Last Day in Satyabadi

 

(In the office)

I wanted a transfer from Satyabadi (or Sakhigopal); I was there for more than four years, but it pained me when I left the place.

I had rented a house on the road side, around hundred metres from the temple. Satyabadi did not have piped water supply; we drew water from a well for use, to bathe or cook and drink.  The water did not suit us; it got contaminated in the rainy season. We had bouts of diarrhoea, fever, dysentery. Once, my wife, son and daughter all had typhoid at the same time. It was a horrible time.

Satyabadi was rather a village with some government offices like police station, Block or a dispensary. Satyabadi is important for the Sakhigopinath temple, and for its history; Utkalmani Gopabndhu had set up an ideal school, later called, Bana Bidyalaya (Forest School) and started the newspaper Samaj from here. There were a few shops, but people depended on Bhubaneswar for shopping. The officers posted in Satyabadi either commuted daily from Bhubaneswar or from Puri. 

During my stint in Satyabadi treasury I had befriended many, mostly the pensioners, those above 58 (the retirement age at that time was 58). I used to joke, to be my friend one should have qualifying age of 58. Many pensioners often came to me just for chatting and I enjoyed listening to their experiences, stories about their childhood or service life. Whenever there was a marriage or sacred thread ceremony (the dominant caste in Satyabadi region is Brahmin, they celebrate sacred thread ceremony of their sons) I got special invitation and I attended. Satyabadi, being a small town or a big village, with few offices, the treasury officer was a VIP. I attended sometimes as chief guest in the annual or sports functions of schools or clubs.

            (Family picnic with friends in Nandankanan; standing Bijay, Natabar, Me and Somesh)

The treasury did not have much work; it had only twelve drawing officers, those who drew salary or other claims from the treasury, and nearly three hundred pensioners. After first week, I had on an average fifteen minutes’ work a day. The place, in fact, did not justify a treasury. Puri had the district treasury and Pipli had one treasury also; both the places are twenty kilometres from each side of Satyabadi.

At the time of setting up the treasury, the government made a principle a place having a tehsil office would have a treasury. Satyabadi did not have a tehsil. But then, Gangadhar Mohapatra was the Minister, Finance and Madhusudan Misra (popularly known as Madhu Misra in the region) was the Director, Treasuries; and both belonged to Satyabadi. They took an exception and set up the treasury at Satyabdi on the ground of historical importance of the place. Madhu Misra sometimes came to sell their coconuts to the RMC (Regional Market Committee) and dropped in the treasury for chitchatting over a cup of tea. He told me the behind story of the treasury.

I had enough time for reading and writing. I would start a novel of two hundred to two hundred fifty pages in the morning and finish by the time I went to sleep. The stories compiled in my first two books I had written during my stay in Satyabadi.

And then my transfer order came.

My wife desired to have a darshan of Lord Jagannath before we left Satyabadi. I also wanted to have a curtsey call to the district treasury officer. After darshan of the Lord, I went to the district treasury office. I chanced upon L.N.Misra, the sub collector in the treasury office. L.N.Misra belonged to a village near Satyabadi; he was daily commuting to Puri. He said me, “You are here! The pensioners are organizing a farewell feast for you in Satyabadi.”

I said, “I shall reach in time, they are organizing lunch.”

L.N.Misra said, “In the morning I saw my father was plucking flowers. I asked, what will you with so many flowers?  He replied the treasury officer is leaving us today on transfer. I shall string a garland for him.”

His father was taking pension from our treasury.

The pensioners were unhappy with my transfer. Some of them told me they would approach the MLA and demand for cancellation of my transfer. I dissuaded them. I told I had already completed four years. How long should I stay in one place? I wanted the transfer. They desisted from meeting the MLA.

They had arranged mahaprasad of Lord Jagannath for the lunch. We had a group photograph, on their insistence I put on the garland round my neck in the photograph. They had also invited a few reporters. After we had the lunch I took leave of them.

(The photograph with a few pensioners and staff of the treasury. Srichandan Misra who took over charge from me sitting at my left. I am sitting in the middle.)

A few newspapers had published the news of my transfer under the caption; “Transfer of Satyabadi Treasury Officer.” There was some praise for me in the news. After I joined intelligence wing, one/two officers said, “We had curiosity to see you, that treasury officer, whose transfer becomes news in the newspapers.”

***

 

A Few Scenes and Some Characters

 

(A Few Scenes and Some Characters)

My professor in Kurukshetra University where I was doing M. Phil. in 1983-04, one day asked me, “Why don’t you go for writing?”

