Mahapatra represents a poetic tradition that has deep roots in the Indian soil, especially in the literary tradition of Orissa. “Orissa remains the seed ground of his flourishing art.” He categorically expressed his indebtedness to Orissa, the soil of his birth, while receiving the Sahitya Academy award. “To Orissa, to this land in which my roots lie and lies my past, and in which lies my beginning and my end, where the wind keeps over the grief of the river Daya and where the waves of the Bay of Bengal fail to reach out today to the twilight soul of Konarka, I acknowledge my debt and my relationship.”
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| Jayanta Mahapatra’s Poem | Dawn at Puri | Critical Analysis | |
“Dawn At Puri” depicts Mahapatra's awareness to the environment of Puri, the famous temple town of Orissa. In it he subtly describes with subtle ironical touches the incongruities in the landscape and the religious life of Puri. There are contradictions, oppositions, contrasts and unexpected revelations in this poem.
Puri is a famous town in Orissa, which has certain sanctity about it. The famous temple of Jagannatha, a holy place of worship, is situated here. The poet picturesquely depicts the morning scene in the holy town of Puri, a holy town where the people of Orissa wish to be cremated in order to attain salvation. The scene in early morning depicted here is that of sea beach at Puri, where countless of crows are cawing. The poet while wandering on the sea beach, which is in the real sense a cremation ground, comes across a skull of a human being whose body has not been fully consumed in the fire. The skull remains unburnt. The sight of the unburnt skull ironically suggests the extreme poverty of the people of Orissa.
The second stanza vividly portrays the agony and intense suffering of “white - clad widowed women” who have passed their middle age. They are waiting to enter the temple gate for offering their prayers to Lord Jagannath. Their “austere eyes” hear an expression of extreme sorrow and melancholy like helpless creatures caught in a net. They have no worldly desire and lack in self - confidence. However, they are sustained by their religious faith.
In the third stanza the poet comes across a large number of lepers with decayed and wounded bodies! Their faces bear an expression of timidity, helplessness and unbearable agony. His eyes fall on a burning pyre and all of a sudden he begins to think about his aged mother who has willed that after death she should be cremated here on the sandy beach.
“Dawn at Puri” is a realistic recordation of the poverty and deprivation of the majority of people in Orissa, suggested by “a skull”, “white - clad widowed women” and “ruined, leprous shells learning against one another, a mass of crouched faces without names." The evocative words and the short closed structure contribute to the overall beauty of this poem.