{"id":408,"date":"2020-02-04T10:40:33","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T10:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/utkalaage.in\/?p=408"},"modified":"2020-02-04T10:40:36","modified_gmt":"2020-02-04T10:40:36","slug":"sense-of-fear-appears-to-have-gripped-the-society-jayanta-mohapatra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/?p=408","title":{"rendered":"SENSE OF FEAR APPEARS TO HAVE GRIPPED THE SOCIETY: JAYANTA MOHAPATRA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bhubaneswar, Feb. 3: A sense of fear appears to have gripped\nthe society as the situation has undergone change in recent times, Mr. Jayanta\nMohapatra, the first Indian to win the Sahitya Akademi Award for English\npoetry, said on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \u201cThe situation is not what it was a\nfew years ago. The sense of freedom which I used to experience personally has\ndisappeared,\u201d Mr. Mohapatra said while participating in a \u2018Face to Face\u2019\nprogramme at the two-day 1<sup>st<\/sup> SOA Literary Festival which concluded at\nthe SOA Deemed to be University here on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-1 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"676\" src=\"http:\/\/utkalaage.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Jayanta-1024x676.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"410\" data-link=\"http:\/\/utkalaage.in\/?attachment_id=410\" class=\"wp-image-410\" srcset=\"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Jayanta-1024x676.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Jayanta-300x198.jpg 300w, https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Jayanta-768x507.jpg 768w, https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Jayanta.jpg 1083w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \u201cWhatever that sounds illogical has\nbecome logical today. I don\u2019t like it,\u201d he said in an oblique reference to the\ncurrent situation in the country involving protests by students and others and\nthe face-off with the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In an interaction with Dr. Dipak\nSamantrai, the celebrated 91-year-old poet walked down the memory lane while\nexpressing his love for mundane things like the sunshine, moonlight, birds and\nflowers. \u201cI always wait for sunshine to light up my life,\u201d he said adding he\ndidn\u2019t like the idea of an overcast sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Asked about\nhis daily routine at this age, Mr. Mohapatra said he was primarily confined to\nhis home in Cuttack and worked at his desk. \u201cI spend my day learning new\nwords,\u201d he said adding he picked up his vocabulary from the school library where\nhe spent most of his free time as others bullied him in the class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \u201cThe only recourse left for me was\nto go to the library and pick up a book. I picked up my vocabulary from\nreading,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-1 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-2 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"637\" src=\"http:\/\/utkalaage.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2-1024x637.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"411\" data-link=\"http:\/\/utkalaage.in\/?attachment_id=411\" class=\"wp-image-411\" srcset=\"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2-1024x637.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2-300x187.jpg 300w, https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2-768x477.jpg 768w, https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2.jpg 1163w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Though he had to spend most of his\ntime alone, he said he was not bored. \u201cI am not bored. I don\u2019t understand why\nyoung people get bored. There are so many beautiful things in the world to\nexcite us,\u201d the poet said adding he greatly relished his favourite \u2018Dahi\nBara-Alu Dam\u2019, a culinary delicacy of his city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Recalling his foray into creative\nwriting, Mr. Mohapatra, who taught physics for long years, said he began\nwriting short stories at the age of 22 but the Editors to whom he forwarded his\nstories for publication returned them with rejection slips attached. Finally, it\nwas The Illustrated Weekly of India edited by late Khuswant Singh, which had a\nbig circulation at one time, chose to publish his writings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \u201cI never ever wanted to be a poet,\nbut perhaps my experiences of an unhappy childhood made me a poet,\u201d he said\nadding he didn\u2019t write for himself but others. \u201cIf my works could touch ten\npeople, I am happy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bhubaneswar, Feb. 3: A sense of fear appears to have gripped the society as the situation has undergone change in recent times, Mr. Jayanta Mohapatra, the first Indian to win the Sahitya Akademi Award for English poetry, said on Saturday. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \u201cThe situation is not what it was a few years ago. The sense of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":412,"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions\/412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}