The palpable transformations across the global arena in the aftermath of the cyber revolution and information technology explosion caused serious concern among aficionados of literature about its future. But their apprehensions appeared to be unfounded when literature withstood the onslaughts and emerged unruffled, being ensconced on a firm saddle. Literature, with its diverse genres, entertains and enlightens readers with new insights and perspectives on life, releasing them from the labyrinth of cares and anxieties, and infusing in them resilience and enthusiasm.

A creative writer observes the situations with his organic sensibility and shares his emotions and feelings passionately through objective correlatives. The writer, by the alembic of his imagination, creates an oasis in the desert of life, paints a rainbow amid the stormy tumult of society. The writer’s alchemy of creativity with the wizardry of images enthrals the readers, keeping them in a mesmerizing spell.

Against this backdrop, it is seen that translation occupies a paramount position in promoting literature on an international platform with a wider clientele. The poetry collection in Odia, “Kebala Premare” of the renowned Neo Romantic poet Dr Phani Mohanty, is translated into English as “Only in Love” by Dr Sonali Sahu. Dr Sahu has done a wonderful job in making an impeccable transfer of feelings, emotions, and thoughts of the veteran poet Dr Mohanty from the source language to the target language. I am sure she must have come across problems in finding substitutes for certain emotions, colloquial expressions, yet she has managed to overcome them by presenting the tone, tenor, and essence of feelings. Poetry in Indian languages contains certain features, such as verbal imageries, local myths, inflections, and colloquialisms, that prove to be a translator’s nightmare. Dr Sahu, with her maturity, expertise, and command over both languages, has successfully overcome the situation.

The veteran poet Dr Mohanty meticulously adheres to the poetic diction suggested by Wordsworth, always using ordinary, common, simple, and colloquial language really used by men in their day-to-day lives, for which he is widely hailed by the readers as a Neo-Romantic poet. Dr Mohanty’s poetic career spanning across five decades with more than six dozen poetry collections, numerous awards and accolades like Odisha Sahitya Akademi and Kendriya Sahitya Akademi have endeared him to the charmed circle of hordes of readers for his unique theme of love, longing, regret, passion, despair, and positive affirmation depicted with simple diction, colloquial language, and lucid expression flowing uninterruptedly from a weary heart stirred with the subtle nuances and vagaries of love.

In this Collection of poems, “Only in Love,” Dr Mohanty treats the concept of love as a pilgrimage of the human soul, an endless journey from the known to the unknown, from the physical to the metaphysical, from the real to the surreal, from the terrestrial to the ethereal, from the amorous to the philosophical and from the trivial to the sublime dimensions. The emotions, feelings, and passions in colloquial idioms unwaveringly flow like a stream where the heart understands perfectly, long before the mind attempts to decode it.

— Kamala Prasad Mahapatra