Sitakant
Mahapatra : Scholar, bureaucrat and poet
By Ashok
K Choudhury
Why does
one write ? Because sometimes one feels
like saying something. This can very well
apply to litterateur Dr Sitakant
Mahapatra's own poems that span four
fruitful decades. ''Poetry for me is the
tale of this forty-year quest inadequate,
incomplete never fully satisfying, ever
generating new dimensions of experience
and the words to clothe them. Every
beginning is the realisation of new
failure, and the search for an answer to
those new questions- who am I and why I
am here- ever conscious that of what I
see, of what I experience, only a wee bit
I seem to understand, and everyday the
feeling grows that perhaps I understand
less and less'', says Sitakant Mahapatra.
He is one
of the foremost voices in the
contemporary modern Indian poetry. Prof
Heinrich van Stietencron, translator and
editor of the poet's anthology in German,
says, ''Among the significant poets of
contemporary India, Sitakant Mahapatra
deserves special attention. Known and
recognised internationally, Dr Mahapatra
is a poet who has stressed new emphases
and projected new patterns between the
limitations of western influences and
classieesoteric tradition'.
For
creativity, depth and uncompromising
dedication in the field of literature, Dr
Mahapatra was awarded 'Kabir Samman' for
the year 2000-2001. The Award has been
instituted by Madhya Pradesh government
in the field of Indian poetry. Recently
Dr Mahapatra has also been given an
international award, 'Highest Honour' of
Osaka University, Japan at a special
convocation in April 2001.
Dr
Mahapatra was the recipient of the 29th
Bharatiya Jnanpith Award (1993) for his
outstanding contribution to the
enrichment of Indian literature during
the period 1973-92. The Award citation
states that 'the poetic vision of Dr
Mahapatra is a blend of timelessness and
social consciousness. It encompasses in
itself a quest for the fine, sensitive, a
dialectics of the 'I' and 'other' and an
aesthetic presentation of mythological
content and eternal truth. Though deeply
steeped in Western literature, Sitakant's
pen has the rapturous fragrance of the
native soil. His insight into the rich
simplicity of rural and tribal life-style
acquired during his illustrious
administrative career is reflected in all
his creative works''.
Joshuna
Foundation's 'Joshua Sahitya Puraskar' is
the richest among Indian awards and is
given to poets. This award is given to
those whose works uphold values of
humanism, secularism and national
integration. Dr C Narayan Reddy, the then
Chairman of the Selection Committee of
Joshuna Award, said, ''Dr Mahapatra
bagged the award because of his rich
contribution to poetry.''
It is,
however, difficult to introduce a major
poet, who is still in his prime. Exactly
for that reason, it is even more
difficult to evaluate his poetry on terms
of his contribution to literature. These
difficulties get compounded when he
writes primarily in a regional language
like Oriya, represents a quest that is
essentially Indian and shows in his craft
a play of spirit that is contemporary and
global. Yet, it is in these difficulties
that Dr Mahapatra gives away the clue to
the understanding of his poetry. ''A
typical product of the conflict between
the forces of rejection and affirmation,
he offers a synthesis of dialectical
conflict between reason and passion'' say
Harprasad Das.
In the
Meet the Author programme arranged by
Sahitya Akademi on 18 December 1992, in
which Dr Mahapatra, in the course of his
talk, related the events in his lie and
the growth of his literary career. His
recalled the influences of Achyut,
Yasovant and Bhim Bhoi and also his
father, who initiated him into the grand
epic tradition of Indian and Oriya poetry
mirrored in books such as the Mahabharata
and the Bhagavata and Oriya classical
poetry. He wrote his first poem'' Asur
O'Swad'' (Relish of Tears) in 1973 and it
became the opening poem in his first
anthology Dipti O Dyuti.
When Dr
Mahapatra published Dipti O Dyuti (The
Glow and the Illumination), his first
anthology containing forty-seven poems,
in 1963, discerning critics immediately
noticed a new voice. In spite of their
simple structure, the poems show a high
degree of sophistication and richnes.