He was Prof. V.N. Dutta. Penguin Random House has recently published his book Jallianwala Bagh (with his interview and an introduction by Nonica Dutta). The book is in the best selling list in the category of non-fiction.

I replied, “Sir, I don’t have command over language.”

Prof. Dutta suggested writing in English in the journals and newspapers. He said, “That’s a bogus idea. You need three things to write. First, you see if you have something to say and second, you have clarity and conviction of what you want to say. Third, you need courage. Language will automatically come, language is never a barrier.”

I feel I have something to say. (I cannot claim I have courage.) I have been writing stories and novels. (Courage deficit and conduct rules for a government servant prevent me from writing all that I want to.) Readers have appreciated and have inspired me to continue. I have published so far thirteen story collections, seven novels in Odia, and one novel in English. Besides, I write features for newspapers, both in Odia and English.

Citra O Charitra is my thirteenth story collection.

In my childhood, there was a wise old man in our village. We called him Manthan Budha. He told stories from Ramayan, Mahabharat and other ancient literature. People, particularly the women and children loved him. Manthan Budha told the stories as if he were present on the scene and witnessed the events. One day he was telling a story from Kalidas’s.

The king was painting the image of his most beautiful queen on the canvas with all his love and care. Kalidas reached. The king asked him, “How does it look?’

Kalidas nodded his head in disapproval. The king understood, and being upset, threw in disgust the brush he was holding. A drop of paint fell on the thigh of the queen’s image. Kalidas remarked, “Now it’s okay, beautiful!”

The King, surprised, demanded, “How was it not good a moment before, and now it’s beautiful?”

Kalidas replied, “The queen has a mole on her thigh, you had not painted the mole, so the painting was incomplete. When you threw away the brush in disgust, a drop of paint fell on her thigh and made a mole. It’s now complete and it's really beautiful.”

The king suspected Kalidas. How it was possible Kalidas knew the mole on the thigh which the queen was supposed to cover with her dress in public? He ordered his soldiers to take Kalidas to the deep jungle and kill him.

The soldiers took Kalidas to deep woods. But they had respect for the great poet. They let him free, killed a bird and produced the blood before the king as evidence of Kalidas’s assassination.

Once, after a few days, Kalidas had gone to a courtesan at night. The same courtesan was also king’s favorite. The king went to her when Kalidas was there and knocked at the door. Kalidas, finding no route of escape, hid below the cot and waited. The king recited a Sanskrit sloka for the courtesan, but it had a mistake.

Kalidas heard the sloka and immediately corrected. The king knew it could be only Kalidas.

I asked Manthan Budha, “Kalidas knew if he was found, the King would punish him with death. Why did he take the risk?”

Manthan Budha smiled and said, “The King did not kill him. He realized his folly and the next day he called Kalidas to his darbar and reinstated him to his previous position.”

And Manthan Budha added, “Kalidas cannot keep anything inside his chest; he has to speak out, otherwise his heart will burst.”

I have been writing for more than thirty-thirty five years. If I feel something I have to speak out or write, I feel restless and sometimes fall sick, until I vent the inside out in my writings. I am conscious of conduct rules of a government servant and I try to be within official limit, but the pen, perhaps, sometimes transgresses. Those are often not palatable to my friends and colleagues of the organisation I work for. But I am helpless.

I happened to meet one of my former commissioners in the month I was to retire from government service. He asked, “What will you do after your retirement?”

I said, “I shall read and write.”

He said, “Do you know your friends and colleagues in the department  do not like you for your writings?”

I said, “They don’t like me when I am in service, working with them for more than thirty years. What difference it will make to me if they don’t like me after my retirement?”

I have not stopped writing. Citra O Charitra, a collection of eighteen stories is my first book published after my retirement in 2020. Publisher: Cuttack Students’ Store, Balu Bazaar, Cuttack

*****

Kanhu and Other Stories

 

Tsundoku is a Japanese term, it means, acquiring books, but letting them pile up without reading, or books ready for reading when they are on your bookshelf. I am one, I have greed for books. If I am travelling and have to wait for the flight or train, I love to spend the time in the book stall of the airport or railway station. At a time I order/purchase three or four books, I may have read two; I shall order another three, if I happen to read good reviews in the Sunday newspapers or magazines or if a friend recommends certain books that he has read or is reading. The two books of the four I have purchased earlier remain unread. In the process unread books get piling up. Later, looking at the shelf, when I come across an unread book, I pick up to read. 

