“ I love the visible as well as the invisible world. I love Man, I love Life. And this love flows out into expression, as water from a down turned pitcher…In this process, the sorrows of other people become my own, and the joys of the external enter into my inner existence. Whenever I sit down to write, my thoughts silently intertwine with this country where every particle of dust shows love for me, where Nature includes my personality, and the same blood as mine runs in the veins of Man, no matter how far off he lives. This relationship brings intensity of union and the pleasure it gives is not to be found elsewhere. In the darkness of my environment I keep this lamp of love alight and creations come of this union. I do not know of course, what value the critical world may give to these works!”

Gopinath Mohanty

Paraja

A novel by Gopinath Mohanty

Main Characters

Sukru Jani (fifty year old patriarch, Main protagonist)

Mandia (Son)

Tikra(Son)

Jili (Daughter)

Bili (Daughter)

Kajodi (Jili’s best friend and Mandia’s fiancée)

Bagla ( son of Rengu Paraja, Jili’s suitor)

Sahukar Ramachandra Bisoi (money lender)

The Forest Guard

Nandibali Paraja (Bili’s Suitor)

Kau Paraja (the village head-man’s goti)

The story is set in the village of Sarsupadar of Koraput District in the tribal belts of the Eastern Ghats of Orissa. This hamlet of twenty five families has two tribes living in it, the Paraja tribe and the Dombs. Each live on separate streets. The novel dates back to the pre-independence days when tribal life was at once both innocent and ignorant. Far removed from the “civilized” world, these tribes looked upon their forests as their Guardian and Mother Earth as their Saviour.

Gopinath Mohanty is one of those few writers who spent a lifetime trying to awaken modern day society to the rich life of the aborigines. He lived with the tribes trying to understand their customs and traditions, studied their languages and their dialects. In all that he wrote, he tried to portray tribal life in its pristine form.

Winner of the Jnanapith Award for his work Mati Matal, Gopinath Mohanty belongs to that genre of writers who made their distinct mark on the Oriya literary scene. His brother Kanhu Charan Mohanty is considered to be the true successor of the father of Modern Oriya Literature, Fakir Mohan Senapati.

Though Gopinath Mohanty started his career as a novelist during the pre-Independence period, he became a prolific writer during the post-lndependence era. His classic novels, ‘Paraja’ (1945), ‘Amrutara Santana’(1950), ‘Danapani’ (1955) and ‘Mati Matal’ (1964), have elevated Oriya literature to a height not attained before. While his elder brother Kanhu Charan has a clear social commitment in almost all his novels, Gopinath has gone a step forward and shown inclination towards the individual while keeping the social concern alive.

He was equally successful in fictional accounts of the life-style of the Kondh and the Paraja tribe as of the middle class in Oriya villages and towns.

If Paraja and Amrutara Santana are his major tribal works, the latter on the lives of the Kondhs, Mati Matal is a classical tale of the eternal Indian village. The main protagonist of this novel which won him the Jnanapith is actually a living Gandhian Biswanath Patnaik who still lives as the living embodiment of Gandhian ideologies in the remote Baliguda in the Kandhmal district of Orissa. Despite pained by the erosion of ideals that he had stood for during these 60 years of independence, he is struggling to keep Gandhism alive through his acts. Biswanath Patnaik is a living legend .His selfless social work among tribals of South Orissa since the British era has made him known as ‘Koraput’s Gandhi‘. As a true Gandhian he continues to wear the loin cloth with a lathi in hand. As he believes in service without desire of getting anything in return he has till date not accepted the Government sops and pensions for freedom fighters. He has preferred to donate all the money he received as awards to his institutions for the tribals. Even at this advanced age running the spinning wheel is Biswanath Patnaik’s favourite past time.

Gopinath Mohanty’s Dana Pani is a fascinatingly vivid portrayal of the joy and despair, dreams and hopelessness of the Oriya middle-class. The protagonist Balidatta is willing to compromise on anything including his wife’s honour to climb the ladder of hierarchy at the office where he works.