This volume contained almost all the
themes which were to bloom into fullness
in his later works. It contains some
well-known poems like, 'Jara Sabarara
Sangita,' 'Basra Darpanare Suryasta',
Saharare Grishmas, Saharara Itikatha, etc
very much in the tradition of Oriya
poetry with its intricate mix of
metaphysical pessimism and lyrical
intensity and at the same time profoundly
down to earth and using a language that
had the distinct flavour of the soil. In
Dipti O Dyuti, as a whole, those aspects
may be noted a picture of familiar
realistic life which fill in the details
of the structural references to
mythological situations on consciousness
which provide a perspective in the poems;
and finally as the creative imagination
coordinates these two aspects it evolves
a desire to get strength or to come to an
understanding of the vital sources of
life.
Astapadi
(Eight steps, 1967), Mahapatra's second
anthology, a collection of eight long
poems which draws heavily on Indian and
world mythology in respect of their
imagery and insights-Kubuja come from
Mathuramangala, Devaki from Bhagavata,
and Solan from the nowhere island. Here
the poet showed the structure of his
mythical imagination. The use of myth as
an integral part of the total poetic
structure is seen to its best advantage
in Astapadi Dr Mahapatra forays into the
protagonist's inner universe which is
torn apart by anguish, reveals the
diverse layers of his existential
confrontation and then affirms his faith
in a hopeful future. His tender approach
towards the protagonist develops into
exchanges between the reality's many
faces and the self's various
manifestations.
Similar
efforts had been made before, in modern
Oriya poetry, by Guruprasad Mohanty in
his Samudrasnana, consisting of
Kalapurusha and other poems. Several
passages in Astapadi bear close
resemblance, both the magic and rhythmic,
to passages in Guruprasad poems. Several
passages in Astapadi bear close
resemblance, both the magic and rhythmic,
to passages in Guruprasad poems. The
model is obviously TS Eliot. However, the
book is the first elaborate statement of
Dr Mahapatra's themes; Time, Death,
Redemption. Astapadi was hailed as giving
a new direction to Oriya poetry for its
profound use of archetype, images and
symbols, which won him the Oriya State
Sahitya Akademi Award in 1971.
Dr
Mahapatra won India's National Academy
Award, at the age of 37, in 1974 for his
third anthology, Shabdara Akash (The Sky
of Words, 1971). A Collection of
thirty-five poems, it is considered an
outstanding contribution to Oriya poetry
for its mythical framework and powerful
language. In these poems, metaphor
continues his earlier important trend of
integrating myth or the universality of
meaning which a myth provides, with the
understanding of life's complexity,
richness and profundity in a way rarely
matched in Oriya poetry today. The title
of the book is indicative of the poet's
continuing concern with words. It
explores these themes with vigour. The
poems are relatively free from the
verbosity of Astapad and are formally
better executed. The Award made a mention
of the competent use of myth in a modern
context and the immense flavour of folk
idioms.
With
Astapadi and Shabdara Akash, Dr Mahapatra
showed his innovative mode of handling
myth and irony. And the poem began to
unravel a journey within the self, that
is confronted with existential problems
as well as with the problems of creation.
He revitalised his quest for an idiom
that could meaningful minimise the gap
between experience and expression. And
his quest for silence is the
manifestation of his pursuit of
perfection and truth in poetry.
In Samudra
(The Sea, 1977), an anthology of
forty-four poems, where the sea provides
the main motive force, are together in
the form of an extended metaphor. These
poems deal with isolation, suffering and
agony, where the traditional sources of
life fall and where the sea symbolises
destruction the instrument of final
deluge. Differently, the sea is also seen
as the primary source of life, the
repository of all knowledge and generates
a cycle of fertility and fruitfulness. It
is a whole new theory of human destiny,
new in the sense that it breaks through
the classical romantic facade of fatalism
and weaves a brand new tapestry of
durable material for daily use.
The next
anthology Chitranadi (The Painted River,
1979) continues the intensity and
sharpness of Samudra, the hope of man's
redemption is more pronounced. But the
archetypal Universality of the sea has
been replaced by a contemplation of life
in general. However, in Samudra and
Chitranadi, Dr Mahapatra made his
narrative symbolic, and hence his poetry
became more inward looking, compendious,
and of linguistic precision. His poetry
became a happy blend of tradition,
continuity and change. Rooted in the
earth, his poetic vision expands beyond
the horizon to identify the innermost
mysteries existing between the human
world and the natural world-the one
reciprocates in making the other
meaningful.
