Late Oriya author’s book unveiled in English

Late Oriya author’s book unveiled in English
Indian Express, Feb 8, 2010

An emotional Sunday evening at the India International Centre Annexe saw the launch of Call of the Village, the English translation of the late Bhubaneswar Behera’s 1993 Oriya book.

Behera, an engineer by training, was born in 1916 in Orissa’s Kalahandi. He went on to make significant contributions in the construction of the Hirakud Dam and many other irrigation projects before becoming an educationist of note.

The book, which won the prestigious Sarala Samman, was translated by his son Binoy Kumar Behera. As Behera says in the preface, it is the “story of the author’s life indirectly told”.

It was the same point that G K Das, former vice-chancellor of Utkal University, chose to dwell on while discussing the book post-release by Rajya Sabha member Kapila Vatsyayan.

Das compared Behera’s work to that of Nirad C Chaudhuri’s The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian.

Behera moved from Kashibehal village in the erstwhile princely state of Kalahandi to the district headquarters, state and national capitals before returning to live in the village post-retirement. He died there in 2001.


Das went on to say that the book captures the indescribable “culture of Orissa”. The cover picture of the book is that of Kashibehal where the author spent his last days, taken from the threshing floor where the author sat in the evenings watching the sun set.

“I first read the book in 1994, and it told me that I did not know the gentleman who was my father well enough,” recollected his son Binoy Kumar Behera. “I then wrote him a letter telling him that even though he was famous as an engineer and an educationist, I was proud of him as a great human being.”