Manas Ranjan Mahapatra, Puri, 23 June 2024
I have not visited Nayagarh for the last three decades. Whenever I think of Nayagarh, its delicious cheese cake (Cheena Poda) and wit of Poet Jadumani comes to my mind.
Jadumani was a famous poet and narrator from Odisha. Ingenious humour and satire was the speciality of his writing. Though he was born in Athagara village in Ganjam District, he left his birth place during his adolescence and resided permanently at Itamati Village of Nayagarh, then a princely state. He was known as an extraordinarily talented poet, intellectual, and orator. Spontaneous poetic talent and sharp wit was filled within him. He was able to acquire in-depth knowledge in Odia and Sanskrit languages with self determination and hard endeavour. Through jokes, humour, satire, and ridicule, he used to face the truth and unmasked dishonesty, illegitimacy, and untruthfulness. Many of his humourous poetic exclamations are used as idioms in day to day activities even in our current day society.
Jadumani was a gifted child of Goddess Saraswati. It is natural then that he would not be blessed by Goddess Lakshmi. A poet is worshipped far and wide in his own country, as well as in other countries, but in his own house, he dies out of hunger. Most of Jadumani’s days were spent in scarcity and sorrow. Whatever he received from the court by praising the King was not sufficient for sustaining his whole family.
Once there was no grain or paddy in the house. Jadumani finished his daily activities and went to the court. He was supposed to bring some rice and vegetables while returning from the court. His wife was waiting for him.
Jadumani returned from the court at the usual time. Being absent minded, he couldn’t know when he reached home. Poets are like this only. They go on singing even in acute hunger. He remembered everything when he reached home. He had not brought anything. He felt helpless and sad thinking what his wife will say. His wife, however, was very clever. Totally husband oriented, she consoled him and said, “There is no point in being so thoughtful. I know all poets are like this. I have already cooked whatever grain was there in the house. Wash your hands and face and eat.”
Jadumani changed his clothes and sat for dinner. His wife sat beside him. Very hesitantly she spoke, “will you keep a request of mine?”
“Yes”, said Jadumani.
“I am saying this for our well being. Think for a while and see. Then you do what you realise to be better. We have nothing as our property. We don’t have a proper house to stay in. We are just lying in this broken hut. Somehow we are managing with the meagre amount that you get by writing poems in praise of the King. Had we had some land then we could have sustained ourselves by cultivating it. I think if you ask for a cultivable land from the King he will not deny you. He will certainly give. But ask for it at the right time.”
Jadumani accepted his wife’s request and promised to ask for a land from the King the next day. The couple then went to sleep that night.
The next day while he was leaving for the court, Jadumani’s wife reminded him about the land issue. Jadumani reached the court early and sat silently making a remorseful face. The King entered the court. Even then Jadumani didn’t get up to greet him.
The King immediately asked, “Jadumani, what happened? Are you not well or are you sad for any reason?”
Jadumani pressed his stomach hard and said, “my health and mind are ok but my stomach is paining due to hunger. All sorts of drama on this earth are only for this small stomach. If one’s stomach is full then only he can do something. If His Highness grants a land for me then….”
The King realized that the poet was saying the right thing. If he gets a land then he can sustain his family by cultivating the same. There will be no poverty in his family. He immediately called for the land dispersing officer and ordered him to handover a good land to Jadumani as soon as possible as a gift.
Jadumani met the officer after the meeting of the court was over. The dispersing noble thought that this man is a carpenter by profession. Merely by writing one or two lines of poetry this man is misguiding the King and now is going to get a land as gift! He will not let this happen. So he told Jadumani, “Oh, the intellectual, give me some time. I will find a very good land so that you will remember me all through your life. There are chances of being cheated in haste.” Jadumani agreed with him.
Time passed gradually, and one year was over. Jadumani didn’t get a land. One day he met the noble and queried if he is not interested to give a land. The noble thought that if Jadumani got angry then he will immediately tell everything to the King. So he instantly handed over Jadumani the papers of a land. Jadumani returned home happily. The next day when he saw the land his heart became cold. That was such a stoney land that no crop could be cultivated. It was a rocky barren land. Cultivating crops was a far cry; even a grass had not sprouted on that land inspite of heavy rains.
He went to the court. There was no happiness in his mind. He was sitting with a heavy heart. As soon as the King arrived, he asked about Jadumani’s well being. Instead of saying anything he wrote a poem and gave it to the King.
The King read the poem, which was as follows:
“Whatever his highness gave out of pleasure,
Getting it took one full year.
Selected carefully a land that is so barren,
Even coconut will break in the rainy season.
Such a land where
Even ‘Chakunda’ seeds will not show a strand.”
The King understood everything. He immediately summoned the land dispersing noble and rebuked him like anything. He also suspended the noble from his job for some days. He then gifted Jadumani a very fertile land.
Nayagarh has always remained a pretty woman for me, as I have always seen it in the night either when going to or coming back from Umerkote where I was a School Headmaster for three years in the 1980s. My younger brother-like, Arindam Dakua, once invited me in the early 2000s for inaugurating a Book Fair that he had organised when he was appointed as its Collector after it became a District, but I could not make it. I have two more young friends from there – Bibhuti Jena and Sarat Acharya. Of late, my student Ajeet Kumar Mishra joined Nayagarh College as a Lecturer in English.
Nayagarh College and my School, Utkal Hindi Vidyapith, were contemporaries. Both were established in the early 1960s. Eminent poets, Devdas Chhotaray and Haraprasad Das were lecturers there before joining the civil services. Prof. Ganeswar Mishra was also there before joining Utkal University. Poet Harihar Mishra, essayist Parikshit Nanda, and fiction writer Nimai Pattanayak also workex there.
The kings of Nayagarh were patrons of literature for centuries. Poet Laureate Upendra Bhanja was in the royal court as was Sadananda Kavisurya Brahma. It was a dream of artists in the medieval period to get an invitation from Nayagarh Royal Court to showcase their talent.
Pandit Binayak Mishra who succeeded Pandit Nilakantha Dash as a Professor in Calcutta University, was also from Nayagarh. My teacher Dr. Bijoy Kumar Nanda too belonged to Nayagarh.
I had two more personal connections with Nayagarh at one point of time. My father had three cousins. One of my aunts was from Nayagarh. Her brothers were at times visiting us at Puri. My own uncle was teasing them by saying that since they are from an underdeveloped princely state, visiting Puri for them is like visiting Bombay city!
One of my closest colleagues at Umerkote, Prafulla Kumar Sahoo, PET, was also from Nayagarh. He gave me shelter in his quarters when I joined there. At that time I was just a stranger for him.
Nayagarh is very close to my heart. But nobody has called me to visit Nayagarh for the last three decades and I don’t visit the house of a pretty woman uninvited!