Jayanta Mahapatra (1928-2023) was an Indian-British poet. He was the first Indian poet to win the Sahitya Academy Award for English Poetry. He is considered to be one of the three poets, along with AK Ramanujan and R. Parthasarathy, who laid the foundation of Indian English poetry. Jayant Mahapatra’s poetry is renowned for its vivid imagination, superb artistry, and ability to convey the core of human experience. In 2023, Mahabharata died of pneumonia.
Wiki/Biography
Jayanta Mahapatra was born on Monday, October 22, 1928 in Cuttack, Odisha (age 94 at the time of death). His zodiac sign is Libra. Mahapatra studied at Stewart School in Cuttack, Odisha. Mahpatra had a difficult childhood due to his father’s neglect and his mother’s throwing away all the diaries he had written during difficult times at school. While at school, mathematics and physics were his favorite subjects, which prompted him to pursue physics as a career. Mahaprada ran away from home twice in his youth because his mother was very strict and did not allow him any freedom, but he was later bought back by his father. In 1949-50, he pursued a master’s degree in physics from Patna University in Bihar. Born into a middle-class Odia Christian family and living among Hindus, Mahapatra was ridiculed by his peers at school, which led him to seek escapism in novels and poetry. His work reflects all the pain and hardship he experienced during his childhood. Speaking about his childhood in an interview, Mahaputra said,
I have never been able to feel the usual connection with my mother. I often longed for someone to talk to, like a sister or a cousin my age, but I didn’t have one. “
family
Parents and siblings
Jayanta Mahapatra’s father Lemuel Mahapatra was a school inspector and her mother Sudhansa Mahapatra was a family housewife.
wife and children
He married Jyotsana Mahapathra, a student of literature, and inspired Mahapatra to write poetry. He is survived by a son.
Jayantha Mahapatra and his wife
religion
Jayantha Mahapatra followed Christianity.
Signature/Autograph
Profession
teaching
He started his teaching career as a lecturer in physics in 1949 and taught in various government colleges in Odisha including Gangadhar Meher College, Sambalpur, BJB College, Bhubaneswar, Balasore Fakir Mohan College in Cuttack and Ravenshaw College in Cuttack. He retired from Ravenshaw College (now Ravenshaw University), Cuttack, and from government service in 1986 as a lecturer in physics.
writing
Before writing poetry, Mahapatra wrote novels, novels and stories. At the age of 22, he sent his work to the “Illustrated Weekly of India” but was rejected. Thereafter, he continued his teaching career and took up photography.
Jayanta Mahapatra (second from right) during the release of his autobiography “Jayanta Mahapatra – A Journey” in April 2023
english poetry
Mahapatra started writing poetry very late compared to other writers and poets. Seventeen years after being rejected by the Illustrated Weekly of India, Mahapatra tried writing again, and his poems were highly recognized and published in the Chicago Review, New York Quarterly, Poetry, Sewanee Review, Published in world-renowned journals such as Critical Quarterly, Times Library Supplement, Meanjin Quarterly and Malahat Review. Mahapatra’s first collection of poems, Close the Sky, Ten Tens, was published in 1971 and received critical acclaim. The series is dedicated to his father. Later, he published many poetry collections such as “Su Yan”, “Temple”, “Li Yu”, “Selected Poems”, and “Random Descent”. He was invited to participate in the International Writing Program at Iowa State, which gave him an international perspective.
Some of his famous works include Ten by Ten Closes the Sky, Calcutta: Dialogue Publications (1971), Swayamwala and Other Poems (1971) and Father’s Time, Delhi: United Writer” (1976). Mahapatra also wrote many poems in Odiya, including Bali (The Victim) (1993), Bhayaraja (The Mad Emperor) (1997) and Jadibha Japati (Even This Is A Story) (2008).
Awards
- In 1981, he won the Sahitya Akademi Award for his collection of poems “Relationships”.
- In 2009, he was awarded the Padma Shri Award for his contribution to literature.
- In 2017, he won the Kanhaiya Lal Sethia Poetry Award at the Jaipur Literature Festival.
- In 2013, he received the RL Poetry Lifetime Achievement Award in Hyderabad.
- In 1975, he received the Jacob Glastein Memorial Prize for Poetry in Chicago.
- In 1970, he won the second prize in the International Poetry Celebrity Competition held in London.
- In 1976, he received the Iowa City International Writing Project’s Guest Writer Award.
- Won the Australian Visitor Cultural Award in 1978.
- In 1980, the Japan International Exchange Foundation awarded him the Japan Visitor Award.
- In 2009, he received the SAARC Literary Award in New Delhi.
die
Jayanta Mahapatra passed away due to pneumonia on August 27, 2023, at SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, Odisha. His last rites were performed with state honors and in accordance with the wishes mentioned in his will and testament titled “My Last Wishes.” Although he believes in Christianity, he hopes that his body should be cremated in an electric crematorium rather than buried in the ground.
Favorites
- Contemporary Poets: AK Ramanujan
- Travel destination: Konark Sun Temple
Facts/Trivia
- He wrote his autobiography “Bhor Motira Kanaphola” in Odiya language and serialized it in a magazine.
Jayanta Mahapatra at the launch of her autobiography
- In 2015, he returned the Padma Shri to protest against “growing intolerance” in the country.
- In an interview, talking about why he started writing poetry very late, he claimed that it was his wife who guided him to start writing, saying,
I knew nothing about writing or poetry because I was a physics student. In fact, my wife is an English literature major. Since I received English education, I have the courage to write in English because I can use the words correctly. I wrote a lot, published a lot around the world, but I didn’t know how I did it. “
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education