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On a literary mission

Sib Kumar Das

Promoting reading habit among people

BERHAMPUR: Even at the age of over 75, Devraj Tripathy of the city is trying hard to prove reading habit has not died among the general public.

Tripathy, a writer, publisher, printer as well as a door-to-door seller of books in rural areas, roams around villages carrying his own written and published books. He sits down at village corners to describe the books he carries to the young as well as the old. "I literally carry goddess Saraswati on my cycle in the form of books to extend her blessings to all who have no access to books," says the old man.

He says goddess Saraswati has brought him blessings of goddess Lakshmi and he has decided to involve all his progenies in business of writing books and publishing them.

Philanthropy

After retiring as a teacher in 1992, Mr. Tripathy decided to publish his own scripts for the rural public to cultivate reading habit among them. Philanthropy is his habit and he has already established 12 schools on the suburb of the city. Using his pension money and financial help from his physically-challenged daughter, who is a teacher, he published his first book. As a voracious reader he had acquired ample knowledge of Indian scriptures, astrology, general knowledge, popular science, ayurveda and traditional Oriya writings. He tried to get them published in understandable version. Till date he has written more than 500 books that range from 12 versions of Bhagavad Gita to art of studying body language.

Under a project called 'Anwesana' he has discovered 80 unknown rural Oriya writers of merit who wrote great works without any wish of publication. At every book fair of the State his unique descriptive style of selling books attracts buyers.

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