This year, thanks to my frequent travels, I have been able to read many books. Some good and some bad. This one is mediocre and I am not sure whether it is because it has been translated from Oriya and thus, has lost its original flavor or not.
The original title of the book is Desh Kaal Patra and the translation has been done by Jatindra K. Nayak.
The Introduction says that A Time Elsewhere seeks to present the history of modern-day Orissa (the British Occupied the territory in 1803)from the point-of-view of the colonized.
It starts with the death of the king of Puri, Birakeshari, in 1859. He is childless but before his death he adopts the son of the king of Khemandi, who is, of course, minor This son, Divyasingh Dev, inherits the throne but Queen Suryamani, wife of Birakeshari, rules on his behalf. The king of Puri is the head of the Puri Jagannath Temple and administrator of its affairs. Divyasingh Dev turns out to a be an unsavoury character who culminates his long career with a murder and is banished to the Andamans. His son, Mukund Dev, turns out to be like his father and thus, the affairs of the temple spiral out of control. Queen Suryamani, who observess the purdah, fights to retain the control of the temple affairs and succeeds with the help of the wily lawyer, Madhusudan Babu. Interspersed in this story is the 1866 famine of Orissa which the British handled by their inaction leading to death of one-third of the population.
I wish J.P. Das had stuck to this story.
Instead, as he tries to present a sweeping history of the state from 1859 to 1907 in a journal format, the story is lost in the multitude of the happenings. Topics and people are introduced and abandoned making it very difficult to keep track of what is happening. The blurb in the back says that in the book history and fiction come together but what I could gather (or probably has been translated) is the history of the state.
Of course, I got to know the leading poets and writers in Oriya and found that my brother does have a book by Fakir Mohan Senapati. Something to read when I get time.
The original title of the book is Desh Kaal Patra and the translation has been done by Jatindra K. Nayak.
The Introduction says that A Time Elsewhere seeks to present the history of modern-day Orissa (the British Occupied the territory in 1803)from the point-of-view of the colonized.
It starts with the death of the king of Puri, Birakeshari, in 1859. He is childless but before his death he adopts the son of the king of Khemandi, who is, of course, minor This son, Divyasingh Dev, inherits the throne but Queen Suryamani, wife of Birakeshari, rules on his behalf. The king of Puri is the head of the Puri Jagannath Temple and administrator of its affairs. Divyasingh Dev turns out to a be an unsavoury character who culminates his long career with a murder and is banished to the Andamans. His son, Mukund Dev, turns out to be like his father and thus, the affairs of the temple spiral out of control. Queen Suryamani, who observess the purdah, fights to retain the control of the temple affairs and succeeds with the help of the wily lawyer, Madhusudan Babu. Interspersed in this story is the 1866 famine of Orissa which the British handled by their inaction leading to death of one-third of the population.
I wish J.P. Das had stuck to this story.
Instead, as he tries to present a sweeping history of the state from 1859 to 1907 in a journal format, the story is lost in the multitude of the happenings. Topics and people are introduced and abandoned making it very difficult to keep track of what is happening. The blurb in the back says that in the book history and fiction come together but what I could gather (or probably has been translated) is the history of the state.
Of course, I got to know the leading poets and writers in Oriya and found that my brother does have a book by Fakir Mohan Senapati. Something to read when I get time.