Dr
Mahapatra returns to his old hunting
ground of mythical constructs, but as a
changed person in Aaradrushya (The other
view, 1981). The title poem refers to the
vision seen by Yasoda in Krishna's mouth,
as a vehicle for conveying the idea that
love for the earth carries with it the
penalty of burying the great vision of
life in death. Aaradrushva won Sitakant
the Sarala Award in 1985.
His tenth
anthology published in 1991 entitled
Pheri Asibara Bela (The Time of Return)
was followed by Shreshtha Kavita
(Selected Poems), a comprehensive
selection from all the ten anthologies,
published in 1992. Varsha Sakal (A Rainy
Morning, 1993) is considered a unique
phenomenon, not because of the novelty of
the utterance, but of the continuity of
the quest. It is the journey, not of a
poet merely, but of an entire aesthetic
mode of search of the final repose of
art, if that would ever be found. Dr
Mahapatraha till now published thirteen
anthologies, the latest being Kapatapasa
(The Deceitful Game of Dice), a
collection of fifty-three poems. He owes
the first poem to the great blind Kondh
poet of Orissa, Bhima Bhoi.
Dr
Mahapatra's poetic journey began with the
innocence of rusticity and childhood. In
his recent poems one realises a new
beginning, a new dawn heralded by the
indisputable flux of time. The numerous
themes on which he writes are enriched by
intensity and authenticity of experience.
He had his initiation into poetry writing
through an inspiration he had got from
English and American poetry with his
associated trends and turning points. It
is perhaps that inspiration which has
made his what he is, a maker of poetry.
He has tried his best to express in Oriya
what he has gathered from remote pastures
and garden.
Well-versed
in the traditions of modern poetry in the
west, Dr Mahapatra had equally deep
perception of the Oriya poetic tradition.
He has a rich and varied experience of
life and poetry. Sarala Das, the first
important name is Oriya literatuer and
writer of Oriya Mahabharata; Jagannath
Das, the poet of Oriya Bhagabata, have
been the most profound influence on him,
according to his own statement. The
cultural and physical landscape of his
state came out clear in his poetry and
the give it a quality of intensity with
their life rhythms.
Dr
Mahapatra bridges two major gaps in the
chronology of poetic utterance. He links
Oriya poetry with the grand tradition
and, having done that he lays anchor in
the safety of his contemporary haven, and
in the process brings the contemporary
close to the modern. The metaphysical
lyrics of the latest phase of his work
symbolise his bridging of distances that
existed so long. In making his poetic
utterances, as the Swedish commentator
Olls Malmagren says, ''a confluence of
the Sanskrit religious-mythical
tradition, the European lyrical modernism
and the folk poetry of his home province
Orissa's sun-drenched villages', Dr
Mahapatra gives an entirely new ethos and
meaning to modern Indian poetry, and a
poetic culture that mixes sublimity and
concreteness in equal measure.''
Dr
Mahapatra is one of the few Indian poets
to be translated into most European
languages like English, German, Swedish,
Danish, Romanian, Spanish, Macedonian and
in one non-European language, Hebrew. In
English translation, there are nine
anthologies. The translations have been
noticed for their rich imagery, the
powerful use of folk idiom and a vivid,
rugged language that stands for its
vitality even under the inevitable
limitation of translation. The
translations speak of the recognition
that his poems have received in the
European world.
His poems
have also been translated into all major
Indian languages: Hindi (ten), Bengali
(four), Urdu (two), Malayalam (four),
Punjabi (three) and one each in Marathi,
Maithili, and Dogri. As a good example of
excellent translation of poetry from one
language to another, the translation of
Shabdar Akash into Dogri. (Akkhar Gaas,
by Padma Sachdev) won him the prestigious
Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize in
1999. The literary merit of the poem is
effectively retained in the translation.
