She longs ever to live more in the blissful phantasmagoria of the other world. She gains a strange sensation and unalloyed beauty in living there. She subtly colours her fanciful creative texture and yearns to blend into it herself. She is Prof Pragyan Prabartika Dash of VN Autonomous College. Her passion is writing. She does not merely believe in the dull dispensations of a pedantic scholar delivering discourses to her students, but she is like a fallen angel ready to take her journey to eternity through the creative larva of her imagination. An admired figure amidst contemporary Odia fiction writers, Dash unfolds the strands of her narrative with such fresh delicacies and nuances in style that instantly hooks the audience by casting a magic spell on them. Her ensemble treasures more than a dozen thrilling novels now. She also often pens poetry and books on literary criticism.
In an interview to The Pioneer, Pragyan Prabartika spoke to Sugyan Choudhury about her creations and on her unending literary journey.
How do you describe the urge and anxiety that drive you to write novels?
My childhood was not an eventful one. Being the one and only of my parents, I grew up as a pampered child and made myself a home-bird. So, my free time was spent in perusing books of all genres. Children books like ‘Chanda Mama’, ‘Minabazar’, ‘Manapabana’ were regularly coming to my home. In Class-VI, I got two story books by the great fiction writer Manoj Das as a prize in a certain competition, after reading which my outlook towards literature completely changed. I realised that nothing else but literary resonance is what my inner self earnestly desires to be drenched with. It connected me with the collective consciousness, the Life Divine. Sometimes, I dreamed that his characters were talking to me. Then, I started to scribble on the papers. I began with composing poetry and, unbeknownst, I switched over to narrative art later.
What are the trends and nuances that you think you are putting on to the art of writing? How do you paint the canvas before and after the plot is pictured?
My fictions are mostly inspired by personal experiences, the people I meet in my life and the events happening all around me. My characters come to me willy-nilly, choose their roles on their own. I only serve as a medium in this metaphysical process. I mostly choose post-modern lifestyles, complexities in relationships and love as the themes for my fictions. I believe in parallel worlds. I believe we could live more in other world which envelops us now and then! When I was doing my PhD on Magical Realism in the fictions of Manoj Das, this realisation dawned on me.
The concept of love is found to be wearing a strange and exotic sari in your lyrical compositions. How do you like to explain it?
My poetic strains carry personal feelings like love, anger, desolation and rebellion that surge inside me. Moon, night, sea and rain occur often as circular motifs in my poems. Yes, I'm very much romantic in crafting them; yet sometimes, they tend to get highly philosophical. Out of my 27 books, I have just three compilations of poetry.
You have also written reference books and literary criticism. How do you negotiate between different genres within schedule of your creative world?
Before being a writer, I'm a reader first. And whenever I go through a good book, I can't check myself from critically evaluating it. Encouragement to critics is not satisfactory in Odia literary scenario. Still, I think it my duty to probe into the different dimensions of a good piece of work is made up of. It can ward off the biases and prejudices ensnaring our creative practices, I believe. And, reference books! Yes, I write them for students of literature. I want to share my knowledge with them.
What, in your opinion, our literary creations lack that hold back them from attracting the global readers?
It's the narrow vision with which we daub our creative landscape that holds no fascination to the global audience. The point of view with which we look around matters the most. From my reading of the classics and the bestsellers in Spanish, African or American literary tradition and practices, I learn that every time they bring out something, they step beyond the borders of the world of the visible truth and try to show us something strange but more real when seen from a three dimensional point of view. How amazing to experience four generations in a single novel like Hundred Years of Solitude! They dream, they make it happen too. But we capriciously call it imagination and right away discard it. Miracles abound in all around us, but we set out to search them in heaven. Being rooted is the need of the hour.
What will be your message to the gen next?
While evaluating books of some young writers, I realised that the role of moulding our literature is being rightly entrusted to the magnificent architects. Some of them possess extraordinary talents. Experiment is boldly being undertaken by many young writers today, but no such motivations like felicitations or awards are being given to them. I wish they always keep it in their minds that there are no short cuts to success; and they need to employ more hard work and dedication in order to be successful. The urge to be famous overnight may lead them along wrong roads, but having belief in them will settle them on the right path.
