India for the World

“Seeing the World” famed Dr. Mahapatra has come up with his second collection of poems “India for the World”, continuing his old trend but much mellowed, smoothened and vibrant. He continues the same trend – from local to global- from his native village on the bank of Subarnarekha, close to the sea, close to the village of world-famous writer Manoj Das, to Odisha and then to India, and finally to the world. A globe trotter, rooted in his soil looks at the world at large. He continues the trend of great Indian English poets, Ezekiel, Ramanujan and Odisha’ s Jayant Mohapatra, Bibhu Padhi and Niranjan Mohanty with a difference. His poems are comprehensible, poems of ideas and intellect with a purpose to change the world. He looks at everything with an objective distance but gets agitated within which gives way to his poems, otherwise all his poems would have been great essays. A cursory look at the content page shows how the titles are in fact titles of essays, be it ‘Global Democracy’, ‘Human Ingenuity’, ‘Growth Evenly Balanced’, ‘World a Family’, ‘Convergence: India’s Mission’, or ‘Ponds Still Relevant’, ‘India for the World’ (the title of the collection). Is it possible, one wonders, to convert these prose themes into poems? Dr. Mahapatra has made possible the impossible. What made him possible, the impossible? His mastery over words, playing with words, that come to him like ‘leaves to trees’. One word flowing into another, then another to another, preceded by flow of ideas following ‘Stream of Consciousness’.