Mohanty’s Harijan is supposed to be a far more realistic and powerful novel compared to Mulk Raj Anand’s The Untouchable dealing with the same subject.

Besides writing twenty five novels and more than two hundred stories , Gopinath Mohanty has written a grammar treatise on the language of the Kondhs.

Another less highlighted aspect of Gopinath Mohanty’s literary career is that he tried to bring the classics of the world to every Oriya speaking home. His greatest work in Oriya translation is Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Central theme in Paraja

The exploitation of the innocent tribes by the cruel and merciless elements of a hostile world is what Gopinath Mohanty sketches very vividly in this novel. The gradual felling of the forests, the tribes getting enticed by an opportunist society is something which runs as a strong undercurrent through out the narrative. The greatest irony as portrayed by Mohanty is the tribesman in Sukru Jani being let down by members of his own tribe and Sukru Jani in all his innocence never realises this till the end. The Gods of the forest world whom the Parajas worship fail to rescue Sukru Jani and in never blaming them, Sukru Jani turns out to be a magnanimous soul.

Sukru Jani is a widower whose wife Sombari has been killed by a tiger. The dense jungles of Koraput have been famous for man eating tigers of the Mahabala species.. He is left with four grown up children. His two sons Mandia and Tikra and daughters Jili and Bili. Sukro Jani works hard on his lands and when he felled huge trees in the forest to make way for cultivating crops he worked for five to six hours at a stretch without resting his axe for a moment. He has faith in his strong and sturdy limbs and depends on nothing else. He feels happy with his life. It has been as he wanted it to be. He shares with all other people of his tribe, the belief that all this has been created by invisible spirits . In his peace and contentment, he sits wondering who those magical spirits are and which of them created the sky, the forests , the day and the night and which of them bestows happiness and misery on man. Though content with the kind of life he lives, Sukru Jani is full of dreams for the future.

His children are of marriageable age and as a patriarch he wishes to have a few more patches of land for his grand children and great grand children. In his dreams he foresees that all the hills around his village have been completely cleared of the forests and terraced fields have taken their place for crops to grow. In this fantasy Sukru Jani sows the seeds of his own destruction.

Like their father Mandia Jani and Tikra toil hard in the fields and their sisters Jili and Bili take care of the domestic needs.

There is the Forest Guard whose duty it is to look after and catch people felling trees. For the tribal folk he was a person of high authority who could get them fined and punished as per his whims and fancies. Each villager owning a pair of bullocks had to pay a ‘plough-tax’ for the privilege of grazing his cattle in the forest and the forest-guard collected the tax. Anyone collecting honey from the forests without a license or cutting down trees for wood to build his house would be answerable to the forest Guard. He wielded authority over the forest that stretched nearly thirty miles.

Lecherous and corrupt this forest guard is smitten by Jili whom he has seen bathing in the stream and just cannot take his eyes or thoughts off her. Unaware of this fact Sukru Jani approaches the Forest Guard with two fat hens, three big jack fruits and two rupees for his consent to clear a patch of the forest on the Mali Damaka Hill so that he can own it for his grand children and great grand children. The Forest Guard readily agrees and Sukru starts his work immediately. Meanwhile the Forest Guard makes his desire for Jili, known to Sukru Jani through Kau Paraja the Head man’s bonded labourer (Goti). Bonded laborers in Orissa Tribes were called gotis. Sukru Jani is enraged and furious. A tribal roused to fury is like the beast of the jungle. He beats up Kau Paraja and chases him away.

The scene is set for the Forest Guard’s revenge. Some days later the Forest Guard arrives with some officals and villagers at the spot where Sukru is working and accuses him of cutting down trees without any permission. The land cleared by Sukru and his sons is measured and stumps of trees are counted and he is fined eighty rupees. Most of the villagers testify against Sukru Jani. Their constant fear for authority has corroded their simplicity and honesty. They would rather speak against Sukru and save their skin than invite the ire of the Forest Guard. Sukru Jani is dumb founded and shell shocked. The head man of the village Salingi Paraja and two others Dhepu Chalan and Phaul Domb meet Sukru Jani and cheat him. They convince him that they would prevail on the Forest Guard to lessen the fine to about fifty rupees. They ask Sukru to approach Sahukar Ramachandra Bisoi the money lender who lived in the village of Thotaguda.

