Loading...

From Marxism to Mysticism

Interview by Prof. P Raja, published in Gentleman, Auguast 2001

To be critical of our times is not being pessimistic says Manoj Das

It was too early for most of the citizens of the city of Cuttack to leave their beds. Some policemen were taking positions in the dark nooks of a lane. A tip-off from an informer had made them alert. The next moment they sprang before a young man cycling along speedily.

The cyclist pressed the brakes, got down and looked around. There was no escape. He had been surrounded. The burly officer took hold of him. "You're under arrest." He informed the young man and led him to the police station opposite the road.  

The young man sighed, for he was on his way to lead an agitation against the government of Orissa. Their plan misfired.  

Somehow the news of the arrest spread and by the time it was dawn, a crowd gathered in front of the police station, raising slogans demanding the young man's release. The police decided to detain him for the whole day and dispatch him to prison only at the dead of night, in order to avoid any untoward incident.  

At noon a suave and smart young officer of somewhat higher rank, opened the lock of the prisoner's custody and politely signalled him to follow him to the veranda behind the building. A sumptuous dinner had been laid out on a table covered with a colourful linen cloth. The officer fanned his prisoner as the latter ate. "Is this how you treat your under-trials ?" the prisoner queried while picking his way through the delicacies. The young officer smiled and answered, "Well, my wife is a fan of yours. When she learnt from the inspector that you're in custody under my jurisdiction, she was bent upon paying her tribute to you in this fashion."  

Manoj Das reminisces nostalgically. "That was the first ever tangible proof of any deep admiration from a reader. How boorish it was of me not even to remember the name of that wonderful officer and his kind wife!”  

The officer, no doubt, was wonderful, but far more wonderful had been Manoj Das' uncanny ability to strike a balance between his tumultuous life as a youth leader, courting jail or taking an active part in the Afro-Asian Students Conference in Bandung, Indonesia in 1956 on one hand, and continuing to write on the other hand, and continuing to write on the other.  

"Striking a balance, you say ? But I never took my interest in writing as anything different from my living! Somehow, I took for granted that writing was as normal an activity as speaking to somebody or experiencing rain or a rainbow," could be how Manoj Das would correct me.  

Which were the factors contributing to his developing the art of writing as a natural trait? Was it the charming place-dominated by some of the finest elements of nature like ever-green meadows, lakes teeming with lotuses and the sea-without a whiff of urban air? Was it the influence of his mother Kadambini Devi, a poet by her own right, enriching him with faith in himself? Perhaps all this and something more-some quality inherent in the constitution of one's consciousness.  

 At the time of going to press-on the 4th of July 2001-the news flashed that Manoj Das had been conferred the title Utkal Ratna given only to rare personages, by the most prestigious and the oldest literary organisation of his home state, Orissa, the Utkal Sahitya Samaj. But this is not the solitary evidence of the love he enjoys among the people of Orissa. In fact, while at the national level he has been a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad (Kolkata) Award, the BAPASI (Booksellers and Publishers Association of South India) Award as the best English writer in the south (1998), the Padma Award from the President (2001) and what is supposed to be the nation's highest award for creative writing, the Saraswati Samman (2001), there is no award or honour which Orissa had in its store which he had not received-the Orissa Sahitya Akademi Award (twice), the Sarala Award, the Sahitya Bharati Award (he was the first to receive this highest Oriya Award), the Governor's Plaque of Honour, so on and so forth. 

Excerpts from an Interview

avatar

It is an interesting fact that while you seem to be a household name in Orissa; a living legend as several people put it, for the readers outside Orissa you are known as one of our most serious Indo-Anglian Writers. How do you afford to pour so much into Oriya literature despite your preoccupation with your writing in English, particularly your weekly and fortnightly columns in national dailies like The Hindu, The Hindustan Times and The Statesman ?

avatar

I don't really pour into oriya literature. The people of Orissa pour their love on me.

avatar

There must be strong reasons for that.

avatar

One of the reasons could be staying far away from Orissa for practically the last four decades. A family remembers a distant child fondly.

avatar

I'm not sure the Oriyas would agree with your observation. For them you are a writer with a strong commitment to your inspiration-and your inspiration is genuine. They can read your stories, novels, essays and travelogues with the confidence that you will never give them anything adulterated or detrimental.

avatar

Yours is a tribute to the Oriya readership. I am proud of it. I have a conscientious readership in Orissa.

avatar

But you are no less popular in English.

avatar

Sorry, I beg to differ. No doubt, I have a solid readership in English. But how big is that when compared to several other writers? Popularity is a relative term. Yes, if you ask any discerning Oriya, he or she would say that I am among the most popular writers in Oriya. But would a reader of Indo-Anglian literature say so ? So many of them would not have even heard of me. I'm afraid, I cannot gloss over the fact that Indian writing in English is in danger of being enticed with a crop of spurious stiff, stuff that titillates, behind which stands a huge machinery of professionals, capable of stimulating curiosity in the readership and influencing them. A caricature of one of our epics can pass on as a great novel. A concoction of 60% social realism and 40% erotica can bag a coveted award. 

avatar

But you too have received coveted awards. The Saraswati samman, people say has surpassed the prestige of the other famous award- the Jnanpith.

avatar

I have received awards, small and big. We live in a world of mixed up values and reviewed for some people to read you, and in that, you have to compete with the unworthy and often be satisfied with comparatively merge notice. Embarrassing, but you cannot help it today. How fondly I will look forward to a time when people would refuse to be impressed by awards, the amount of advance paid, etc.!

avatar

Do you foresee such a future?

avatar

I do, but not in the near future. We all have contributed to building up a gigantic falsehood passing as life-style, value-system and even philosophy of living, where your knowledge as to which actress danced in a film in a certain year is promoted to the level of wisdom earning you a lakh of rupees or so, where your taste is continuously abused by vulgarity and those who practice this are billed as the role-models, where a bizarre, destructive greed for money is pumped even into a child’s consciousness and all this in the name of culture.

avatar

You sound pessimistic.

avatar

Do I ? To be critical of our time and the false gods we worship should not be interpreted as pessimism. There will be a time beyond our time. I have faith in the process of evolution. A time may come when all values established with so much pompous sophistication would be cast away by the time-spirit like a dead cockroach.

avatar

One last question. When one reads your last two publications, Selected Fiction (Penguin) and the novel The Escapist (Macmillan), one is transported into many spheres of existence, some gross, some subtle and some occult, yet convincingly real. One cannot believe that the author who is so much involved in the magic world of creative adventure is also the author who wrote newspaper columns on topical issues, did research in the archives of London on some of the little-known facts of the early phase of our struggle for freedom, wrote the most standard book on Aurobindo's educational philosophy, worked as an author-consultant to a foreign government and also continues to teach at an international centre of education. How can such activities be harmonized?

avatar

Far greater harmonies have been achieved by so many. In any case, the potentiality our consciousness offers is vast. An integral approach to life is a great help.

(This interview of Dr. P. Raja with Manoj Das was published in Gentleman, August, 2001.)

Prof Manoj Das for April Conference 2016

About Manoj Das

For thousands of men, women and children of the past two or three generations, Manoj Das has been the very synonym of light and delight, whose writings in Odia and English inspire in his countless readers faith in the purpose of life and also open up concealed horizons of confidence and compassion in humanity a dire need today.