Much More Than A Name

An administrative servant of India who spent most of his time serving tribals, a professor, winner of Jnanpith Award, eminent novelist, Sahitya Akademi Award winner and the most prolific Oriya-writer of the last century was born today in 1914.

A humble frame of Gopinath Mohanty; Source: Edubilla

Putting the different facets of India and Indian experiences into the mainstream Indian literary scenario has always been a challenging task. Considering the diversity of India, the accounts from North East, South, tribal lives have often been ignored. It was Gopinath Mohanty who took up this mammoth task of upholding and foregrounding such cases, which often go unnoticed (You can always blame the popular representation done by the media).

A prolific writer who put Orissa into the world literary map, Gopinath Mohanty was born today in 1914, in Cuttack’s Nagabali. He was not only an avid writer but also performed brilliantly in his academics, from having an M.A. in Literature to joining the Orissa Administrative Services in 1938 and going all the way to becoming a professor at San Jose State University in the United States. As a reader, one can never get enough of his works as they mind-numbingly dealt with various issues, like the exploitation of the tribal society or the humble life in Orissa’s coastal shores. Readers and non-readers alike will only get surprised at the sheer diversity of Mohanty’s writing.

Considered to be one of the greatest after Fakir Mohan Senapati, Mohanty’s writing showed a rising of consciousness in the post-independence era. Winner of the Jnanpith Award(1974) for Matimatala and the first-ever Sahitya Akademi Award for his debut novel Amrutara Santana, Mohanty has had an illustrious career. A humble writer, he has often been compared to the Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe.

His fictional works and even other writings were primarily about the tribal societies in Orissa’s Koraput District. He closely worked with the Kondh and Paraja tribe, documenting their lives extensively. The Padmabhusan (1981) conferred upon him in 1981 only goes to show the impact he had over the masses.

The writer and the scholar are not only limited to his fictional world. Take for instance Mohanty’s many translations, from Tagore’s Jogajog to going all the way to Tolstoy’s War and Peace. He had even worked profusely on the Oriya Mahabharata by Sarala Dasa. His travelogues which provide fascinating perspectives of the many landscapes of Orissa are also a favorite even among today’s readers. Mohanty was such an inspiring writer that his works got translated into different languages, both inside and outside India. His novels Paraja, Dadi Budha, Laya Bilaya, and Dana Pani have ever since served as an engaging point for discussion till today.

His personal life has never been a topic for contemplation or debate as he devoted the majority of his life to his literary as well as non-literary endeavors. On the private front, he married Adarmani Devi. The writer was also awarded D.Litt from Sambalpur University and a Soviet Land Nehru Award for his translation of Gorky. Going on to live for 77 years, the author passed away on 20th August 1991 in San Jose, California. His loss was and still is deeply mourned by admirers of his works all over the world.