Hence this work is considered an
invaluable addition to Indian poetry in
Dogri translation.
Besides
being one of India's most important
poets. Dr Mahapatra is also one of the
country's celebrated social
anthropologists with particular interest
in the rich culture of its tribal
population. Today he is looked upon as
the foremost interpreter of the oral
poetry of Indian tribes, of which he has
translated and edited ten anthologies of
the Mundas, the Oraons, the Santhals, the
Kondhs and the Parajas. His translations
of the oral verse of the tribes give us
intimate visual and aural pictures of
these people in many of his poems. Dr
Mahapatra has also translated Srikant
Verma's anthology of poems Magadh (1970),
and Surya Trushana (1982), an anthology
of modern Macedonian poetry into Oriya.
As an
eminent anthropologist Utkal University
awarded, Dr Mahapatra a Ph.D for his
doctoral dessertation, Modernisation and
Ritual: Search for Identity Among the
Primitive Communities of India, which has
since been published by Oxford University
Press.
As an
essayist, Dr Mahapatra has published four
collections of essays in literature and
culture in Oriya and several anthologies
of such essays in English. These writings
won him the Orissa Sahitya Akademi Award
again in 1984. Aneka Sharat (Many
Autumns, 1981) is a travelogue of Dr
Mahapatra of his travels in East European
countries during the last three decades.
For Sahitya Akademi, Dr Mahapatra has
written two monographs on Bhima Bhoi and
Jagannath Das for its Makers of Indian
Literature series. This series consists
of monographs on outstanding Indian
writers who have made a significant
contribution to the development of
literature in the Indian languages and
are primarily intended for readers who
have no direct access to the work of the
writer concerned.
As a
distinguished scholar and poet, Dr
Mahapatra has delivered lectures at
national and international seminars. He
was invited to deliver the Keynote
Address in the Lester Peason Centre for
Development Studies in the University of
Dalhousie, Canada, in 1985, chaired a
session in the 10th World Congress of
Anthropological and Ethnological Science
in 1978; delivered the 10th Samvatsar
Lecture, the annual lecture of
Anthropological and Ethnological Science
in 1978, delivered the 10th Samvatsar
Lecture, the annual lecture of the
Sahitya Akademi, which is given by a
distinguished writer and creative
thinker, who has a thorough understanding
of Indian literature in 1995. Dr
Mahapatra was born on 17th Sept. 1937 in
Mahanga village of district Cuttack,
Orissa. The village is perched on the
bank of the river Chitropala, a branch of
the turbulent Mahanadi. The river recurs
as a persistent reality in the poetry of
Dr Mahapatra. He had a brilliant academic
career, always standing first. After
matriculation from a local high school
and graduating from Ravenshaw College,
Cuttack, in 1957 in History Honours, he
did his MA in political science from the
University of Allahabad in 1959. He
started his career as lecturer in
Ravenshaw College and left teaching in
1961 to join the Indian Administrative
Service, having topped the list of
successful candidates. He has held
several responsible positions both in the
State and Central governments before
retiring as Secretary, Culture
Department.
He has
been a fellow in the University of
Cambridge (1868-69) as a Colombo Plan
Fellow and in the University of Harvard
as a Senior Fellow (1987-88). During
1975-77 he pursued his research work as a
Homi Bhabha Fellow studying the
modernisation process of the tribal
societies in Eastern India. He is doing
research now as a senior Fellow.
Dr
Mahapatra was associated wih the Sahitya
Akademi as a member of its executive
board, and the Bharatiya Jnanpith as a
member of its Central Selection
Committee. He was President, UNESCO's
World Decade for Cultural Development
(1994-96), and Honorary Fellow,
International Academy of Poets,
Cambridge. Presently, he is Chairman,
National Book Trust, India.
The long
list of awards received by Dr Mahapatra
should suffice to speak about his writing
excellence. He combines in him a
brilliant academician, a competent civil
servant, and a poet of rare talent in
providing powerful leadership to
post-Independence new poetry movement in
Oriya. His excellence lies in extending
the horizon of modern Indian poetry by
the powerful use of tradition, which
blends with the complexity of the modern
mind.- CNF
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