His poetry carried the spirit of his life

Poet Jayanta Mahapatra, who died on 27 August, was a quiet man, who continued to write despite ill-health

- Sridala Swami

 

I knew Jayanta Mahapatra, who died on 27 August, first through letters. It was with the first set of poems I sent out that I tentatively decided to call myself a poet. At that time, the journal Jayanta Mahapatra used to edit, Chandrabhaga, had recently been revived after 15 years. The poems I submitted were accepted, with a handwritten note, and a gentle reminder to include a self-addressed stamped envelope the next time I submitted poetry or short fiction. I must have submitted something immediately after, because among his letters to me is an envelope with my handwriting, startlingly different from his tiny, neat hand.

Not long after the first two or three warm but impersonal letters, I was told to address him as Jayantada. In the years that followed, we exchanged many letters, the relationship deepening into friendship.

The first time I met Jayantada, it was because I had invited myself to visit him. In my letters, I had expressed an inexplicable but urgent wish to meet him. I had imagined that I would travel to Bhubaneswar, stay somewhere, and go to meet him and spend some time with him. Instead, he invited me to stay with him and arranged the few days I spent with him with the care one would give to family.

Chandrabhaga, the house where he lived, set a little off the narrow main road in an old part of Cuttack, is a different world. Stepping inside its gates, you leave the cacophony of horns and the rumble of traffic behind. There are trees sheltering a house, small from the outside, but spacious and airy from the inside.

Upstairs, in a long, light-filled room, I was allowed to browse through a portion of the literary history of Indian poetry in English. Boxes contained issues of Chandrabhaga-both in its first avatar (1979-85) and more recent ones.