Manas Ranjan Mahapatra, Puri, 12 March 2023
I had been to the New Delhi World Book Fair, which concluded a few days ago. Suddenly, our government, as a part of the so called NEP (New Education Policy), has started thinking about Children’s Literature after untimely quarantine of the National Centre for Children’s Literature! It takes me back in time….
The decision of “Salila” organisation, headed by Vimla Bhandari ji, four years ago, to confer on me their highest award for Children’s Literature, “Sikhar Samman”, took me back to 1975 when my first poem for children was published on 11 September in “Meena Bazar”, the weekly children’s column of the daily “Prajatantra” edited by Dr Harekrushna Mahatab. This was possibly the first children’s page of a daily in Odisha. My teacher, late Lokanath Saha, announced it with pride in the prayer class of the school – Utkal Hindi Vidyapitha.
So thrilled was I that I wrote a letter to Dr Mahatab. And he graciously responded by post. He used to keep 100 post cards to reply personally to such letters and used to write and sign himself! These days e-mails have occupied that place and there is no personal touch. Editors do not interact with budding authors.
I continued sending poems to other children’s pages like “Kishore Mahal” of the daily “Swarajya” and got published. I even sent writings of my friends to “Swarajya” and the editor, Bairagi Charan Mohanty, published those too. Then I came in touch with Debadatta Samantsinhara of the organisation “Udayana”. We used to hold a lot of activities including creative writing among children and staging of plays.
In 1981, I joined J Mohapatra and Co., Kaligali, Cuttack as a Sub- Editor, de facto executive editor of magazines, which included “Manapabana”, and “Alok”. I went on writing simultaneously in children’s magazines like “Baramaja”, “Sishu Nayana”, “Ame Kunakuni” and “Amara Bhabana”. In the next few years, during my brief stint as a school headmaster, I used to write songs and plays for school functions.
Then I went to CIET (NCERT). In CIET, I used to interact with children and young adults on educational television programmes produced by us. I travelled to more than 10,000 schools in UP and Odisha and met lakhs of children in 3 years.
After I joined NBT in 1990, I did a workshop. It was the first such workshop in Odisha for children’s writers in 1992 in which authors like Dash Benhur, Sunamani Rout, Bankim Nayak, Manas Ranjan Samal and Birendra Mohanty took part. They were the young authors for children at that time. I was one of the first few organisers of Readers’ Club Movement in India and did the first orientation for teachers on how to run a Readers’ Club in Odisha. In due course, the movement went ahead with Subir Shukla, Paro Anand, Dwijendra Kumar, Pankaj Chaturvedi and of course, me.
Needless to say, Arvind Kumar, the then Director of NBT was the force behind me. Now the Ministry has taken up this programme as its own, but the organisation is no more the same as earlier.
With this credential of a worker in the field of Children’s Literature for three decades I took over as Editor and Head of National Centre of Children’s Literature in 2001 and spent two decades to create an atmosphere for children’s literature as a genre in the country. But after spending two decades in charge of this centre, I am a broken-hearted man today. Neither I grew nor the Centre as an independent organisation due to indifference of the establishment. I am retired but not yet tired!
I got an award for children’s literature in 2004 at Cuttack from the Hon’ble Governor of Odisha. Another award that I remember was the one received from the hands of Kuldip Nayar. It was given by the magazine “Pallibani”, edited by Ramachandra Nath. But I never received any significant award or recognition or honour for children’s literature. I was almost forgotten! The only point of satisfaction was that I was instrumental in the establishment of the largest Asian event for promotion of children’s contents (AFCC) with Mr Ramachandran. The event is running extremely well and is growing year by year. I am in touch with this event but only as a humble worker….
I wrote a few stories in the largest circulated English magazine for children, Children’s World. One of those stories, “Queen’s Intelligence” has come out as a book. My friend, Pankaj Chaturvedi, has rendered it into Hindi too. The other satisfaction is that I brought some doyens of yesteryears, like Aabid Surti, the creator of Dabbu Ji, to children’s literature. The few well known writers of children’s literature mentored by me over years include Dash Benhur, Sanjeev Jaiswal ‘Sanjay’, Sangeeta Sethi, Birendra Mohanty, and Ramendra Kumar. I don’t claim any pride for their success, as they are great writers of today. I am happy that I have been their editor for years. My great achievement that I always feel proud of is that I was the editor of the works of the great Manoj Das for three decades.
Vimla ji understood my four decades long relentless effort for promotion of children’s literature. Thank you Vimla Bhandari ji, and to your organisation “Salila”.
I still long for an independent national body of Children’s Literature and have restarted writing for children. This World Book Fair has infused within me renewed vigour and enthusiasm!
