In their movement across time and space human beings relinquish not simply love of person but also love of place. In his book Bijoy Misra has managed to retrace and recall those disconnections and the value systems which led to their genesis. He has described how it is that human beings join and divide, the grounds upon which they merge and separate and how our emotions are both created and diminished by such small irreversible details of experience. If we are made for love we are also unmade by its loss or absence, whether such love be spiritual, moral, political, artistic, or simple earthly affection.Misra is a cartographer of such transformations, their particular vicissitudes and their minute and exacting metaphors; just as the acoustic in the universe informs how human beings speak and how birds and other animals sing, so our author has offered us a precisely modulated depiction of how his own mental and emotional inheritance came to be composed during childhood and youth in Orissa, and simultaneously by the greatness of the Indian cosmos and its ancient culture. This book is the story of that attempt at repossession and discovery.In his book the author has catalogued this journey, a voyage towards the ancestral conditions which once so informed him, perhaps even from before he was born, and he has portrayed how it is to pursue such an inquiry, such an odyssey of recovery and comprehension. What is recorded within these pages is the universal effort to exist and to endure not simply in the present which we inhabit but simultaneously in the past-with its necessary compulsions-as well as in the future with all its ideals and aspiration.

Returning Home: A Travelog in 2012

Travel

Misra, Bijoy M

Travel Writing

Black Eagle Books

Priyatama is a poetry collection by eminent Odia poet Phani Mohanty. A prolific Odia poet, Phani Mohanty has more than sixteen poetry collections into his credit. He has received Odisha Sahitya Academy award for the poetry collection "Bishadjoga" and Central Sahitya Academy award for the poetry collection "Mrugaya".

Priyatama (Oriya Edition)

Literature & Fiction

Mohanty, Phani

Poetry

An intense anthology, steeped in fearless intellect, Gayatribala Panda's poems are a comment on her socio-political landscape and the resultant human condition. Woven in her native language, varying from its most colloquial to its richest form and her land, its soil, its people and its legacy setting up a searing backdrop for her deep words, these poems are a comment on her homeland's greatest struggles, fissures and wounds across social categories, particularly the challenges, injustices and atrocities perpetrated against women in a largely patriarchal setup. Known for adding the human to the abstract, Gayatribala Panda gives us a slice of Odisha in verse to savour and to contemplate on.

Gayatribala Panda Nirbachita Kabita (Oriya Edition)

Panda, Gayatribala

India’s one of the celebrated writers, Dr. Pratibha Ray’s short story collection “Ketaki bana” has twenty-five magnificent short stories that would touch reader’s heart instantly. Stories ‘Shapya” and title story “Ketaki Bana” received New Delhi’s Katha Puraskar in 1994 and 1999. “Moksha” was made a successful feature film. This collection has her powerful stories like “Ullanghan”, “Hata Baksa” and “Kambal”. Author has written a foreword on the success of a short story.

Ketaki Bana (Oriya Edition)

Ray, Pratibha

I had first visited Chausathi Yogini temple, Hirapur as a part of my professional work, to design a training program for the residents of the Hirapur village. A mild interest in the temple and the yoginis soon transformed itself into a mighty passion. The more I read and delved deep, the more intrigued I was. From Hirapur, Ranipur Jharial, Khajuraho, Morena to Cambodia and Indonesia, I have met the Yogini's everywhere.
Initially I started with a song project dedicated to the Yoginis of Hirapur, my long-standing tryst with the Chausathi Yoginis, to be presented to them in the form of a song. The song took shape bit by bit, beginning under the patch of blue sky we could see from where we stood inside the hypaethral temple of Hirapur, the abode of the Yoginis. Several compositional techniques were used to evoke the essence of tantra music—tone painting, melodic phrasing, sequences, and rhythmic ostinati to create musical complements to meditation. The melody weaves the texture of a trance, helping in deepening the listeners insight. The use of traditional, authentic musical instruments further accentuated the experience. The vocal melody, mantric utterance, and rhythmic flow all were enmeshed to create the mysticism of the Yoginis.
Immediately after this, the book took shape. Based on my research and information I collected from museums in several places, I have tried to demystify the relatively unknown Chausathi Yoginis of Hirapur. Several rare aspects of this temple intrigued me. The Yogini Cult, Tantric in nature and tantra itself, projecting the efficacy of magical rituals and spell, sounds and gestures, is intertwined deeply with rural and tribal traditions. There is a diverse range of attitudes toward the tantric traditions, ranging from viewing it as a path to liberation to the relatively widespread associations of the tantric traditions with sorcery and libertine sexuality. In Hinduism, the tantra tradition is most often associated with its goddess tradition called Shaktism, followed by Shaivism and Vaishnavism. In this temple, every male deity except Shiva are replaced by a female counterpart including Ganesh all of them representing varied qualities. The Yoginis were believed to impart magical powers to their worshippers:
These powers included: anima (the ability to become very small), laghima (the power to levitate and to be able to leave your body at will), garima (the power to become very heavy), mahima (the power to become large in size), istiva (the power to control the body and mind of oneself and others), parakamya (the power to make others do your biding), vasitva (the power to control the five elements) and kamavasayitva (the power to be able to fulfill all your desires) (Dehejia).
According to the Archeological Survey of India the temple came to be known in 1953 (Mahapatra 1953).
This seems strange considering the proximity of the temple to the state capital Bhubaneswar. I have visited the temple uncountable times, mostly alone but often with friends and have enjoyed the quiet isolation that has been thrust upon not just this temple but the cult as well. The most beautiful Yogini temple among all, sixty three Yoginis are enshrined here. One statue is missing.
This book is a compilation of my research and readings on the Chausathi Yogini temple at Hirapur. This book was motivated by the desire to delve deeply into the tantric roots in which the Yogini cult is embedded and to link it to the significance of this site as a potential cultural tourism destination.
Dr. Adyasha Das, Author

