Jatindra Kumar Nayak has played a prominent role in a variety of literary and educational institutions in the state of Odisha and his translations, essays and lectures have been instrumental in presenting Odia literature to the larger world. For the last four decades, he has been exploring the print culture of Odisha. In this free-wheeling conversation with Murali Ranganathan, Nayak talks about how he has engaged with print Jatindra Kumar Nayak
How did your engagement with print get stimulated?
My father, Kashinath Nayak, was a writer of textbooks and books for children and managed the printing press owned by the Primary Teachers’ Federation at Puri. I was fascinated by the work of compositors and printers at this press. My father also used to take me along to the offices of some of his publishers in Cuttack during Dussehra. As a student at Ravenshaw College, Cuttack in the 1970s, I was actively involved in the publication of
An icon of Odia language & literature
Rup Narayan Das
Fakir Mohan Senapati whose birth anniversary falls today is remembered for his seminal contribution to Odia language and literature. Born in 1843 in Baleswar (Balasore) in colonial India, he grew up in the milieu of social inequity and injustice which found resonance in his writings. His foremost contribution, however, was the protection and preservation of Odia language against all odds.
In a portion of his Atma Jivana Charita, which is ably translated into English by John Boulton, who was a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, as My Times and I, Senapati wrote that the complete disappearance of traditional Odia primary schools from South Midnapur adjoining Baleswar was intriguing and was a sorry tale. Sometime between 1865 and 1870, a Bengali sub-inspector of schools was appointed to set up government schools there. He tried to found Bengali medium schools there, but people refused to have their ch