Other States - Orissa   

Artiste languishing in poverty

KORAPUT: Ganeswara Pani, an artiste of yesteryear, is now begging in the streets of Koraput. The poet, lyricist and musician from Sabalia village near Rambha of Ganjam district has been staying in a hut near the Government high school where one can find the certificates of appreciation from 10 Ministers, two Governors and two certificates of good performance from Directorate of Family Planning and Small Savings. For the 72-year-old Ganeswar, the memories of his young days keep on haunting him, particularly of those days when he was going to different places in the country on behalf of Palli Samaj Seva Sahayog Samiti of Sabalia.

“I had the opportunity to talk to Pandit Nehru when he visited our club some 40 years ago,” he says. While recalling the names and experiences of the places that he had visited as the song & dance director of his Gotipua dance troupe, he feels excited in describing the joyful response that he and his troupe had received from the locals of Leh & Ladakh for their performance and the richness of the Orissa’s dance form.

He was one among the few in the State who were in the list of performers of the front seat for spreading the messages on health, family planning and small savings for the agencies in the government. But things did not last long and with the disintegration of his club and intervention of other forms and methods of propagating messages among masses, there was no work left for him. This had prompted him to leave his village and move southwards in search of work. But there were no opportunities available for him and his skills to lead a life anywhere and thus forcing him to take begging as the only mode of living.

He writes poetry on the latest issues even today. He also sings some patriotic songs that he had written. But the platform is the doorstep of houses and listeners are the household members who are extending their helping hand with a handful of rice.

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