Essay: What couldn’t be said- Jagadish Mohanty and Modern Odia Literature by Himansu S. Mohapatra
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Himansu S. Mohapatra shares an essay on Jagadish Mohanty and his writings in Odia, observing how he remains under-appreciated in Odisha and virtually unknown outside.
From the chest of the mountain of will descends the waterfall of desire, burning down in the fire of its lust the lofty ideal of altruism. Carrying in its breast a current sharp as a knife blade, it slices through the hard stone barricade of argument, as it flows down in search of the river.- Jagadish Mohanty (The Outsiders)
Translated by Himansu S. Mohapatra
The above passage is one of many in the Odia writer Jagadish Mohanty’s (1951-2013) vast corpus, comprising thirteen collections of short stories and five novels. The passage resonates with the theme of the reality of experience and its imperviousness to conceptualization. Jagadish wrote not only about the vehemence of desire but also about the profound sense of loneliness and angst that must result from its inevitable contradiction with the middle-class ethic of conformity and social success.
