BHUBANESWAR: Deputy chief minister Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo on Sunday called upon students and budding poets to pursue their passion of writing and take life forward by analysing the world beyond what they are taught in schools.
Addressing the concluding day of Odisha Literary Festival-2024 organised by The New Indian Express, Singh Deo recalled that during his time in school, students never got the opportunity to write poems.
The deputy CM said that it was only after entering into politics that he got into reading and the business of lawmaking. “I have read a lot of books. But the last book I read during the Covid pandemic was ‘Yuganta’ by Irawati Karwe. This is a very small book which makes an erudite analysis of Mahabharat from different angles especially on two women characters - Kunti and Draupadi,” he said.
He said the author lucidly explained the caste system and societal order in which women were powerful in the society. “Despite being born from five different fathers, the Pandavas were known as Kshatriyas because they were recognised by the caste of their mother. It was a matriarchal society then which is now prevailing among the tribals and northeast region of the country,” the minister added.
“The point I want to make here is whether we read mythology or history, it needs further research and study to understand the past and the present,” Singh Deo said.
In the context of dynastic rules and their history, the Maharaja of the erstwhile Patna kingdom said, “If we go back into the history of the country, rulers never had the opportunity of writing their own history except probably Rana Khumba of Mewar.”
Some of the rulers were great patrons who engaged writers to chronicle about their kingdom and their achievements. Those history books were mostly written in praise of the persons who were rulers of that period, he said.
