Spark of Light: Short Stories by Women Writers of Odisha Edited by Valerie Henitiuk and Supriya Kar Spark of Light Short Stories by Women Writers of Odisha

Spark of Light Mingling Voices Series editor: Manijeh Mannani Give us wholeness, for we are broken. But who are we asking, and why do we ask? —PHYLLIS WEBB Mingling Voices draws on the work of both new and established poets, novelists, and writers of short stories. The series especially, but not exclusively, aims to promote authors who challenge traditions and cultural stereotypes. It is designed to reach a wide variety of readers, both generalists and specialists. Mingling Voices is also open to literary works that delineate the immigrant experience in Canada. Series Titles Poems for a Small Park E.D. Blodgett Dreamwork Jonathan Locke Hart Windfall Apples: Tanka and Kyoka Richard Stevenson Zeus and the Giant Iced Tea Leopold McGinnis Praha E.D. Blodgett The Metabolism of Desire: The Poetry of Guido Cavalcanti Translated by David R. Slavitt kiyâm Naomi McIlwraith Sefer Ewa Lipska, translated by Barbara Bogoczek and Tony Howard Spark of Light: Short Stories by Women Writers of Odisha Edited by Valerie Henitiuk and Supriya Kar Spark of Light Short Stories by Women Writers of Odisha Edited by Valerie Henitiuk and Supriya Kar Copyright © 2016 Valerie Henitiuk and Supriya Kar Published by AU Press, Athabasca University 1200, 10011 – 109 Street, Edmonton, AB T5J 3S8 ISBN 978-1-77199-167-4 (pbk.) 978-1-77199-168-1 (pdf) 978-1-77199-169-8 (epub) doi: 10.15215/aupress/9781771991674.01 Cover photo © Sougata Sinha Cover design by Natalie Olsen, kisscutdesign.com Interior design by Sergiy Kozakov Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Spark of light : short stories by women writers of Odisha / edited by Valerie Henitiuk and Supriya Kar. (Mingling voices) Issued in print and electronic formats. 1. Short stories, Oriya—India—Odisha. 2. Oriya literature—Women authors. 3. Short stories, Oriya—Translations into English. I. Henitiuk, Valerie, editor II. Kar, Supriya, editor III. Series: Mingling voices PK2578.2.E5S63 2016 891.4'56301089287 C2016-906836-6 C2016-906837-4 We are grateful to the Office of the Provost, MacEwan University, for its generous contribution in support of this volume. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities and the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Assistance provided by the Government of Alberta, Alberta Media Fund. This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons licence, Attribution– Noncommercial–No Derivative Works 4.0 International: see www.creativecommons.org. The text may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that credit is given to the original author. To obtain permission for uses beyond those outlined in the Creative Commons licence, please contact AU Press, Athabasca University, at [email protected]. Contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction ix The Mendicant 3 Reba Ray They Too Are Human 13 Sushila Devi The Vigil 17 Suprabha Kar In Bondage 23 Basanta Kumari Patnaik Ruins 27 Gayatri Basu Mallik Pata Dei 37 Binapani Mohanty A Timeless Image 45 Banaja Devi The Ring 53 Pratibha Ray Man of the Century 65 Premalata Devi The Mystic Bird 71 Archana Nayak The Lotus Man 81 Mamata Dash A Fistful of Hope 89 Golap Manjari Kar Curfew 97 Sanjukta Rout The Trap 105 Yashodhara Mishra A Writer’s Alter Ego 125 Binodini Patra A Mother from Kalahandi 135 Gayatri Sharaf The Sound of Silence 147 Susmita Rath The Worn-Out Bird 157 Aratibala Prusty A Kerchief of Sky 165 Sanghamitra Mishra Misery Knows No Bounds 171 Sarojini Sahoo Moonrise 181 Supriya Panda Shadows of the Moon 189 Mona Lisa Jena Sin 197 Paramita Satpathy Mother 217 Chirashree Indrasingh Four Microstories 225 Pallavi Nayak Droplets of Memories 229 Deepsha Rath About the Contributors 231 Acknowledgements No words can express our indebtedness to the authors of the stories gath- ered here—who, like alchemists, have managed to transform human suffering into literature. We are deeply indebted as well to the translators of these stories. Without their dedication and skill, this book would not exist. We must extend our sincere thanks to two other individuals, along with their organizations. The first is Richard Alford, secretary of the Charles Wallace India Trust, which offers a generous annual fellowship to literary translators from India. One such fellowship first brought us together in England almost a decade ago and, without it, we would never have had the chance to collaborate as co-editors. The second is Jatindra K. Nayak, founder and chair of the Rupantar Centre for Translation, who gave us permission to prepare a new edition of the original anthology. We are very pleased to have been able to work with Athabasca Univer- sity Press—especially Manijeh Mannani, editor of the Mingling Voices series, and senior editor Pamela Holway—to bring these stories to the global audience they deserve. We