The Portrayal of Odisha: Historical Realism in Selected Poems of Jayant Mahapatra
https://doi.org /10.5281/zen od o.14974158
Author(s): Abhisek Mekap
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14974158
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The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 16, Issue-I, February 2025 ISSN: 0976-8165
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https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
The Portrayal of Odisha: Historical Realism in Selected Poems of Jayant
Mahapatra
Abhisek Mekap
Research Scholar,
Ravenshaw University.
Article History: Submitted‐01/02/2025, Revised‐05/02/2025, Accepted‐23/02/2025, Published‐28/02/2025.
Abstract:
Jayant Mahapatra is a renowned literary figure from Odisha, not only nationally but
also on the world map. The first poet to receive the Central Sahitya Akademi award was not a
poet like Wordsworth, who only immersed himself in nature; instead, his poetry is quite often
an outburst of agony that is caused by the problems in society. Mahapatra sets some of his
poems in the natural setting of Odisha, like Puri, Dhauli, and Chandipur, to name a few, and
portrays realities of society and societal problems with great enthusiasm and vigor. In this paper
I would like to bring out historical realism in the poems of Jayant Mahapatra by doing a close
reading of his poems and drawing from the theories and concepts on social and historical
realism.
Keywords: Social Realism, Odisha, poems, historical realism.
Introduction
Jayant Mahapatra was born on 22 October 1928 in Cuttack. He started writing at a much later
stage of life. He started writing poetry in his early 40s. He started publishing in 1971. The name
of his first collection of poems is Svayamvara and Other Poems (1971), followed by other
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collections like Close the Sky Ten by Ten (1971), A Father’s Hours (1976), A Rain of Rites
(1976), Waiting (1979), Life Signs (1983), A Whiteness of Bone (1992), Shadow Space (1997),
Bare Face (2000), and Random Descent, among others. The lengthy poem “Relationship,” for
which Mahapatra received the Sahitya Akademi prize in 1981, is among his best-known
compositions. He is the first poet of Indian and English descent to be honoured. Mahapatra was
one of the three poets who established the groundwork for contemporary Indian English poetry
in addition to being one of the most well-known Indian poets of his generation.
His love and dedication for Odisha is obvious from his speech at his Award-receiving speech
at the Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi:
“To Orissa, to this land in which my roots lie and lies my past and in which lies my beginning
and my end where the wind knees over the grief of the River Daya and the waves of the Bay
of Bengal fail to reach out to day to the firelight soul of Konark, I acknowledge my debt and
my relationship”
His poems are often in the form of social protest against the evils present and happening in
society. Most of his poems are set in Odishan context but talk of universal themes. His poems
often highlight the pessimistic portrayal of harsh realities. In his poem “Grandfather,” which is
highly personal, he gives allusion to one of the darkest chapters of Odishan history, the Great
Odisha Famine of 1866. In which he gives the account of his grandfather’s conversion to
Christianity from Hinduism out of starvation during the famine. Similarly, in “Dhauli,” he
gives an insinuation of another historical event of the Bloody Kalinga War of 261 B.C., the
event marked by blood and destruction. A critic remarks, “Orissa is the pivot around which the
poetry of Mahapatra revolves” (Tiwari 119). Mahapatra does not only dwell in the past but also
pens down the social realities of his times. In the poem “Hunger,” the maestro highlights how
poverty and hunger compel a father to offer his daughter to the narrator to satisfy his hunger of
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lust so that they can satisfy their real hunger of food and survive by earning some money. In
Mahapatra’s poetry, Puri, the centre of Odishan religious faith, resides very often. The picture
is not always a beautiful depiction of the seashore or the temple, rather a somber presentation
of death and poverty. In “Dawn at Puri,” Mahapatra opens the poem with:
Endless crow noises
A skull in the holy sands
tilts its empty country towards hunger. (Mohapatra, lines 1-3)
The renowned poet portrays the harsh truths of life, particularly regarding social injustices,
economic struggles, and class disparities. Although Jayant Mahapatra is most recognized for
his investigations into the intimate and the metaphysical, he also explores historical contexts,
rural life, and social realism. This paper seeks to examine these topics, especially historical
realism in his poems.
