Golden Memories of Bishuba Milan

Manas Ranjan Mahapatra

We used to celebrate Bishuba Sankranti in a big way.Odisha has a lot of festivals and Bishuba or Pana Sankranti is a major one.Later ,when I became active in literature,I started going to Bishuba Milana at Prajatantra ,Cuttack.The other few people attending from Puri included Prof Rajkishore Ray,Kumar Mohanty,Harihar Mishra,Phani Mohanty ,Debadutta Samantsinhara,Chittaranjan Mishra .Later,Kamalakanta Lenka joined at SCS College ,Puri.He used to attend Prajatantra Bishuba Milan regularly.

Being inspired by Prajatantra Bishuba Milana ,Chitta Ranjan Mishra  ,Bijoy Pattanayak and Umakanta Mohanty with their other friends started a Bishuba Milana at Puri.We,the then young authors used to attend it .The idea of forming Sanibar Sahitya Sandhya came there in 1977.We started doing our own Bishuba Kabita Asara subsequently and it continued for years.Now it is stopped.It seems ,nobody has time now in that organisation for literature.

A few years back I met Bhartruhari Mahtab at Bhubaneswar Airport.My friend Manas Ranjan Samal was with me.He was to catch a flight to Kolkata and  we to Delhi.We had almost an hour time and so,we talked of many things including Prajatantra Bishuba Milana.Bhartruharibabu insisted that I should come that year to Bishuba Milana and chair the Poetry session.It was the month of January 2009 if I correctly recollect.

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More than two months passed since then.General Election was announced.Bhartruharibabu was busy.One day in the first week of April 2009,Saroj Ranjan Mohanty called me....'Manas,have you received  our letter ?'

'No Sarojbhai .', I replied.

‘Is it for Bishuba Milana /' I questioned.

'Yes,we wrote for your consent .Now our invitation card is to be printed...'He replied.

‘Why you need my consent,it was already discussed with Bhartruharibabu', I said.

Then I asked him for the detailed programme as planned by them and understood that they have invited me as a speaker with Dr Bhagaban jaisingh and somebody else to Chair the poetry session.I was happy that I will share dais with Bhagban Jaisingh who was teacher of my friends at Ravenshaw College, ,but was hurt that Bhartuharibabu did not keep his words.I was in a dilemma if to go or not .

But. Prajatantra's letter did not come in time  and I could not go due to this communication gap.I have not attended Bishuba Milana anywhere since then. I am retired now with no post retirement posting.Nobody salutes a setting sun !

Yesterday when Sampad Babu called me to invite to the Bishuba Milana at Kakatpur on 14th April,I fondly recollected how a boy of 15-16 used to travel by Puri Cuttack Shuttle without ticket,stayed in the house of Surendranath Nayak ,the then Secretary of South Eastern Railway Mens Congress( His wife Pramila Nayak was a writer for children and got the first award for children's literature from Odisha Sahitya Akademi),and to travel by City Bus from Badambadi to Chandnichowk to go to Bishuba Milana at Bihari Bagh Suraj Talkies way back in 1975.A city bus ticket was 10 paise those days.

Gone are the days.....Everything is lost in transit. This is a digital world where we post everything through WhatsApp and respond in waves of time…