TRIBUTE
A master storyteller
HARIHARAN BALAKRISHNAN
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Kahnucharan Mohanty's stories evoked something personal in each reader.
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In his last days: Kahnucharan was a household name in Orissa. Photo: Courtesy Pratibha Ray
GOPINATH MOHANTY is a name that evokes instant recognition in literary circles across India, and in some other parts of the world; but not the name of his elder brother, Kahnucharan. Against more than 1000 links for the former in Google, a lone link to "Kahnucharan Mohanty" mocks you from the screen.
True successor
While Gopinath, the first Jnanpith awardee from Orissa, undoubtedly deserves his place in the firmament, Kahnucharan is considered to be the true successor of Fakirmohan Senapati, "the father of the Oriya novel". In a span of 57 years from 1924 to 1982, he wrote an astounding 55 novels and four collections of short stories. He had the rare honour of being made a Fellow of the Sahitya Akademi.
This prolific novelist inspired Pratibha Ray, one of contemporary India's foremost novelists. His works like Adekha Hatho (The Invisible Hand) and Chutiley Ghata (When Life Departs) left a lasting impression on future Oriya legends like Sitakant Mahapatra.
Kahnucharan's novels, like Fakirmohan's, had their hand on the pulse of the poor, the destitute, the disempowered and the disowned. In Shaasthi, a seminal novel about hopeless love and the inner strength of women against the backdrop of the Great Famine, he captures rural Orissa as it was 40 years before he was born. This is considered a remarkable feat by itself.
Jayashree Mohanraj of CIEFL, Hyderabad, who translated this novel from Oriya to Telugu, thinks that Kahnucharan had an instinctive feel for the heartbeat of victims of circumstance. She is the only one to have translated any of his works into another Indian language.
Kahnucharan's language was earthy and colloquial. It did not require a scholar to understand what he had to say. The stories touched a chord in the heart of the paan-shop owner, rickshaw puller, the tenant farmer, a woman in the kitchen and the girl waiting to be a bride. In those days, women were not encouraged to study. The marginalised, with limited opportunity for education, had a hunger for the written word. As a result, Kahnucharan's novels were read in those places where scholastic works never found a place earlier — the wayside tea stall, languorous bullock-cart, urban kitchen and village haystack.
Intense person
Kahnucharan Mohanty was a very intense person who needed utmost concentration while writing. It was as if the words flowed through him like a stream. Nephew Omkar Mohanty, Gopinath's eldest son, recalls:
"Uncle's style was to lie on his stomach, with a pillow propping his elbows and a sheaf of papers before him. The slightest noise from anybody — his wife or us, would distract him. If he had to change a word or a phrase as a result of such disturbance, he would crumple the piece of paper and hand it over to the source saying, "Here, take this. This is your contribution to what I am writing" and start again from the beginning. I have never seen — and his children too have confirmed — a single manuscript that had corrections or amendments. Every word was written only once. This is something remarkable. My father was not like this. His manuscripts were cluttered with changes and after-thoughts"
Omkar was one of Kahnucharan's favourite nephews and is today the Vice-chancellor of the Biju Patnaik University of Technology. One more incident he recalls is a needless controversy about Kaa, which won him the Sahitya Akademi Award. Some newspapers accused him of intellectual dishonesty and plagiarism from Pearl Buck's Pavilion of Women.
"I was there when father went to meet Kahnucharan. Uncle was devastated and told my father, `You know that, unlike you, I don't read much English literature. If at all there is any similarity between the two works, it must be a remarkable coincidence. I am hurt by these accusations'. Father assured him he himself had absolutely no doubt about it, and the people who made such a hue and cry about the use of a single expression were not even aware of the differences between the two novels. He went on to point out the glaring differences. At the end of the conversation, I could feel the great relief in uncle's face. It was as if he felt `here is at least one other intellectual who believed in his honesty'. "
Kahnucharan was eight years elder to Gopinath, but rated his younger sibling intellectually higher. Perhaps this is the only case of two brothers having won the Sahitya Akademi Award.
Closer to people's lives
Kahnucharan was a household name in Orissa for over half a century because his language was closer to the people's vocabulary, the themes were of daily life mostly in rural setting and there was a romantic touch in every novel.
During his lifetime, the TV was a dream in India. Yet, at least four novels were made into films with remarkable success. Annapurna Theatre staged dramas of his stories with the legendary actors of the day.
A government officer through his adult life, Kahnucharan managed time with remarkable discipline. Family members recall that he would be back from office by about 7.30 p.m.and sit down to write from 8.00 till about 11.30 in the night every day.
Pratibha Ray, who spent considerable time with the versatile writer during his last years, recalls that he wanted to write till the last day of his life.
But that was not to be, since he was losing his memory and could not recognise even his close relatives except his brother and a few others.
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