Manoj Das

 

In the passing away of Manoj Das, one of the finest bilingual writers of post-independence India, the nation has lost an original mind and creative voice in the world of literature, literary journalism, public culture and spirituality. Indeed, it would be hard to faithfully chronicle the diverse domains where Manoj Das excelled with equal ease and felicity. He acquired a magisterial stature in the course of more than six decades of active creative life. He was a novelist, short story writer, educator, editor, literary journalist, exponent of Indian culture and spirituality, a staunch believer in Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga and the future evolution of the human species. He was, most of all, a narrator and storyteller par excellence who belonged to, and reclaimed, the traditions of Panchatantra, the Jataka tales and Katha Sarita Sagar for contemporary needs. He saw no contradictions in creative self-expression in English and his mother tongue Odia, anchored to the rich repertoire of India’s bhasha traditions. He integrated the secular and spiritual traditions, the world of fantasy and realism through the magic prism of stories, legends and novels. For his creative writing, he chose essentially the form of the novel and short stories in English and Odia.