Odia Puja magazines

In the seventies and early eighties of the last century when I was a student in the School and later in the College I was eagerly waiting for the Durga puja holidays. Durga puja was a great festival of Orissa. The Government employees got the longest holidays during this time. But it was not observed in our village with the fanfare as it was observed in Cuttack or in some other towns. I was not a devotee of the Goddess either. I was eagerly waiting for the Puja as Odia literary magazines brought out their special issues on this occasion. When I was in the school – our school was in a remote village- I would come to Cuttack to buy the magazines. Jhankar was a must and besides, I used to buy Asantakali, Nabarabi and some other magazines. The magazines were thicker with more stories, and some of those also published complete novels. After the School/College reopened, I would have enough material for a few days’ enjoyment. I enjoyed most reading a good story or a novel.

My waiting for the Puja has been a habit with me since those days. Asantakali stopped its publication. Nabarabi was also stopped; but after some years, it is published again. Jhankar continues its publication being the oldest surviving odia literary magazine. Now the number of odia magazines published during the Puja has increased.

With development in printing technology, the get up/lay out of the magazines has improved. It now looks nicer and more attractive. Exact figure is not available with me, but the number of odia literary magazines hitting the stands during the Puja is around a hundred. Of course, ninety-five per cent of the magazines published during the Puja disappear from the market, and are not seen whole of the year.

There is always complaint that the readership of odia literature has greatly reduced and most of the odia people have no longer any interest in odia literature. On being asked, the writers writing in odia cite the example of the Puja magazines. They say, almost all the magazines published during the Puja are sold out. Sambad, the odia daily, publishes its annual anniversary issue and it claims to printing more than one hundred thousand copies. There are some monthly magazines like Kadambinini, Katha which print more than twenty thousand copies. On a rough estimate, the total number of copies of all the magazines would be around two lakh. But it does not imply that two lakh persons buy odia literary magazines. For example, each year I usually buy around ten Puja special issues. The person who has interest in literature cannot be satisfied with one magazine, and usually he, on an average, buys more than two-three magazines.

During my student days, some of my favourite writers were Manoj Das, Santanu Acharya, Mahapatra Nilamani Sahoo, Rabi Pattanaik, Bibhuti Pattanaik, Jagannath Prasad Das, Chandrasekhar Rath, Pratibha Ray, Ramachandra Behara, Padmaj Pal, Kanheilal Das, Jagdish Mihanty, etc. Some of them have passed away, and some of them have stopped writing. Some talented writers have come to the odia literary scene. New writers are coming to the literary field every year. Some of the old writers have been deleted and some new ones have taken their places in the list of my favourites. Comparing the present writing with that of the past there is not only change in theme and content, but also in style and presentation. But my interest in literature remains the same; I still wait for the Puja for the Puja special odia magazines.
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