I had purchased Kanhu and Other Stories, an anthology of ten Odia short stories translated into English by Saroj Misra in 2015, but had not read. Recently I caught sight of the book in my shelf and read those interesting stories.

The first story of the collection is Gourahari Das’s Kanhu’s Home; the main character of the story gives the title of the book. Kanhu is a poor village boy; his drunkard father has abandoned his mother for another woman. Kanhu comes to Bhubaneswar; Mr Patnaik employs him to supervise construction of his house and cajoles him to believe the house will be his. Poor and simple minded Kanhu believes, supervises sincerely the construction and dreams of staying with his mother in one of the rooms.  The construction is completed; he has gone to his village to bring his mother. Shock and disillusionment grip him when he returns and the security person of the house prevents him from entering the house he has believes his own.

                                                                          (Gourhari Das)

Sudarshan has an iron chest; no one except him knows what is in it. He never parts the key with anyone, not even his wife. He is above ninety. His sons, daughters in law and grand children believe he must have kept in the chest gold, jewellery or some valuable things. He dies. The chest is opened and it is found, the chest has land documents, a few silver coins and a box of letters written in Bengli. The old man reads and writes Bengli. The only other person in the family who reads Bengli is the eldest daughter in law, but she also keeps the contents of the letters secret and the mystery remains (Mystery of the Closed Iron Chest, Sahadev Sahoo)

                                                       (Sahadev Sahoo)

An old woman and his wife have to live separately. His two sons and daughters in law are good, they love their parents, want to look after them in their old age, but, being low paid employees and having rented small houses and, staying in two different places, they cannot afford to keep both the parents in one house of any of them. During the time of chariot festival (Rath Yatra), both his sons and their parents have come to Puri to have a darshan of the Lord on the chariot. The old man meets his wife after five years. Lord Jagannath not only meets his devotees, but He also enables the estranged old couple meet each other. (The Last Opportunity, Bipin Bihari Misra)

Paresh Kumar Patnaik’s story Inauguration of Electric Crematorium is a political satire. The minister is to inaugurate an electric crematorium and a corpse is required. The organizers have arranged a dead body with much difficulty, but he has a strange disease. If truth is told he feels pain, if lie is told he feels fine. Excessive truth has killed him. The minister reads the speech prepared by his speech writer and the speech contains, as usual, lies. The dead man starts shaking his body. Immediately, on advice by the speech writer, the minister switches over to telling truth. The man is dead again. The doctor laments, the man could have been cured back to life and been alive.

                                                                      (Paresh Kumar Patnaik)

The story of Ramachandra Behera, ‘The Wound’, is about a rustic poor and simple man who with his wife takes care of orphans, not known to outside world. The TV persons of a channel discover and telecast the good work done by the poor people. That changes their idyllic life, damages their peace of mind. The wound caused is difficult to heal. Saroj Misra’s story, Mission Heart tells about a wife who employs a young man to wean away her husband from his lover to save her own marriage, but she falls in love with the young man and is pregnant by him. In Bibhuti Patnaik’s story Gagan Majhi and his Kin, Janhavi goads her police officer husband to evict the road blockade to ease supply of raw material to the company’s steel plant, so that the company would not close down and her brother could save his company job. Her police officer husband succeeded in evicting, but a few tribal people lost their lives in firing. Janhavi gets nightmares of Gagan Majhi’s men strangulating her. Travel and Shoes by Sripasad Mohanty is a funny story on daily commuters from home to office covering more than a hundred kilometres a day by train. One daily commuter steals the shoes of a co-passenger and sells him back his shoes.

Besides, the book contains stories of Shyama Prasad Chaudhury (Drowning) and Barendra Krushna Dhal (Goalkeeper). In Drowning, Nandita’s husband is captivated by the beauty of Ipsita and on return from tour, he tells his wife he has saved Ramesh, his assistant from drowning, though he actually believes he has saved Ipsita. Next day there is news, Ramesh is drowned and dead. In Goalkeeper, PK, a great football fan has bribed Janmejoy, the ace goalkeeper of the opposite team to skip the game or play badly so that his team would win. Janmejoy refuses to be bought up; despite he, being a poor clerk and his dire necessity, he returns the money.

The ten stories of the book reflect Odia culture and tradition, the life of its people. The selected stories are readable; a must read for everyone. The book, published by Leadstart publishing under Platinum India Classic is available on Amazon and other e-commerce platforms.

*****