Social Realism in the Poetry of Mahapatra
Social realism is a movement in art that seeks to highlight the actual socio-political
circumstances of the working class and to critique the power dynamics that underpin these
realities. It frequently employs a style of realism that is both descriptive and critical. One
academic who has analyzed social realism is David Forrest in his work Social Realism: Art,
Nationhood, and Politics. Forrest suggests that social realism is defined by its emphasis on the
daily challenges faced by everyday individuals and its goal of motivating social change by
showcasing social injustices.
Jayant Mahapatra is a poem of social rebellion. His Poetry is neither a description nor a
beautified imitation of reality, rather it presents a portrayal of social problems especially the
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problems of the oppressed and marginalised including women. In his very famous poem
“Hunger,” he writes:
I heard him say: My daughter, she’s just turned fifteen…
Feel her. I’ll be back soon, your bus leaves at nine.
The sky fell on me, and a father’s exhausted wile.
Long and lean, her years were cold as rubber.
She opened her wormy legs wide. I felt the hunger there, (Mohapatra, lines 16-20)
Which shows the poverty and dehumanising effects on women by patriarchal society.
Other poems of Mahapatra which are set in Puri and depict the poverty of Odisha, the poet in
a way never talks of the bright side in his poems about Puri, the religious epicenter of Odisha
and Hindus. Social realism is prevalent in his poem “Deaths in Orissa,” which depicts the death
of a man in a rural agrarian family. Many may not mark this as a poem that talks of farmer
suicide. The following lines may be textual or referential evidence to my claim:
Nothing but the paddy’s twisted throat
exposed on the crippled bleak earth,
nothing but impotence in lowered eyes,(Mohapatra, lines 6-8)
Not only Odisha but also India faces the problem of farmers’ suicide; it might have been the
case that Bhagybati’s husband or father has committed suicide; that is why “cries of shriveled
women” are heard near the “altar of a man.”
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Historical Realism in Mahapatra’s Poetry
The literary and creative approach known as historical realism seeks to portray historical
events, social situations, and personalities in a way that is truthful, realistic, and representative
of the period being portrayed. It highlights how crucial it is to accurately depict the historical
social, cultural, and political situations rather than romanticizing or idealizing them. In
Mahapatra’s poetry we do not only find historical realism, but we find it from different
timelines. One notable scholar who has written extensively about historical realism is Michael
C. Williams. According to his work in The Oxford Handbook of History and International
Relations, historical realism is often seen as a form of historical fatalism, but it is much richer
and more diverse. Williams argues that realism takes history as a resource for understanding
the complex historical trajectories that shape contemporary politics. The poems under
discussion in this section are “Dhauli,” “Grandfather,” and “The Abandoned British Cemetery
at Balasore.”. These three poems depict three different temporal settings and are in
chronological order, respectively.
“Dhauli” or the hill Dhauligiri is a place on the bank of the River Daya near Bhubaneswar. It
is the place where the bloody Kalinga War happened in 261 BCE, claiming the lives of lakhs
of people. Historical narrative suggests that the entire river turned red due to the bloody war.
K. C. Panigrahi in his book History of Orissa mentions:
The details of the Kalinga War are not known to us. Asoka has made in his Rock Edicts a brief
reference to its results from which the details of the operations cannot be gleaned. He states
that the Kalinga War resulted in one hundred thousand people killed, one hundred and fifty
thousand carried away as captives, and many more died of starvation and disease that followed
in the wake of the terrible war. This account presents an overall picture of the great devastations
caused by the Kalinga War. The figures given by Asoka about the number of the slain and the
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captives indicate that the Kalingan army was a vast one and that the country had a large
population. (11-12)
Mahapatra in his poem “Dhauli” is nostalgic about the event, and he mentions:
Afterwards when the wars of Kalinga were over,
the fallow fields of Dhauli
hid the blood-spilt butchered bodies. [originally ‘red-smeared voiceless bodies’]
(Mohapatra, lines 1-3)
He also mentions the River Daya and the rock edicts of Ashoka, which stand as testimony to
the historical event, and highlights the suffering of both the victor and the defeated in his
concluding lines:
The measure of Ashoka’s suffering
does not appear enough.
