Manas Ranjan Mahapatra, Puri, 8 January 2023
His dear town Puri didn’t remember the second death anniversary of Dibakar Tripathy, a great teacher, social worker, and author from Puri. He was one of the architects of the first ever Book Festival at Puri three decades ago. I was never his student, but he was always an icon for me. Incidentally, a Book Festival was being held on the same day as his second death anniversary where everyone was busy occupying a chair!
If you have come across great souls, you may have got some of that greatness. And, if you have come across some crooks, you are bound to inherit some wicked practices.
After remaining in big cities like Lucknow and Delhi for three decades, I have preferred to come back to a small town like Puri, for my wife prefers it here. In the last two and a half years, I have been grossly ignored or sidelined in this small town, but I have become gradually used to it. Small is beautiful.
Half a century ago, in my small and beautiful town Puri, there was a person called Chittaranjan Mishra. He was President of Ravenshaw College Student Union. But, more remarkably, he was the first promoter of books and reading habits in Odisha. I fondly remember him today.
In my opinion, the only Chief Minister of Odisha with a cultural bent of mind was J.B Pattnaik. I want to write about my association with J.B Pattnaik but something or the other stops me from doing so. Since a new Festival of Books begins today in my small and beautiful town, I will write about the first ever Book Festival of Odisha done by National Book Trust (NBT) on his initiative way back in 1980.
Life is a big race and nobody is a permanent winner. I won yesterday, now I am a loser. You are winner today, tomorrow you may lose and I may happily win the race. Let’s accept destiny and also the communication gap, for no relation is permanent in this world.
Earlier I used to think that people in the practice of art and culture are spiritual people. Now I have changed my perception. Most of them are traders like pimps. I have never been to that market!
Festivals should be organised with own resources. But most of the Festivals are held these days to grab money from the Government and Corporate Sectors. Interestingly, in most of the cases, the organisers are in no way connected with writing. The only outstanding Festival organised by writers is the Goa Arts and Literature Festival organised by Goa Writers and International Centre, Goa.
In Odia literature, chairs write; not the writers! The vulgar presence of bureaucratic minions in every literary event is becoming a common spectacle. It’s better to declare that we don’t recognise writers but truly worship the bureaucratic chairs where some writer sits for some time. This vulgarity is too much to live with. In the last few years it has exceeded all limits. Doing a Literature Festival or a Book Fair has now become a business or political circus.
Voices of dissent have drowned out today. But there was a time when people like Kumar Mohanty and Rajendra Kishore Panda were writing in Odia against the Government and Chief Ministers like Nandini Satpathy or J.B Pattnaik were listening to them with patience and honour. Vishnu Khare and Mangalesh Dabral were similar poets of dissent in Hindi and PM Indira Gandhi was happy to listen to their poetry recitation.
After reading from state sponsored advertisements and news for the last ten years, I visited the site of the so called Odia Viswavidyalaya, Bakulban, Satyabadi yesterday. What a farce! I wonder if this university would come up even in the next ten years!
Bureaucrats and politicians can be just administrators, but they can’t build academic institutions. We Odias are so spineless that we want enlightened clerks to become cultural planners!
I have nothing to claim as my own except the sweet memories of the past but I will always be vocal against hypocrisy.
An example of hypocrisy unlimited is the Book Fair currently being held at Puri. After killing the oldest library of Puri along with a few others, the Puri District Administration with the help of some so called book lovers is holding this Book Fair till 12 January!
Perfection cannot be realised without making mistakes. Success can not be obtained without experiencing failures. You will never understand the damage you did to someone until the same thing is done to you.
This is a wonderful world. Here some people always publicise the theory of Give and Take, but they never give anything. There are also some people who don’t take anything nor they propagate any theory!
Dibakar Tripathy or Chittaranjan Mishra were great personalities. They always gave, but never took anything for themselves. They only left a great legacy for others to follow. Long live such great bards of a lost paradise!!
