‘Aparanhara Bhuta’, published in 1999, was my first collection of stories. In fact, it should have been my second book. It was not easy to publish a book then, in 1990s, as it is today. I had given fifteen stories to a publisher in Cuttack for a book. The traditional Cuttack publishers take a long time to publish. In the meantime, the publisher of ‘Nijaswa Prakashan’ of Puri evinced interest in publishing one book of mine, and requested to give him a few stories. He published the book ‘Aparahnara Bhuta’ before the Cuttack publisher did, and made this my first book of stories.
The Sunday magazine of
The Sambad had published my story ‘Kalibudhi’ (Black Woman). In the nineties of
the last century, the television did not have so many entertainment channels,
mobile phones were not in common use. One of the major sources of entertainment
was still reading books and magazines. People who liked a story used to write
letters to the author. I received a number of letters for the story Kalibudhi,
and one of the letters was from Dr. Prafulla Kumar Rath.
He appreciated the story,
but suggested, since the story was on a beggar woman and the woman was of the
lowest strata in the society, uneducated and uncouth, the language of the story
should have been the language spoken by them. Of course, the story was on a
beggar woman. A young officer every day met the woman on the street when he
went to the office. She cleaned the street and the shop fronts, and begged or
demanded something in return, though no one had told or employed her to do the
job. One day she died. I replied to Dr. Rath, though the story was on the
beggar woman, but it was narrated by the officer, an educated man; hence the
language of the story was chaste Odia as spoken by the educated class. The
matter rested there.
In 1998, I attended a
story workshop organized by NBT in Rourkela. I met there for the first time Dr.
Prafulla Kumar Rath who had gone to Rourkela to participate in the book fair
organized by NBT. I came to learn there he had a publishing unit called Nijaswa
Prakasan. He suggested me to publish my book, and I readily agreed. I had been
writing for the last seven or eight years, but had not published a book.
I was staying in Cuttack
and Dr Rath was in Puri. I was working for the government and he was teaching
in a government college. We are far away from each other, a distance of nearly
hundred kilometers, having little communication between the two of us. Neither
he nor I had the time or scope in my case, to proof-read. He published the book
without taking much time, but a lot of printing errors remained. The errors in
the book dampened joy of having my first book in print.
Despite clumsy printing
and poor get up, the book sold. After two /three years, I happened to meet a
poet-friend. He told he was reading my stories and showed me the book. The book
he showed me was a paperback, but the original book was hard bound. The
publisher had published a paperback edition without my knowledge. The book had
been out of print for many years.
I wanted to reprint the
book and publish the second edition. The book had only twelve stories,
containing eighty-six pages. I added three stories and made the book of one hundred-
and sixty-pages. The original twelve stories were written before 1999 and the
three stories added now were of 2020. So, a reader can have taste of the writings
of my youth, and of mature days, and compare between the early and later
writings. Thanks to Paresh Patnaik and
shalandi.books for publishing the second edition.
(The Book)
There is an impression
and also the writers and publishers allege; books, particularly Odia books
are not sold; the number of readers in Odia is decreasing. It’s a fact; sale of
Odia books has declined, but reading habit has not gone away. The Odias,
educated in English medium schools, prefer to read books in English. If a
person has taste for literature, he will read both in his mother tongue as well
as in English. I believe, if a reader knows about a book and the book is
available easily, he will buy the book and read. He will definitely enjoy
reading a book in his mother tongue. The reader who loves books also wants to
keep the books in his home or personal library.
All the copies of
Aparahnara Bhuta, displayed at the time of its release, were sold out; had we
more books on the day, a few more copies would have been sold also. A few
readers had to return disappointed for the stock exhausted on that day. We did
not expect so many copies would be sold.
The book was released on
9th March, 2024 in the Kalyan Mandap field of K-8 under the chair of
Girija Prasad Mahapatra, the President of Senior Citizens’ Forum, in its event
of Sahityacharcha. Swaraj Misra, writer and columnist and Paresh Patnaik,
writer spoke on ‘Writings, Writers and Readers.’ Dasarathi Sahoo, the secretary
welcomed and introduced the guests.
*****
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