotions to the warmth of summers, autumn being the intermediary season. Thus the title: Autumn in My Heart. The book portrays the emotional conflicts through the journey of life. It delves into the dayto-day life and depicts different hues of life -- happiness, sorrow, problems and also the possible solutions. In Autumn in My Heart, the author explores these areas and tries to find answers to questions such as: does love really end when you have a break-up? Does love always mean you have to be with the opposite sex? Can online friendships of today's generation lead to a relationship of a life-time? The reader is bound to commence the journey with detachment trying to get a peep into the lives of a bunch of youngsters and their struggle to

look down. Oh, yes, there's someone down there, in the water. How can I ever forget her? Her soft feet made a splashing sound as they lapped the water in tune with mine. Sangita! Such a sweet, pretty girl she was. She was a couple of years older than me. But it was my friendship she craved, because she found in me the playmate she so badly wanted. No one except the two of us was bold enough to climb the gnarled roots up to the perch. So we would heave ourselves up and lie there, side by side, whiling away the lazy afternoons. I don't remember what we talked about. She was the one who was the chatterbox. I simply looked on, mesmerised by her face when it was lit up by the afternoon sun. I could have gone on looking at her radiant face for-

Autumn in My Heart
by
Saptarshi Basu

But today becomes yesterday and all good things come to an end. One day she told me that her father had been transferred and they would be leaving our village within a week. She didnt talk much that day and even our hanging legs were still. We reclined side by side on our perch, silently contemplating the grey horizon and our future, when she gently squeezed my palm. I felt like crying. She turned to console me and at that moment somehow slipped from the perch. I still dont know how she slipped, but when I looked through my tears she was down there in the water, frantically crying out for help. But there was no one else and I, a boy of ten, was immobilised by shock. Numbly I watched her thrashing and splashing till she stopped and disappeared from my view.
ever, secure in our innocent world of endless todays. But today becomes yesterday and all good things come to an end. One day she told me that her father had been transferred and they would be leaving our village within a week. She didn't talk much that day and even our hanging legs were still. We reclined side by side on our perch, silently contemplating the grey horizon and our future, when she gently squeezed my palm. I felt like crying. She turned to console me and at that moment somehow slipped from the perch. I still don't know how she slipped, but when I looked through my tears she was down there in the water, frantically crying out for help. But there was no one else and I, a boy of ten, was immobilised by shock. Numbly I watched her thrashing and splashing till she stopped and disappeared from my view. Is she still there now, thrashing in the water for all these years? Hasn't she grown tired of trying to stay afloat? But I see her smiling. Her face is blooming

and her body has been toned by all the exercise she has been carrying out in the water. Sangita, you have forgiven me, haven't you? Oh, how sweet of you! You know, don't you, I didn't push you that day? Not deliberately in any case. It just happened. It's true of course that I couldn't stand the thought of you going away from me. In my juvenile heart I had decided that you would be mine-and remain mine-forever! How could I tolerate the very idea, even the remote possibility, of your belonging to someone else? What, you want me to prove my love for you? Right now? Wellyou see, Sangita, ten years is a very long, long time. Much water has been splashed in the pond since then, enough for the sparkle of our lucid love to turn murky and stale. Don't you think it's time for us to move on? For me at least it's rather late in the day. You see, I am married with a small daughter of my own. You too should move on now, to your eternal resting place-what they call the 'happy hunting grounds'. You can make it your 'happy swimming pool' if you so like. That is precisely the reason why I have come here, to our perch, today-to release your ghost from these murky waters for a perch in that land from where no one and no love has ever returned.

Published by

Times Group Books

ISBN: 978-9380828-54-1 Price: ` 150/-

The common thread that binds all the characters in the novel is their 'confusion' and the 'seasonal' trajectory of transformation of the heart, from the winter of emotions to the warmth of summers, autumn being the intermediary season. Thus the title: Autumn in My Heart.
understand the true meaning of love, but will gradually begin to find an echo in ones own heart. The book essentially draws on life experiences during the author s college days and dwells on present day passion crimes and heartbreaks and suicides. The overbearing message is to heal the broken heart and find the passion to love again.