The century- old graveyard place and erstwhile workplace of Odisha’s great poet Sudra Muni Sarala Das at Kalinaga village in the Tirtol area in Jagatsinghpur district are languishing in dire negligence and stand uncared for.
The late poet is remembered on the Magha Saptami on the Odia almanac. The day is observed as holy death anniversary of the poet. The Odisha Sahitya Academy in collaboration with Adikabi Sanskrutika Parishad and a few local socio cultural organisations observed the anniversary last month. Several events, including meeting, discourse, essay, debate, music, dance and drawing competitions among students, were held.
Meanwhile, it is to be noted that the poet’s erstwhile house lies in ruins, while the memorial house built in the year 1963 at Kalinaga village with a library suffers mismanagement and is now on verge of closure. No statue has been installed to mark the remembrance of Das either at his birth place or poet’s graveyard at Tentulipada village.
Due to lack of proper repairing and maintenance, a memorial hall built at the Samadhipitha is now on the verge of collapse. Neither the State Culture department nor the local people’s representatives is bothered about these incongruities, reports said.
Thanks to sheer callousness on the part of leaders from Jagatsinghpur district, who never cared for facilitating the poet’s birth place to be accorded as tourist spot, setting up a library, statue and memorial hall, these longstanding demands of local people still remain neglected.
The Kalinaga village where the great poet was born in 15th century has no good roads for easy communication. Besides, encroachment of roads has blocked the way to the ancestral house of the poet. A library built in the name of the great poet at his birth place was ravaged in Super Cyclone 1999 and the building is yet to be renovated.
The Sarala Das Memorial hall at late poet’s graveyard in Tentulipada has fallen into dilapidated condition. Significantly, one imaginary statue of Saral Das has been installed in the premises of the local Sarala Das Mahavidyalaya at Tirtol.
Notably in the year 1948, the then Odisha CM Dr Hare Krushna Mahtab had installed a memorial pillar in the name of the deceased poet. A memorial house and a statue proposed with financial support from MP and MlA local area development funds have not been materialized due to disagreements among locals and historians pertaining to site selection, property dispute, and row over great poet’s imaginary portrayal. Moreover, a proposal to produce a TV serial on Sarala Das has remained in cold store for long.
A few years ago, former MP Baisnaba Parida had inaugurated ‘Adikabi Bhawan’, a community hall built under MPlAD funds at Manigosaion Pitha. The locals demand immediate renovation of the community hall and announcing the graveyard place as a State tourist spot.
Historians opine that Saral Das’s Odia literatures were placed before the British ruler for according special identity to Odia language on the plea of creating a separate linguistic State in the mid-30s.