The Sahukar is always looking for gotis and since he earned compounded interest on the money he lent to the unsuspecting tribes, he was willing to lend money at the drop of a hat. Sukru Jani knew well the consequences of borrowing money from a money lender. He would have to work as a slave , a goti for a full year and in return some five rupees would be written off. But since he would be paying compound interest, in effect the loan would never be repaid and he and his sons and grandsons would remain slave for all eternity. He shuddered at this fact but he was in such a miserable plight that he had no other option. He takes a loan of fifty rupees and offers himself and his younger son Tikra as gotis.. Meanwhile he hands over the fifty rupees to the headman, the Barik(village watch man of the Domb caste) Dephu Chalan and Phaul Doomb. These four fellow villagers of Sukru go to the Forest Guard fall at his feet and implore upon him to take only rupees fifteen of the fine imposed and close the matter. And they distribute the remaining money among themselves. And Sukru Jani never comes to know of this till the end.

Meanwhile Mandia Jani is left behind to look after the house, his two sisters and the fields. At the centre of the village are two dormitories, one each for the grown up boys and the girls. As per tribal traditions unmarried members of the family would not sleep in their huts. They would sleep in the dormitory. It was customary for the boys to woo the girls with their songs accompanied by stringed instruments called the dungudungas.

Mandia was betrothed to Kajodi who happened to be Jili’s best friend. And Jili herself was being wooed by Bagla Paraja. Mandia Jani started distilling liquor from mohua flowers in the forests without proper licence from the authorities in an attempt to make quick money. One fine day he is caught and and a fine of fifty rupees imposed on him. He borrows money and becomes a goti of the sahukar. Jili and Bili are left to fend for themselves. In a strange twist of events, Kajodi who is betrothed to Mandia ends up marrying Bagla who all the while was wooing Jili. With food running out at home these two sisters Jili and Bili join labourers working for a contractor repairing roads. They find themselves richer by the day when the contractor pays them in copper coins. The supervisor there is enamoured by Jili and Bili and gradually they find themselves comfortable in his presence.

Back in the Sahukar’s house the father and the sons slog it out for their master until one day it dawns upon Sukru that he has to return home to look after his daughters.. He pledges his land to the Sahukar and frees himself as a bonded labourer. He returns home to find his house in tatters and deserted . He goes in search of his daughters and finally finds them repairing the highway. He takes them back to his village, rebuilds his home and persuades the village headman to let him have a piece of unclaimed land to cultivate and feed his family. Sukro Jani has found a new suitor for Bili in Nandibali Paraja an orphan who lends a helping hand to him. The following days witness the arrival of the Sahukar in the village of Sarsupadar . Instead of the routine millet crop, he grows oranges on the land Sukru Jani has written off to him. Gradually the Sahukar lends money to many families there and becomes a strong presence. He seduces Jili and she starts living with him to the utter shock and disbelief of her father.

Meanwhile Mandia and Tikra take a chance at brewing liquor again in order to make money and this time their gamble pays off. They manage to make money and come with their father to settle their debts to the Sahukar and lay claim on their land. Being the master trickster that he is the Sahukar says that since he has spent a lot of money in making the soil fertile for oranges he would listen to none of them. The agony of Suku Jani and his family is compounded here by their loss of land and their elder daughter becoming the Sahukar’s concubine. Innocent Sukru goes to court against the Sahukar only to find the Sahukar’s money power win over law. Overcome with frustration Sukru, Mandia and Tikra axe Sahukar Ramachandra Bisoi to death. God-fearing men as they are they go straight to the police and confess the crime to the utter disbelief of the inspector.

Thus the theme of exploitation of the meek and their final rebellion holds centre-stage in this novel.

Technique and style.

