PAKHALA DIVASA
ପଖାଳ ଦିବସ
୨୦ ମାର୍ଚ୍ଚ ୨୦୧୮
Friends,
Namaskar.
Happy pakhala dibasa, if this sounds as an acceptable greeting. But how can I do this watching the youtube sent by Tapan in which Dabasis Mohapatra is singing 'Asa jIbana dhana pakhALa kansA' with a lot of emotion. Yet there the only people enjoying pakhALa are shown to be poor farm workers. And the rest are I suppose Babus who love to eat puri and chhole./ alu dum.. I wonder...
At the same I feel moved by remembering that Canada Chapter of OSA started with a PAKHALA party in 1971 summer. Everyone sat down on the floor with excitement even though there was a hilarious moment when someone asked for a spoon to eat.Then the excitement was perhaps more of a curiousity but today if we do it is more of a pride.
As I opened my mail today, there I found Prasanta Bhunya's poem - enticing and mouth watering, isn't it? Here comes Gagan's poem. PakhALa, oh, pakhALa, dhanya tuhi, oDiAra prANa.... Then am I eating pakhALa today ? Brrr, -2 C outside, sorry folks, I promise I will when the day becomes ' a tatalAkharA pakhALa' day. Well, I will have no choice. We will be then with our grand children who would be after ajA and Aee, " when are you having pakhAla ( can not pronounce this akhADuA 'L') ?‘
Manoj's reference to youtube in which Shyamamani Devi is singing the same one 'Asa jIbana...'. Also another by Bala Krushna Das. Well, who was the lyricist after all ? Does it matter and who cares ? Good that we know the names of singers - Debasis Mohapatra, oh well, eminent names like Balakrushna Das and Shyamamani Devi. Hey, I found out lyricist's name in Shyamamani's youtube. He is none other than Kabichandra Kali Charan Pattanayak. Have you paused a while ? Oh, he is the famous dramatist Kali Babu. Yes, Kali Babu, may be he is an eminent name in the history of Odia drama literature. I could not think Kali Babu wrote this 'pakhALa' song because no one tells his name nor in my limited knowledge of reading his dramas I came across this one. In my youngerr age, I have been often charmed by his beautiful lyrics in all his dramas. Here is one written in early forties in his daring social play "chumbana" against the taboo of time: rAi kare banaphaLa bhunjAe shyAmaku, shyAma die rAi mukhe prema chumbanaku - a magnificent display of bhASA, rasa o lALitya.
Friends, how often do we ask knowing the name of the lyricist of a popular song? Just a month back I was in a small musical get-together in our India community. I was most impressed when the singers were presenting songs of certain poets and lyricists like Neeraj, Sahir Ludhianvi , Javed Akhtar and Tagore.. ( Incidentally Indian music is highly enriched by invaluable contributions by Muslims). I was feeling embarrassed about the trend in Odia music gathering. Hardly anyone mentions lyricist's name except perhaps famous names like Upendra Bhanja, Kabisyrya Baladev Ratha, Gopalkrushna (may be if the singer feels like).
Just the other day I was going over the recent Utkarsa and my eyes fell upon the article: Akshaya - The Cult. Excellent article. Akshaya's story can be told and retold thousand times. He is a legend.
Akshyaya known to be 'Khoka Bhai" became a rising star during late fifties of last millennium by singing lyrics of 'Bulu Bhai'( Partha Sarathi Mohaptra) - mo ranglatA ruSichhi, bApa ghara Jiba boli goDa kADhi basichhi', 'nuA nuA dinA kete baDa Adara, nuAku puruNA hele tuTha pathara', 'Tap Tap ghoDA chAle...', and many many from Bulu Bhai's pen in Khoka Bhai's voice. The whole Odia music started an unheard of new and exciting revolution that the article in Utkarsa is describing. In those days, the pair Bulu Bhai -Khoka Bhai' became a pair of flowers in one stem. Bulu Bhai had an untimely death in 1976 at the age of 43 and the Odia music world did not give any indication of any loss feel the loss because soon Akshaya became an eminent lyricist by himself - that's another story, of course.
I would like to narrate another instance of neglect. Listening to 'ChhAnda' as produced by Odissi Research Centre, one can be lost as if in trance. The credit goes mainly to one person for creating that kind of music - Bhubaneswar Mishra. We all are very much aware of Guru Kelu Charan Mohapatra, but how many of us have attention to Bhubaneswar Babu ? Today's recreated Odissi dance owe enormously to both Kelu Babu and Bhubaneswar Babu. They were two flowers in the same stem as well.
There is another type of neglect by us, the OSA community and in general Odias in North America. The Odissi dance which we proudly display as our glorious cultural asset put its first footing in NA by the pioneering work of Ritha Devi in New York and Menaka Thakkar in Toronto. We, at least in OSA hardly have taken notice of them with significance and recognized their contributions.
We are continuously learning. Even simple appreciation of our music and dance is a recent phenomenon. Most of our cultural heritage was hidden in villages and the educated class was dismissing its ownership with the pretense of being elitists. Our learning process is moving us slowly, sometimes too slowly. Yet we are moving.
Sri Gopal Mohanty
Professor Emeritus
Mathematics and Statistics
McMaster University
Canada