The place of his pain appears lamentably
from among the pains of the dead. (Mohapatra, lines 12-15)
It is believed that witnessing the sorrowful death and devastation of the war, Ashoka changes:
“Chandashoka became Dharmashoka” (Panigrahi 13). This poem, by giving allusion to the
Daya River, rock edicts, and Ashoka, does not only talk of the historical event but also
highlights the devastating effect of the war.
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“Grandfather” is a lyric and can be categorized into autobiographical poems. The poem is set
against the backdrop of the Great Odisha Famine of 1866, or the Na’ Anka Durvikhya. The
poet narrates Mahapatra’s grandfather Chintamani Mahapatra’s plight during the famine and
his conversion to Christianity just to survive and get some food. The Great Odisha Famine is
the most cataclysmic famine that has ever hit Odisha. The horrible picture of this famine has
been described by the historian, Pyarimohan Acharya, who was an eyewitness to its havoc, in
the following words:
One feels stunned when he remembers the shocking events that took place at that time. It is
quite impossible to give a faithful picture of the horrors of the famine that came accompanied
by death itself. The towns were filled with the sorrowful shrieks of thousands of men, women
and children who had been reduced to mere skeletons. The crematory grounds near the towns
and villages were full of innumerable dead bodies and upon them the vultures and jackals
feasted to their hearts’ content. Men and women forsook their natural instincts owing to the
unbearable pangs of hunger. Parents cast away their starving children before wild animals to
be devoured by them. Some even ate the dead bodies of their own children like demons. Social
evils such as murder, suicide, etc., became a very common thing at the time. Some people tried
to live upon wild and inedible materials. (155)
This event in the history of Odisha changed its course of development. Due to the failure of the
colonial government’s policy, the natural calamity and crop failure turned into famine; this
event added a derogatory word in the Odia dictionary called Chhatarkhias. Whose literal
meaning is people who ate from shelter, it was used for people who ate in relief shelters; they
were disregarded by the society and became outcasts.
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The poem is autobiographical because the poet finds the inspiration to write this poem from
“yellowed diary’s notes” of his grandfather as mentioned in the opening lines of the poem. The
poem highlights the theme of starvation and death:
Did you hear the young tamarind leaves rustle
in the cold mean nights of your belly? Did you see
your own death? Watch it tear at your cries,
break them into fits of unnatural laughter? (Mohapatra, lines 13-16)
It also questions religion and faith. Mahapatra questions the essence like religion during
adversities which questions existence. During the famine, people were dying like insects out
of hunger and diseases. So questioning faith and belief, Mahapatra writes:
The imperishable that swung your broken body,
turned it inside out? What did faith matter?
What Hindu world so ancient and true for you to hold?
Uneasily, you dreamed toward the center of your web. (Mohapatra, lines 21-24)
The poem highlights the devastating famine and quest for existence, the dilemma between to
hold your faith and die or accept a new one and live. “We wish we knew what it was to be
against dying, to know dignity.” In this poem, Mahapatra ends with a couplet, “We wish we
had not to wake up with our smiles, in the middle of some social order,” which is indicative of
the dual identity of a convert. Residing in Odisha, a predominantly Hindu culture, and being a
convert, he dwells between two identities of a Hindu and Christian and a complex identity of
an Odia Christian. As rightly Dr. Jaydeep Sarangi writes:
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Jayanta Mahapatra is a Christian, living in a Hindu society—a society that pays maximum
homage to Lord Jagannatha, the presiding deity of Orissa. Jayanta Mahapatra’s grandfather
accepted Christianity out of the compelling forces of famine and poverty. There is always a
sense of insecurity and alienation in his poetry. He perpetuates his quest for identity, and he is
keen on the assertion of his self-emanating from a veritable part of his holy land and its rich
socio-religious traditions. (qtd. in Dhara 91-92)
“The Abandoned British Cemetery at Balasore” In this poem, through the perspective of an
abandoned graveyard in Balasore, the poem examines the lingering effects of British
colonization in India. Mahapatra depicts the dilapidated tombstones and abandoned graves in
striking detail, signifying the waning influence of the British Empire. The poem explores
history, memory, and time passing, emphasizing the sharp contrast between the opulence of
the past and the inattention of the present. The poem opens with, “This is history.” So the poet
makes clear that the poem is historical in nature. In the cemetery, the narrator comes across
many tombs that are of the colonial era and carry the colonizer’s British name. The stanza that
highlights above reads:
In the circle the epitaphs run: Florence R–, darling wife
of Captain R– R–, aged nineteen, of cholera . . . .
