Stories from the margins: review of Odia master Gopinath Mohanty’s Oblivion and Other Stories

This collection translated by Sudeshna Mohanty and Sudhansu Mohanty holds a mirror to social realities of caste, class and poverty

Gopinath Mohanty turned a keen eye on the human condition and changing mores, and wrote about it with empathy. | Photo Credit: Omkar Mohanty/ Wiki Commons

When the Sahitya Akademi awards were first launched in 1955, Gopinath Mohanty (1914-1991) won it for his Odia novel Amrutara Santan. A story about the Kond tribals and village life, Mohanty had observed their interaction with nature and wrote about it sensitively. 

But Mohanty did not only chronicle pastoral life. The Odia master, like Premchand (Urdu/ Hindi), Banaphool (Bengali) and Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai (Malayalam), was committed to narrating the stories of the underdog. He wrote about the plight of the dispossessed and marginalised (his novel Harijan appeared around Independence), and held a mirror to Odisha in the 20^th century and its social realities of caste, class, poverty, the divide between rural and urban, haves and have-nots.

Most of all, he turned a keen eye on the human condition and changing social mores, and wrote about it with empathy. Besides novels, he penned a number of short stories. This anthology, Oblivion and Other Stories, translated by Sudeshna Mohanty and Sudhansu Mohanty, is a collection of his short stories with a wide range of characters grappling with varying circumstances, some living amid Odisha’s ancient mountains and forests, others in towns, and many on the margins. 

The rich-poor divide

In the title story, ‘Oblivion’, Sibaram Salura is travelling in a goods carrier, which takes the red road that winds up and down the Eastern Ghats in Odisha. He is on his way to a city to take up a railway job, and is reminiscing about his past as he looks forward to the future. He thinks about the girls from the Paraja and Damor tribes, “big roses tucked into the hair… their lips bursting with full-throated giggles”, and memories float by.

Sibaram’s thoughts wander to old girlfriends, and to his future wife Manasi, who sings beautifully. Tragedy strikes just when he thinks he has never felt happier; the truck turns turtle, and there’s “oblivion”. The world with its joys and sorrows goes on as it always did. Only, his father ages 20 years in a day and his mother sheds tears every time she puts a morsel in her mouth. 

Of the 20 stories in the collection, several, including ‘Endless’, a poignant tale about a child waiting for his father to bring him some toys and new clothes, ‘Da’ (about a feudal zamindarand how he treats women, especially the poor who serve him), ‘The Crow, The Cuckoo’ and ‘Festival Day’, underscore the disparity between the rich and the poor. 

The translators candidly admit that translating Mohanty was a challenge because of the lyrical, colloquial and dramatic qualities of the original. But though some of it must have been lost in translation, they must be lauded for introducing the Odia stalwart to a wider audience.

Oblivion and Other Stories

Gopinath Mohanty, trs Sudeshna Mohanty, Sudhansu Mohanty

Ebury Press

₹499

sudipta.datta@thehindu.co.in