would also like to thank Asis Nanda, manager of the Rupantar Centre for Translation, for help in obtaining copyright permissions, as well as historian Kailash Chandra Dash for his assistance in uncovering archival material that furnished publication dates and biographical details—information that is often challenging to locate. We are both extremely grateful to little Srijit, whose occasional will- ingness to sleep, or even just to sit still, provided Supriya with precious opportunities to edit. And, finally, we thank our respective spouses, W. Stuart White and Prasanta Midya, for their invaluable support and encouragement. vii doi:10.15215/aupress/9781771991674.01 Introduction Valerie Henitiuk and Supriya Kar A woman who pours “all the darkness within her” into a coffee mug, age slipping out of a body “like a tree shedding its bark,” a woman’s outbursts evoking “the smell of burnt chilies”—these are but a few of the many strik- ing images that one encounters in the short stories collected in this book. Originally written in Odia, the language spoken in the eastern Indian province of Odisha, the stories span a period of more than a century—a period that witnessed the rise of the Indian independence movement, the expansion of education, and the demise of the British Raj, as well as the partition of India and Pakistan, persistent conflicts between Hindus and Muslims, and, more recently, the growth of regionalism and the impact of economic liberalization. Amidst the political and social upheavals of modernity, one constant has been an ongoing struggle to reconcile old and new, to arrive at some sort of integration, however uneasy, between customs and attitudes grounded in tradition and ideas and ways of life imported from the West. These stories, written by women who are natives of Odisha, depict a world that, while continually in transformation, remains almost stub- bornly familiar. Detailed in the stories are perennial themes in women’s lives—loving yet conflicted relationships; the difficulties and rewards inherent in the roles of mother, daughter, sister, and wife; the yearning for personal fulfillment and an independent life; the challenges of growing ix doi:10.15215/aupress/9781771991674.01 Introduction old. But we also find poverty, religious intolerance, lawlessness, instab- ility, and injustice. The characters in these stories must find their way in a world badly disfigured by human callousness and cruelty—quiet, cold-blooded indifference, as well as the hatred and violence that rob people of their dignity. Perhaps more than anything, what distinguishes these stories is their insistent honesty, their refusal to look the other way. The Odia Short Story: A New Medium of Expression The opening story in this collection—Reba Ray’s “Sanyasi” (“The Men- dicant”)—was the first Odia short story written by a woman to appear in print. “Sanyasi” was published in 1899 in the recently founded literary journal Utkal Sahitya, roughly a year after the publication of Fakir Mohan Senapati’s “Rebati,” generally regarded as the first short story ever written in the Odia language.1 While very different, these two early stories both explore the theme of vulnerability within the dynamics of family and culture. “Rebati” tells the story of a young girl’s pursuit of learning, at a time when formal education was a male prerogative. When a series of calamities subsequently destroys her family, Rebati’s illiterate grandmother turns on her, blaming her for the ill winds of fortune. But if Senapati’s adolescent heroine is shown to be vulnerable to the oppres- sive weight of tradition, Ray’s male protagonist, Shiva Prasad, stands in no more enviable a position. Ray’s story dramatizes her hero’s inability, as a dutifully submissive son, to protect his young bride from his own vicious, domineering mother. In the end, after losing his newborn child and then his wife, he flees his home and becomes a wandering mendicant—a sanyasi. Ray published her short stories in a range of journals, later collecting them in a volume titled Shakuntala (1904). She also left an impressive body of poems, the most notable of which were anthologized in 1903 in Anjali (Offerings). This literary pioneer founded and edited Asha, a women’s magazine, as well as the literary journal Prabhata, regularly pen- ning essays on social issues for both. The spirit of rebellion is embedded in the names of these publications—Asha means “hope,” while Prabhata means “morning” or “daybreak.” In 1905, Ray founded the Model Girls’ High School in Cuttack (then the capital city of Odisha), the first school to provide high school education to girls in Odisha. Her writings reveal x doi:10.15215/aupress/9781771991674.01 Introduction a deep interest in women’s issues, as well as other concerns of the day, including harmony among different religious sects, personal integrity, spiritual growth, and nationalism.

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