Jayanta Mahapatra The Man And The Poet Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Jayanta Mahapatra
An Odia poet of Odisha,
Of Odia language and Odisha my native land
And his mine cannot elsewhere
Baring this,
The Odias and Odisha
The land of his birth and nativity,
Ancestral and aptriarchal,
Coastal and natural.

A poet of the rivers, hills, lakes and bird sanctuaries,
Of temples and villages,
Mornings and sunsets,
Loneliness and bewitching solitude,
Jayanta is personal and private,
Sociological and feministic,
Down to hardcore realities of life.

To picture and present his job,
To take the photos and put before
Without an explanation,
Just see them,
See the imagery,
Mark the photography,
Snapped and drawn.

With light is connected the origin of life,
Creation and vegetation
But darkness too not less than,
The stranger coming with the footfall of his,
The villagerly woman with the earthen lamp
Shading light dimly.

Poverty, hunger and depravity, the tales of his
Which he seeks to tell them in his poems,
Famine, drought,
Rains and rituals,
All these he takes to,
The rock built temple telling of architectural excellence
But why the beggars at the entrance,
Why the villages mainly mud-built?

Jayanta Mahapatra
An Odia poet of Odisha,
Of Odia language and Odisha my native land
And his mine cannot elsewhere
Baring this,
The Odias and Odisha
The land of his birth and nativity,
Ancestral and patriarchal,
Coastal and natural.

A poet of the rivers, hills, lakes and bird sanctuaries,
Of temples and villages,
Mornings and sunsets,
Loneliness and bewitching solitude,
Jayanta is personal and private,
Sociological and feministic,
Down to hardcore realities of life.

To picture and present his job,
To take the photos and put before
Without an explanation,
Just see them,
See the imagery,
Mark the photography,
Snapped and drawn.

With light is connected the origin of life,
Creation and vegetation
But darkness too not less than,
The stranger coming with the footfall of his,
The villagerly woman with the earthen lamp
Shading light dimly.

Poverty, hunger and depravity, the tales of his
Which he seeks to tell them in his poems,
Famine, drought,
Rains and rituals,
All these he takes to,
The rock built temple telling of architectural excellence
But why the beggars at the entrance,
Why the villages mainly mud-built?

A poet of the Indian summers describing not physically
But feeling it otherwise,
In giving an ear to the burning of pyres at some far off,
The good wife taking a siesta,
The crocodiles movign into the deep waters,
Vedic hymns, prayers and rituals continuing incessantly.

Under the shades of the mango trees
The mother and the daughter sitting,
The daughter with an unknown fate of hers
Combing the hair of her mother
And the mangoes falling sometimes
To be gathered.