Jayanta Mahapatra, born in Cuttack into an ordinary middle-class Hindu family, converted to Christianity due to poverty. A college Physics teacher, he started writing poetry at 40 when many poets quit and became India바카라s one the most celebrated poets, and perhaps, the country바카라s best-known Indian-English poet in the West.
Mahapatra, Nissim Ezekiel, and A.K. Ramanujan, the famous triumvirate of Indian poets 바카라one from the East, one from the West, and one from the South바카라 ushered in a new age of Indian-English poetry. It was not comfortable for poets of India to write in English and live in Indian ethos and ethnicities as well. For Mahapatra, it was a war between 바카라Daffodils바카라 and 바카라Rajnigandha바카라 (an East-Indian flower), between 바카라Canterberry Church바카라 and 바카라Puri Temple바카라. To write India or not to write England was a dilemma that went deep down into the psyche of the poets who created the space for the postcolonial write-back generation of writers.
Mahapatra wrote Odisha in English as Allen Ginsberg wrote California in American, or Nicannor Parra wrote Santiago in Spanish. A poem is written to be read and recited, but when Mahapatra started writing poems in English, there was no area in India, and till date, no state in India that predominantly uses English. There was a ready Odia readership for Odia poetry, but a thin, elite slice of the bureaucracy and public administration was the only hope for Indian-English poetry. In 바카라Neither Alien Nor Postmodern: Jayanta Mahapatra바카라s Poetry from India바카라, John Oliver Perry writes, 바카라It is still common to hear charges that anyone writing poetry in English must be a pretentious 바카라brown sahib바카라 doomed to gaffes of 바카라Babu바카라 grammar.바카라바카라바카라 This was an observation written 40 years ago. But it still persists even after the globalisation of ethnic India.
Now, poets live in a paradox. In 2016 when I was attending America바카라s world-famous International Writing Programme (IWP) at the University of Iowa, I was taken aback when a fellow writer asked me, 바카라You write in English?바카라 I said 바카라No, I write in Bengali.바카라 It jolted my senses when, a step further, he honestly asked, 바카라바카라Is there any other language in India beyond English?바카라바카라
Now, after the commercial success of Indian novels in English, the world is ready with a red carpet welcome for Indian-English writers, but Indian-English poets can hardly win any international prize or publishing accolade. In the West, to quote Salman Rushdie is a mandatory gesture while Tagore who took the West by storm now goes muted. Mahapatra, in his gentle war with this paranoia, brilliantly survived the paradox. He is the first Indian-English poet to have received the Sahitya Akademi Award and then the Padma Shri. He has been widely translated into Indian languages. He never missed the link with his mother tongue as he continued to write in Odia and loved to translate from Odia into English. Whenever Jayanta da and I spoke over the telephone, he preferred Bengali. He became Sahitya Akademi Fellow without a single word of debate.
In an interview with Swain and Merchant, Mahapatra said, 바카라I would be writing like an Oriya, writing the poems that 바카라belong바카라 to Orissa, from inside the Oriya culture I바카라m in바카라바카라
His lines are his lines, nobody has to certify them as Indian: 바카라At Puri, the crows / the one wide street / lolls out like a giant tongue. / Five faceless lepers move aside / as a priest passes by / and at the street바카라s end / the crowds thronging the temple door: / a huge holy flower / swaying in the wind of greater reasons.바카라
I spent a whole day with him at his home in Tinkonia Bagicha, Cuttack, a decade ago when he was feeble by grief but stronger by tranquility. The death of his wife and his son made him silent like a stone but the stone at midnight used to whisper lines of poetry. His loneliness was a new diaspora of his soul. The woman who was his domestic help cooked lunch for us and Jayanta da humbly gave her instructions in the kitchen. It was a winter day warm with poetry and seeped in love and respect for the man who silently revolutionised Indian-English poetry without any slogan or bullet. His calmness of mind had never been a lull before a storm, but it was the wisdom of a fakir that quintessentially made him a poet. Arun Kolatkar, another Indian-English poet, is absolutely right as he said, 바카라His deep poetry exudes quiet confidence.바카라
He has left behind a will which seems to have been his last poem for posterity. He writes in it, 바카라My body, after being washed, is to be attired in white panjabi and pyjamas and laid out in an appropriate place (my room perhaps, or whatever is decided by Babu). His would be the final say in all matters related to my funeral. My body must not be taken anywhere (like an exhibit), not to Ravenshaw University or to Saila Bala Women바카라s College, where I taught. Later, my body should be cremated, and not buried in the Christian graveyard. No coffin should be made for this purpose.바카라
In the last paragraph he writes an elegy on his own death바카라바카라Finally, Babu will take charge of the urn containing my ashes after the cremation, and hand it over to Durga Behera, who would immerse the ashes at a convenient time at Chandrabhaga, by the sea.바카라바카라Jayanta Mahapatra, 20 June, 2023, Ratha Yatra Day
I바카라m sure that the world would be a witness to his poetry that will resurrect after his ashes will melt and mingle with the water of Chandrabhaga, the river, and his poetry magazine shall continue beyond borders. In an interview, he once said, 바카라I have no message to give except a smile.바카라 And a smile, as we know, has no border.
(Poet and professor Subodh Sarkar is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award. He taught English at the University of Iowa, USA and now teaches at City College, Kolkata.)