The Chausathi Yoginis of Hirapur: from Tantra to Tourism

Das, Adyasha

“Itabhatira Shilpi” is an award winning short story collection by Gayatri Saraf, an eminent storyteller from Odisha. The collection has 13 short stories of varied themes, mostly set on western Odisha, reflect author’s deep compassion and wide sympathy for the troubled and tormented. The collection has received Central Sahitya Academy award in 2017.
Gayatri Saraf was born on August 17, 1952 in Bolangir and spent most of her teaching career there. She has published thirteen short story collections in Odia to her credit. For the short story collection Itabhatira Shilpi, she was awarded Central Sahitya Academy award in 2017. For teaching, she has received President’s award in 2004. She was Vice-President of Odisha Sahitya Academy from 2015 to 2018. She lives in Bhubaneswar.

Itabhatira Shilpi (Oriya Edition)

Saraf, Gayatri

n this book the author tries to find out answers to his queries from the authentic archives, historical publications & a large range of reference materials including folklores. He holds the view that, Jagannath is not only an ancient deity for worship across communities, sects and religions but also a veritable fulcrum around which regional, subnational, national and even global mainstreams of knowledge, philosophy, religion, arts and culture and contemporary socio-political discourses have evolved over the millennia. So the Jagannath Cult can be truly conceived as the culmination of human cultural evolution. This is evident from the name itself of the deity as the Lord of the Universe. Located in the hallowed land where great ancient sages composed richa of Rig Veda which led to the setting of the Gobardhan Peeth by Adi shankaracharya as a centre for preservation and promotion of Rig Ved., Lord Jagannath is thus the 'Purusottama' and Puri is the "Purusottama Kshetra' as described in the hallowed magnificent ancient treatise the "Skanda Purana". Therefore, Jagannatha is the nucleus (Navi kendra) of the Great Indian Knowledge Tradition, mentions the author. Lord Jagannath is truly India's National Deity.

Jagannath - Rashtraneetira Nabhibrahma: Jagannath - The Nation's Deity (Oriya Edition)

Arts & Photography

Panda, Harihar

History & Criticism

An anthology of classic Odia short stories, "Kalajayee Odia Kshyudragalpa" has 30 short stories written in a span of almost one hundred years. The very first story of the anthology is "Rebati" by Fakir Mohan Senapati is considered to be the first modern Odia story and Fakir Mohan is considered as the father of the modern Odia storytelling. While Fakir Mohan was born in 1843, writer of the last story, Krushna Prasad was born in 1933. All the writers included in the anthology are no more with us.

Kalajayee Odia Kshudragalpa (Oriya Edition)

"I have often wondered if Haldhar Nag graduated from a poetry school. Of course, that cannot be true, but my feeling arises from the abundance of figures of speech that appear in his poetry. Unknown to him, he sprinkles liberally the effects of alliteration, metaphors, internal rhyming, personification, onomatopoeia, and what have you in his usage. Ghensali (River Ghensali) is personification at its best, where the poet personifies a river in spate as a young lass in exuberance. And yes, he has come out with sonnets too. Read Ati (Too Much) to get a taste of Haldhar sonnet. The stanzas are spaced in 4, 4, 4, 2 lines, with a proper rhyme scheme. It leaves me in wonderment again - If he did not go to a poetry school, then did God plant all these literary usages in his head? For the sound effect, listen to Chaetar Sakaal (The Morning of March) - twelve stanzas replete with onomatopoeic works. Pity the translator who has to preserve the special effect in another language. I take recourse to the limitations of translation once again and state the obvious: Translations can never attain the beauty of the original. If we liken the original to an attractive painting, at best, the translation can be a replica or a photograph. A hallmark of Haldhar Nag's poetry is what I call the Haldhar twist. It is particularly prominent in his short poems. The poet takes an abrupt turn in the direction in the last stanza, not necessarily for summarizing or moralizing. The surprise turn in the final stanza, instead, leaves the readers with a 'wow' effect. Very many poems in this collection display the Haldhar twist - Our village Cremation Ground, A Cubit Taller, The Dove is my Teacher, and Old Banyan Tree, to name a few", writes the translator in his prefix. The collection has 60 poems.

Selected Poems of Haldhar Nag

Nag, Haldhar

Nisanga Iswari O Anyanya Kabita (Oriya Edition)

Mohanty, Aparna

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