Few years back my reading was limited only to English books. Then I made a conscious choice of reading more in other languages. After reading some literary books in my mother tongue Odia, I wanted to explore more of genre literature.
When we talk about humour genre in Odia, the first name comes to mind is the writer Faturananda. There are wit and satire in the works of my favourite Odia writer Manoj Das too, but if one is looking for pure humour including slapstick variety then Faturananda is your man.
I had read his works when I was merely a child. I recently decided to read his works seriously and acquired a bulky collection of his works. It is a collection of 11 of his books. I started with the first book Heresa.
The first book is preceded by 3 insightful pieces.
1. Prasanga Krame (in this context)
This piece is an introduction on the life and works of Faturananda by Shri Vijayanand Singh. The piece is helpful to have a broad idea and analysis on Faturananada’s literary style and content.
2. Nija Samparkare Nije (“oneself writing about oneself” or in this context Faturananda writing about himself)
This is an excerpt from a book titled Charita O Atmacharita, edited by Dr. Kunjabihari Dash. I looked it up but there is no information on it in Internet.
Faturananada was born as Ramachandra Mishra in the year 1915 in a small village in the undivided Cuttack District of Odisha. He was born in an established family but gradually there was reversal of fortune with his family becoming poor. That was not the only reversal of fortune.
Faturananda has been always a brilliant student. He dabbled in many things since his school days. Then he joined medicine to become a doctor. But very soon he was diagnosed with leprosy and had to leave his education. One can only imagine what kind of prejudices and discrimination he must have went through as a leper in those days.
Because in this piece the writer has not dwelled on his misfortune a lot. He has used them only to depict the twists and turns his life took to make him the Odisha famous humour writer.
Just when he was starting to be established as a writer, he lost his vision and became completely blind. This twist also could not stop him. He worked around it to continue to make others laugh.
In this piece, Faturananda has written his journey from birth in a slice of life humour style has narrated his journey from birth.
I enjoyed reading this piece much more than any of the short stories in the book. Not only it gives lots of laugh also it paints a vivid picture of the contemporary society. The piece is insightful and inspiring.
This has made me want to read Faturananda’s autobiography (Mo Phutadangara Kahani).
3. Bhala Gapara Sangya (Definition of a good story)
Writer Faturananda has given 7 requirements for a story to become a good story in this piece written in 1988.
i) Entertaining
ii) Lucid language and simple presentation style
iii) The narration style should be indirect and subtle (not to tell directly but to show so that readers should be independently draw their inference)
iv) An well defined objective
v) Some kind of social responsibility
vi) Original idea
vii) Impactful beginning and ending
Interestingly, this book is dedicated to my favourite Odia writer Manoj Das.
Heresa is a collection of 24 short stories. I have given the premise and my personal view of each story briefly.
1. Ghanti Jharar
A man criticising a group of card players for wasting time ends of playing for a long time. The story is a satire about those people who never cease to show they are better than others. And in most of the time without any strong basis. It is easy to manipulate these narcissists.
Rate: Medium
2. Dhobei Phat
A rich man is manipulated to donate a piece of land for village school. It is fun to read the good natured con.
Rate: Medium
3. Bhundu
This is about confusion created by a highly placed British officer. He remembers some Odia lines and tells them to people randomly.
Rate: Medium
4. Guguri Pench
The premise of the story is about conning the conman.
Rate: Medium
5. Kodinda Nishaapa
A stranger in the village asks for the direction. This simple gesture leads to a huge fights among two political groups in that village. I find the narration of escalation natural and hilarious.
Rate: High
6. Kochata Shuntha
The greed for fish dishes is typical in coastal Odisha villages. This greed leads to some supposedly hilarious ending. But toilet comedy is not my cup of tea.
Rate: Low to medium
7. Kalikati Chenka
A con finally fails as one member of the con group gets angry with others.
Rate: Medium
8. Gabdal Khaasu
Odisha has always suffered from natural disaster. Some people suffer and some others use the situation for their profit. There is total confusion and lack of any system in distributing essentials and rehabilitation. The story is about a group of students who go to help and end up getting stranded in flood themselves. I loved the whole narration of tragi-comedy of aftermath of a natural disaster.
Rate: High
9. Kaadhumardan
A confusing tale about an undercover cop trying to catch drug trafficker. I did not know drug addiction and trafficking was an issue in 1950s and 60s too. This story is a reveal.
Rate: Low
10. Chopaachhadaa Atom
A hilarious take on how many Indian people reject our ancient science such as Yoga as hocus focus yet quite eagerly accept the same concept sold to them repackaged by the western world.
Rate: High
11. Chunguchungia Baankaa
A series of hilarious accidents happen to a college picnic troupe when their Man Friday turns out to be a slippery costumer.
Rate: High
12. Pochheiti
This whole story is toilet humour about toilet.
Rate: Low
13. Henkada Dhuna
A small time gangster is taught a lesson.
Rate: Medium
14. Jigar Chat
An interesting take on the freedom to take alcohol.
Rate: Low to medium
15. Olata Kilaa
Another story about conning. This is about the white collar crimes being committed in pre-liberalisation India taking advantage of all the restrictions imposed by the government. The cons mentioned in the story did not feel like real. Or might be I was not there so can’t imagine.
