CUTTACK: Surrounded by tall deodar and bamboo trees, Chandrabhaga - the sprawling house of Jayanta Mahapatra in Cuttack’s Tinikonia Bazaar - was teeming with admirers, extended family members and government officials on Monday, a day after the 95-year-old breathed his last. When the literary legend was alive, the old building was a solitary figure, just like its owner.
The genius, whose poetic pursuits were celebrated not just in India but across the world, lived alone for more than a decade. His wife Jyotsna Das died of cancer in 2008 and the disease also claimed his son Mohan a decade later. The only company he had were his books and J Sarojini, his caretaker for more than 50 years. Sarojini was only 18 when she came to the Mahapatra household and in no time, she became family. He affectionately called her his daughter and built her a house behind his.
When Sarojini died in December last year, her son J Issac alias Jeju and daughter-in-law J Sandhya took care of Mahapatra till his last breath. “For a long period, Sarojini took care of the family and she continued to do so even after his wife passed away. He became lonely after her death as his son and daughter-in-law were settled in Singapore. At a later stage, Sarojini started suffering from knee pain that affected her mobility but even then, she used to look after him. Her son Jeju got married to Sandhya and the couple started taking care of him as Sarojini’s health was failing,” said Dev Prakash Das, a close family acquaintance.
Das’ uncle Debananda Mishra and Mahapatra had started Chandrabhaga, an annual literary magazine to publish English poetry from Odisha. The 19th edition of Chandrabhaga, the last to be edited by Jayanta Mahapatra, was released last year. It featured works of the best of Indian poets. Counted among one of India’s leading and most prolific English-language poets of the modern era, Mahapatra found solace in poetry and books. His loneliness seemed to fuel his creative genius and even the advancing age could not stop him from writing or attending literary festivals and poetry readings. On August 4, he was to travel to Bhopal to attend a literary festival.
His last book ‘Jhanji’ was released from the hospital bed in the Medicine department of SCB Medical College and Hospital where he was undergoing treatment for pneumonia since August 4. The book of poems in Odia language was released on August 15. Sandhya who attended him in the hospital during his final days, said he had started writing the book after her mother-in-law’s death. Mahapatra loved to write, enjoyed rains, nature and also liked good food and feasting with people. “Though the plants in our compound are overgrown, he never wanted us to cut them. There are no ACs in his house because he loved to live amidst nature,” she added.
The writer, who was the first poet to receive the Sahitya Akademi Award in English language for his book ‘Relationship’ (1981), was also a philanthropist at heart. Das recalls Mahapatra had donated the Akademi award money for cancer treatment of one of his relatives. “We did not know who paid the medical bills but later, we came to know that Sir (as Das fondly called him) had donated the money,” he said.