An Odia Sculptor in Haridwar

( Statue of Subhash Chandra Bose at the park. P.C. Sefali Suman)

After I boarded the bus at Delhi to Haridwar I rang up Fakir Parida. I introduced myself and requested him to suggest a hotel for me to stay three days in Haridwar. Fakir Parida told he would ring back after a few minutes.

It was 2007. I was going to Haridwar and Rishikesh with my family. In the Cuttack Khatti , where I used to sit every day after morning walk, one member of the Khatti, Manoranjan told me to contact Fakir Parida in Haridwar. He said he was from Kumbharsahi of Cuttack, and had settled in Haridwar since 1980s. He made idols and images. I got the impression that he might be like the nomads selling on the road side images of laughing Buddha or different idols and images made of terracotta or china clay as we had seen in Bhubaneswar or on the road side elsewhere.

Manoranjan worked in the Municipality as a tax collector. His job profile included to visit houses of the area allotted to him and collect holding tax. He knew many persons of Cuttack. He had given me the phone number and said, “He loves to treat when a man of Cuttack visits him.” Of course, there was no doubt about it, the Katakias were known for their bhaichara, fellow feeling.

Fakir Parida rang back when our bus had reached Roorkee. He said, “Better, you should stay in Jayaram Aasram, I have told them. Please visit us after you reach, and taking rest for some time. The gatekeeper is an Odia; he knows me. He will tell you the way to reach me.”

His warm behaviour touched me. I decided to visit him after I checked into the aasram and having our lunch.

We did not have difficulty in finding him. He resided in Saradhapuram Colony of Bhutpada near Gangaswarup Aasram. Getting down near the aasram when I asked a man, he said, “Parida, the Silpi (Sculptor)? Are you from Odisha?”

I could feel the respect he had in pronouncing his name. He showed me the way.

( Fakir Parida in his studio. This photo is downloaded from internet, I had not brought the camera with me when I visited him)

Contrary to my expectation, he had a big house adjacent to the park. There was a big statue of Subhash Chandra Bose on horseback to the left side near to the park in front of his house. He had a spacious studio and in the studio, he had many small and medium sized idols and images. Parida was sitting on the floor and giving final touch to an image. He indicated a stool for me to sit near him and called his wife. His wife escorted my wife and children to their inner house.

I was waiting for him to finish his work and watching his house. I saw photographs of Fakir Parida with Somnath Chatarjee, L.K.Advani, Shusama Swaraj, Jaswant Singh, and many top leaders hung on the wall. I could not connect; I had the impression when Manoranjan told me he was from Kumbharasahi, that he might be a nomad like person, selling idols and images on the roadside; but here, besides a big house, he had photographs with Speaker and Cabinet Ministers and who’s who of India, that surprised me and that was beyond my comprehension. When I asked the occasion he had to be with these great leaders in the photographs, he said, Somanath Chatarjee, the Speaker of Loksabha had inaugurated the statue of Rana Pratap he had sculpted in the Parliament precincts, and the Speaker had invited to honour him.

When NDA led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee was in power, the Government decided to build the statue of Rana Pratap in the Parliament precincts. The Maharaja of Udaipur suggested the name of Fakir Parida to Jaswant Singh, then a cabinet minister in Vajpayee government, to entrust him with building the statue. Jaswant Singh had come to his Haridwar residence to invite him, as per the tradition, with paata (silk cloth) and a gold coin. The Maharaja had inaugurated a few statues sculpted by Parida in different places and had known him well.

Fakir Parida was born on 15^th July, 1942 in Kumbharasahi, Cuttack. He did not have any formal education; he had studied up to Class IV. He started making clay images, their traditional craft, when he was at 10. He had built a scenery of Indo China War of 1962, which the then Governor of Bihar had appreciated and felicitated him. In 1964, he had sculpted tribal images for the State Museum, Bhubaneswar. He had also sculpted forty images of primitive men for the anthropology department of Punjab University in 1974.

(My write up on fakir Parida, published in Ravivar magazine of Sambad on 18th November,2007)

Fakir Parida’s turning point was in 1982.  The Maharaj of Jayaram Aasram, impressed with the images Fakir Parida exhibited in an art exhibition, invited him to sculpt the scenery of sagarmanthan (Churning of the Ocean) in his aasram precincts at Haridwar, which gladly he accepted. Then his fame spread far and wide. By the time I had met him in 2007, he had sculpted images and statues in Haridwar, Rishikesh, Derhadun, Mussouri, Bhatinda, Faridkot, Kuruskhetra, Karnal, Madhuban, Mathura, Gurugaon, Sonipat, Aligarh, etc. The previous year, he had made Jain images in the Jain temple in London. Many governments and organisations had honoured him. The Governors of Uttarakhand, Haryana, Punjab and Chief Minister of Rajastan and Speaker of Loksabha had felicitated him.

I saw him training fourteen/fifteen disciples in the craft in his studio. We had snacks and tea with their family and when we took leave of him, he invited us to have lunch with them one day during my stay in Haridwar. But I could not make it as I did not have time.

(With my wife on the bank of the Ganga in Haridwar. P.C. Sefali Suman)

Many people in Odisha did not know him. I wrote an article on Fakir Parida after I returned to Cuttack. Ravivar magazine of Sambad had published it on the 18^th November, 2007.

 Fakir Parida saw the article and telephoned me. I promised him at his request to be his guest next time I visit, but the next time has not come till date.

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