Rate: Medium
16. Maharga ru Kaantaara
A person has a simple ailment but it becomes a hot topic with everyone giving him different advices about treatment. As a topic of discussion, the simple ailment escalates even more when the person goes to Doctors. Absurd humour at its best.
Rate: High
17. Mandapaanchia
In those days watching a film in theatre was the ultimate and only luxurious “going out”. It was planned meticulously and anticipated highly. The story will take the reader back to those glory days of films. The plot is about misadventures of few friends planning on watching a film because of scheming and lies among the group.
Although the story takes me back to the forgotten era, the plot does not work for me.
Rate: Medium
18. Adina Raja
Raja means menstruation and also means a huge cultural festival of coastal Odisha, celebrating the menstruation of mother Earth. A special kind of sweet dish is prepared in Raja, called Raja Pitha. It is about efforts and cons of the men who wanted to eat Raja Pitha during some other time. It seems in those days it was not prepared in time other than Raja. Here the twist and ending do not work for me.
Rate: Medium
19. Mausumi Beusaa
This is about traders taking advantage of dirty politics.
Rate: Medium
20. Luhaaku Paani
This story draws picture of old time when single men in town used to eat regularly in small restaurants on monthly pay basis. These used to be called mess. In the story two poor young men struggle to pay in a mess owned by a powerful person.
Rate: Medium
21. Jahangir nka Halaapataa
This is about a vivid dream about justice in contemporary system. Mughal Emperor Jahangir was famous for his justice, using this writer has shown miscarriage of justice when powerful people assault young females.
Rate: High
22. Banyaa Saahaajya Paanthi
Once again about natural disaster Banyaa or flood. This story is about a group of people taking advantage of the situation collects donation.
Rate: Medium
23. Jautuka Nishaa Kaateni Oshada
Dowry system is one of the most heinous customs of India. This story is about this social evil, Jautuka or dowry. The story gives detail narration of the terrible experience of a father of the bride in looking for a groom and in the manner the father of groom behaves.
Rate: High
24. Abhalambara Chaalaka
This story is about funny adventure of a man looking for an extra extra special driver for his Rolls Royce.
Rate: High
MY TWO PENNIES
In his foreword of the book the writer has himself written his works are criticised by being branded as Kataki Sahitya. That means literature of undivided Cuttack district of Odisha. It used to be capital of Odisha along being the cultural centre. Historically it is most important area of Odisha. Most Odia literature works have used urban and rural areas of Cuttack or something like those areas. It is true, in as sense the problems and issues faced by the area is common to whole Odisha. But in another sense, this is not correct. Speaking from my experience, born and brought up in Western Odisha I could never relate to most of the Odia literature.
My late father and husband both have strong connection to Cuttack and both love Faturananda. I read him as a child because of my father and now rereading for my husband. But I am sad to confess I am unable to appreciate most part of his works. That Kataki Sahitya is a huge part of it. It is not only about the premise but about the language.
The writer uses colloquial phrases, slangs, and idioms, which are specific to Cuttack. I can’t understand most of those. His references are also too specific for me to understand. He uses lots of made up words and phrases too. To be very frank I could not distinguish between real and made up. The title of the book also seemed made up to me until my husband clarified Heresa means a cross between jobless and worthless.
When Faturananda started his writing character, humour in Odisha was centred around love affairs. He wanted to show that humour can be written using different premises. He stuck to his words till the end. Unfortunately, he took romance and woman characters are synonymous. There is absence of any woman character or woman experience in his works. I wish he had known woman characters too can be written in different premises other than romance.
There are some toilet humour here and there, which is completely unacceptable for me.
From the 1950s and 60s world has changed drastically. Some premise of the stories might feel completely alien to younger generation. On the other hand, older generation people would feel sweet nostalgia reading about the old times.
I write the reviews of Odia book in English so make my blogs more accessible and to create interest in Odia writers. But in case of Faturananda, the interest creation won’t help much as his works are untransable. His humour mostly comes from the unique words and phrases he uses. Then why still I am writing in English? I am not proficient in Odia script typing and also I am a big in laziness department.
Now that what does not work in this book for personally me, I will give the positive experiences.
The book takes me back to the time and places I had imagined in my mind hearing stories of my parents. It was a nostalgia mixed with the realisation about how tough many things were then.
Language is evolving. If we see English language then it is getting broader. Acquiring new words and old words getting new cultural political contexts. On the other hand, I feel Odia language is getting narrower. I was thinking new generations of Odia speakers are using less and less of Idioms and figure of speech. Also, Colloquialism and diversity within the language have gone.
When I was small my parents’ and grandparents’ generations used thousands of idioms, phrases, and couplets to express emotions or narrate situations. My mother-in-law tells me how there are special couplets to sing while crying for the new bride leaving her home. There are specific couplets for the bride’s female relatives. They cry while singing those.
In our generation use of these drastically reduced. Now the new generation is not even aware of most of these idioms, phrases etc. Heresa refreshed my memory of many of these instruments of Odia language I have not come across in years. These instruments elevate our narration. I hope we should actively try to preserve these instruments as part of Odia heritage.
I have absolutely not given up on the writer. As you can see from the ratings of individual stories, some stories I really loved. I am going to finish rest of the books in the collection and also as mentioned above I am definitely going to read his autobiography.
Musings 