Helen, beloved daughter of Mr and Mrs J. S. White, of cholera,
aged seventeen, in the year of our Lord, eighteen hundred …. (Mohapatra, lines 16-20)
The poem also highlights the impermanence of power; the empire that once ruled is now is in
ruins, there is no one to take care of the cemetery, and like the title goes, it is “abandoned.”
The narrator asks in this regard:
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Of what concern to me is some vanished Empire?
Or the conquest of my ancestors’ timeless ennui?
It is the dying young who have the power to show
what the heart will hide, the grass shows no more. (Mohapatra, lines 21-24)
This poem gives allusions not only to British colonialism but also to the then-societal
conditions; most of the epitaphs read “cholera,” which means this was the disease prevalent in
colonial India, and the health/medical sector was not so developed hence people died out of
diseases that are not that dangerous in the 21st century.
In two of the above-mentioned poems, one thing is common: the importance of place. Dhauli
near Bhubaneswar and Balasore are real places in Odisha’s geography. But when one meditates
in those places, they themselves tell their story, their history, which has rich cultural and
historical significance. While the cemetery is a place where the poet is mourning the dead
Britishers, it also highlights the colonial past of Odisha; Dhauli, a beautiful, exquisite spot,
reminds of a bloody war and a conquest that is written in the history forever due to both
violence and the turnover to peace from violence after the war, which is substantiated by the
rock edicts present there and at some other places.
Conclusion
Mahapatra is a poet of Odisha. He uses the English language to express his Odia identity. The
concerns of Mahapatra are not the bright colours of the society; rather, he paints the harsh
realities of society in the canvas of a poem. He can be compared to William Blake of England,
who, through his poetry, highlighted the corruption and social evils of his time. Mahapatra’s
poetry is primarily set in Odisha and tells tales from and about Odisha. In the above-mentioned
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poems, one finds how subtly Mahapatra presents historical events in his poems by presenting
them with the help of allusions. These poems portray the Odishan landscape of different times
and help us in understanding how places are not just simply places; they are repositories of
historical and cultural tradition. The poetry of Mahapatra is set in Odisha but is a mouthpiece
of universal themes that can be expressed as shared experiences of humankind across time and
place.
Works Cited:
Acharya, Pyari Mohan. Odishara Itihasa. 2nd ed., Utkal Sahitya Press, 1879.
Dhara, Chandra Shekhar. “The Quest for Self in Oriya Soil: A Study of Jayanta Mahapatra’s
Poetry.” Journal of English Language and Literature (JOELL), vol. 6, no. 2, 2019.
Forrest, David. Social Realism: Art, Nationhood and Politics. Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, 2013.
King, B. Modern Indian Poetry in English. Oxford University Press, 1990
Mahapatra, Jayanta. Close the Sky, Ten by Ten. Dialogue Publications, 1971.
— Svayamvara and Other Poems. Writers Workshop, 1971.
— A Father’s Hours. United Writers, 1976.
—Selected Poems. Oxford University Press, 1987
Naik, M. K. A History of Indian English Literature. Sahitya Akademi, 1984.
Panigrahi, Krishna Chandra. History of Orissa. Kitab Mahal, 1981.
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Tiwari, Rani. “A Glimpse of Jayanta Mahapatra’s Poetic World.” The International Journal
of Advanced Research in Multidisciplinary Sciences (IJARMS), vol. 3, no. 2, July
2020.
Williams, Michael C., editor. The Oxford Handbook of History and International Relations.
Oxford University Press, 2017
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