Gopinath Mohanty started writing much before India gained independence and his works were considered brilliant by many even in the 1940s.
Before I delve into Oblivion and Other Stories, it is important to write a few lines about Gopinath Mohanty, the king of Oriya literature. It’s a pity that some of India’s finest writers hardly shook the literary world because they never wrote in English or Hindi, considered mainstream in India. But these writers were brilliant and very prominent within their communities. Mohanty started writing much before India gained independence and his works were considered brilliant by many even in the 1940s. He was the recipient of the first Sahitya Akademi award.
And now that his works are being translated into English and other regional languages, many are getting to know about his earthy novels which flow with the serenity of rural Indian homes, or like the nobility of a big river. Many of his works revolve around poor boys growing up in nondescript rural India or women facing insurmountable challenges emerging from the rawness of life.
His characters are genuine. They, actually, concern us all and are timeless. These are hidden stories of India, from the hinterland where sounds of conch shells and the chorus of crickets herald the arrival of fireflies in the fields and stars in the sky. Mohanty’s stories are human documents of problems that both individuals and families wrestle with—poverty, love, pain and violence. His writings portray unique characters.
Mohanty wrote “Da”, his first short story sometime between 1935 and 1936. It’s an emotional one about a regressive social custom of the time. The protagonist is an octogenarian woman in an Indian village busy with her many household chores and, occasionally, checks up on the whole gossip of the hinterland. Does that make her popular? To some, not too many. So, the majority make her life miserable because of her past and pushes her out of the village. Da—tired and humiliated—walks into the river next door. She does not return. Am I seeing shades of the old Indira Thakurun of Pather Panchali?
And then I shifted to “Oblivion”—it was originally titled Bismriti and written six years before India attained independence—where a calm-faced Sibaram Salura leaves the comfort of his village in a goods carrier for a new job in Vijaynagaram (Vizianagaram now). He remembers his life, everything from the moonlit nights to the temple bells. He remembers, as the author writes: “The Paraja girl with the rose tucked into his hair, the harmonium-playing Mina, his girlfriend far away, his future wife, who sings so mellifluously.” Sibaram remembers the first and only kiss he planted on Mina. Lovely lines—I mean the translation by Sudeshna and Sudhansu Mohanty.
So, what happens next? An accident as the truck crashes off the road. “Teardrops mingle with his blood, the shadow of death flits across his eyes. And then something primal—oblivion! Beyond and over to a world of yonder.” Did the world change because Sibaram died, no says the author very interestingly. Read the lines: “Sibaram left the world. His name was lost. Nothing unusual in this vast world where so many people are born and so many people die. Sibaram died, the moon didn’t get less lustrous, the flowers didn’t wilt faster to droop and die, the purling of the jungle stream did not stop, the full-throttled giggles of the Paraja girls didn’t come to an end.”
And then the author turns emotional when he writes: “Only his father aged—seemingly by twenty years.” Losing a son heading for success and happiness is not easy. Or knowing the son has fallen very sick. I remember Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhyay’s “Dui Bari”, and the young lawyer Madhu down with typhoid even before he could see the girl, Manju, he loved. By the time he reached his village, Manju was already engaged to the local judge. Sorry, if I appear to be drawing too many parallels, but I am not. Mohanty stands out brilliantly and has a unique style of his own.
Oblivion, as the book says, revolves around the innocence of Sibaram—he is also the Noble Savage—in the back of beyond the tribal district of Koraput. The oblivion that sets in the end lends the story its equilibrium.
In the same year, Mohanty wrote “The Paper Boat”, which is a macabre story revolving around the lives of two young boys from the Reli community of Doms. They operate under the cover of darkness, looking for corpses floating in the river. Actually, they are looking for gold ornaments on the dead body but their efforts fail because the body has no yellow metal. But it does not help because the body has none. Ella and Singamu are like two shadows walking beside the embankment. Writes the author: “Involuntarily, there surges from within them a desire to do something daring and audacious, to vindicate the boundless frustrations of their lives by engaging in this sepulchral hunt.”
I got interested in “Cricket”, another story from Mohanty, for obvious reasons. He penned it in 1982, the year of the Asian Games and a year before India won the World Cup under Kapil Dev. Well, it is about a cricket match to be played in Cuttack’s Barabati stadium between India and England. A frail Kamaladevi is at home where her family members are supercharged about the match. Some members of the family have gone to watch the match. She has stayed back to listen to a running commentary from the family radio.
And then, the match starts. The visitors are playing exceedingly well, the hosts are crumbling. But Kamaladevi is deep in prayers, she has faith in the Gods. Eventually, the clouds start looming over the cricket ground and many feel India’s chances of winning are really less. And then, almost suddenly, the hosts win the day. It is almost a miracle, claim the commentators. Kamaladevi says it is the power of the family deity, Ma Budhi Mangala. She is firm on her belief. Today, cricket is indeed a religion in India.
Mohanty touches the human chords with his works. “Endless” is about a child whose disappointment borders on the poignant. The kid is young, innocent and wants to grow. Yet, there is crushing poverty that threatens to kill his innocence and hope every now and then. On the day of the Rathyatra, everyone is dressed beautifully, except Banu, the central character of the story. And then, he weeps and turns his face away from the crowds. Poverty is a curse, probably the Gods made him realise.
I am reminded of an interesting poem that is almost folklore in Odisha:
Poth bole ami ishwar,
Rath bole ami,
Murti bole ami ishwar,
Hashey Antaryami
It translates as the road says I am the Lord, the chariot says it’s me, the idol says I am the Lord, smiles the one who remains unseen and almighty.
A lovely read, some credit must go to Penguin’s editor Saloni Mital who pushed for this tome.