New vs. Adhunik: Locating the Modern in Odia Literary Culture

A Fakir Mohan Senapati short story named ‘Aja Nati Katha’ (1915) treats the reader to a charming and light-hearted chat between a grandson and his maternal grandfather. The grandfather is miffed by a printed publication in what he thinks is a ‘government gazette’ whose veracity he is unable to check. On being told the printed write-up is a modern story, and, that it is published in Sahitya, which is a ‘literary periodical’ and not a government document, he is totally mystified. What follows is a long and lively dialogue between the two in which Ganapati takes it upon himself to introduce to the old man the new kid on the block called ‘sahitya’. Though not sacred like the ‘pothis’ and ‘puranas’ which the old man has grown up listening to all his life, this new writing is the fodder that print delivers in ever greater numbers for the delighted consumption of a newer generation. The old man is left profoundly shaken in the face of such an overture. The cheeky young man, and through him the author, have succeeded in making an eloquent and spirited plea for ‘adhunik Sahitya’.