Gopinath Mohanty has brought a lyrical touch to his narrative. He has used ballads in the Paraja dialect to convey emotions of characters at different stages in the novel. Even the villainous Forest Guard, an outsider when smitten by Jilli sings in the Paraja dialect:

At festivals it was the privilege of the young men to call for a particular dance which the girls would have to perform. And the request was always made in song. Gopinath Mohanty seems to celebrate life through tribal ballads.

In bringing about a faithful representation of reality, Gopinath Mohanty has pioneered the Realistic technique in his writing. Individual character is as important as the plot and the moral dilemmas faced by the characters are many. The diction is in natural vernacular. The style is colloquial.

Existentialism involves the attempt to make meaning in a chaotic world. Sartre argued, “man makes himself.” As a form of literary criticism, existentialism seeks to analyze literary works, with special emphasis on the struggle to define meaning and identity in the face of alienation and isolation

Sukru Jani’s character is a study in existenialism.

Love, anxiety, solitude, relationships, failure, sadness, death, loneliness, human frailty are all well brought out in Gopinath Mohanty’s creations.

Fighting all odds Sukru Jani can be compare to Shivaram Karanth’s protagonist Choma in his Chomana Dudi

This translation by Dr.Bikram Das had the approval of the author .Though proficient in English himself Gopinath had made an attempt at translating Paraja himself but preferred not to publish it. Bikram Das has developed on this translation . If the translated version can be so beautiful one wonders how richer the original might be.

Significance

Gopinath Mohanty’s portrayal of human exploitation through this tale creates an awareness about how far human nature can go in its selfishness. There is a certain sanctity about Nature, the forests, the flora and the fauna. Gopinath Mohanty has told delicately about the balance that Man has to maintain with Nature. If our jungles are eroded by the advent of civilization and tribes displaced from their natural habitats we invite doom on ourselves. In destroying forests and tribes we destroy a part of ourselves. The life and work of Mahashweta Devi, another Jnanapith awardee are a testimony to this fact.

However Gopinath Mohanty ‘s Paraja not only appeals to the layman but is also a delight for sociologists and anthropologists as well. There is a striking similarity in the lives of tribes all over India be it the Parajaa, Saheriyas, Santhals, Oraons, Juangs, the Siddhis, Gonds, Mariahs or the Bhils. The fact that they are being forced to leave their forest abodes in search of ‘greener” pastures like Jili and Bili did is a sad comment on our times.

Gopinath Mohanty passed away in 1991 and sixty two years after Paraja was written, Prof. Jean Dreze one of India’s foremost sociologists and political commentators chose Paraja to illustrate the polarization of forces in this globalised world. In an article in The Hindu last month (07-09-2007), Prof. Dreze writing on the Indo-U.S nuclear deal wrote “Those who applaud India’s “nuclear deal” with the United States would do well to read Gopinath Mohanty’s beautiful novel Paraja, where hapless tribals often make “deals” with the local sahukar (moneylender), who has overwhelming power over them. For instance, young men go to the sahukar when they are in dire need of money to get married (bride-price was customary among the Parajas of Orissa), and agree to work as bonded labourers until the money is repaid. But the sahukar keeps shifting the goalpost: just as the tribals think that they are about to regain their freedom, he fiddles the accounts and tells them that more is due. There is nothing they can do. The “deal” is whatever the sahukar decides—–Mohanty’s novel ends on a dramatic note: pushed to the wall, Sukru Jani crashes his axe on the sahukar’s skull and then surrenders to the police. There ends — for better or worse — the scope for parallels with international politics”

Bibliography:

i) Paraja By Gopinath Mohanty English transalation by Bikram Das.(2006,OUP)

ii) History of Oriya Literature by Mayadhar Mansinha (1962, Sahitya Akademi)

iii) Articles, talks and interviews by Dr.Sitakanth Mohapatra in print and electronic media.

iv) The Hindu Literary Review (04-03-2007)

v) The Hindu (15-08-2007)

vi) The Hindu (07-09-2007)

vii)The Dangs: Journeys into the Heartland by Randhir Khare (HarperCollins 2000)