The luscious songs like the lullaby from his mother, the tinkling sounds from the wooden bells tied around the neck of the cattle, the rhythmic beat of Ghoda Naach and Chadheia Chadheiani performed on his village lane that he had heard while growing up in a nondescript villages have now fallen silent.
But he is busy putting his endeavour into making them pulsating on papers, tapes and wooden chips. His amazing ensemble entitled as ‘Mishrasaal’ abounds in his own creations embodied in his many publications, docu-films including a museum of miniature models of antique arts and crafts.
His monumental contributions to Odia language and literature are evident in his huge number of publications comprising creative works, critical writings and encyclopaedic collections of dying Odia proverbs of rare value and interest.
A kaleidoscopic personality, he is a curious amalgamation of a poet, a storyteller, a critic and a zestful chronicler of rustic life. A passionate collector of rare Odishan antique art and craft, Prof Ajaya Mishra is now also in a frenzy of creative activities in the afternoon of his life after superannuation from his profession of teaching.
In an interview to The Pioneer, Prof Mishra spoke to Sugyan Choudhury about the dwindling Odishan art and craft and beauty of rustic life in his ancestral house at Palli in Jagatsingpur.
How would you paint your pastime for breathing life into dwindling folk art of our State?
Excellence of art in its quintessential height is the other name of Utkal. Art and craft lies in the lifestyle of Odias which is abundantly discernible in an idyllic background and prairies of Odisha villages.
The folk art and folk culture are inextricably woven in the cultural fabric of our village life. It pains me most to notice the decline of interest in such folk art and craft in our cultural milieu and I am now striving hard to inspire the Gen next of Odisha in recreating and reshaping such a dying genre.
Would you share the wisdom you have gained from your intimate study of our folk culture?
Wisdom comes out of experience. My village was the cradle of my infancy, playground of my adolescence and pleasure garden of my youth. I have learnt to smile by gazing at the flowers and discovered eternity in grains of sands. The un-adorned lifestyle of the rustic folk served as an example to nurture and nourish me. The folk artists performing their arts like Daskathia, Pala, Jatra, Suango, Farce, cultural evenings, filled my heart with wonder and awe. Nothing was artificial. The spontaneity of village artists is to be found nowhere else in this time of digitalisation of modes of entertainment. I have attempted to share my experience and wisdom in classrooms, in seminars through power-point presentations to inculcate a spirit of our rich tradition in our young mass.
Can Odia Jatra be accorded the tag of literature when there is display of vulgarity here?
Jatra or open-air theatre is an ever-flowing folk art of our people. There are changes noticeable in it in consonance with the changing times. But Jatra has been regarded as a mass teacher in correcting, in amending and in modifying the way we live.
Obscenity is not in the scene of Jatra, but it lies in the eyes of the jaundiced viewers. Art is neither moral nor immoral; it is amoral. Hence, we cannot discard Jatra from our cultural soirees while it must be like a mass teacher unleashing awareness for a new social order.
Have you plans to preserve these items of art and craft at the time of high-tech society?
You see, it is a matter of concern that many appliances of yesteryears are going to remain either redundant, obsolete or incognito for the youths of our time and for generations of Odias yet unborn. Hence, I am trying to reshape and rebuild them in order to familiarise them with the Gen-next. So, my museum now abounds in Shagada (mini bullock cart), Khua (wooden churning handle) Sila and Shilapua (stone-grinder), binchana (hand palm leaf fan), palanquins, sabari and such other items.
Could you please tell us about your creations?
I have penned and published sixty-five books of poems, stories, criticisms, compilations of typical Odia idioms. Sahityara Sahira Tatwa, Rasa-Riti-Guna, Sahityika Matabad, Odia Sahityara Matabad, Odia Loka Sahitya and Loka Sanskruti are a few to name out of all that hold fascination for the readers.
