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Balasore, Jan. 6: Authorities of Fakir Mohan University are giving final touches to a heritage gallery established in the honour of internationally acclaimed poet Jayanta Mahapatra.
The gallery, which will be inaugurated on January 14, will exhibit the poet’s personal collection. He had volunteered to donate it four months ago to the Odisha Association of English Studies, north Odisha wing, Balasore. The collection includes his self-authored books, journals, articles, and some other books besides his awards and citations, a German typewriter, a camera and five cupboards.
“Since we do not have our own building, we approached the Fakir Mohan University authorities,” said the association’s secretary, Rabinarayan Dash.
Fakir Mohan vice-chancellor Kumarbar Das said that as soon as the members of the university’s syndicate approved a proposal for naming the gallery after the celebrated poet, the infrastructure within the library on the new campus was readied. The donated material has been transported from Mahapatra’s house in Cuttack to this town. It has now been kept in a room of the social science department.
It was Mahapatra’s close association with Balasore that prompted him to donate his collection to an institution here, said Subash Patra, a lecturer of Fakir Mohan College and member of the Odisha Association of English Studies.
“In his early days, he served in this college as a physics lecturer. That was in 1967. One of his English poems was published in a journal from England and since then he became an international name,” Patra said.
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