The Ravenshavian.Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Feb. 2: A snapshot of Ravenshaw College football team of the 1930s, a blank verse by modern Odia poet Ramakanta Rath, and a nostalgic piece on Cuttack by the Mayadhar Mansingh. These are among some of the features that make the latest edition of The Ravenshavian, the annual magazine of Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, a collector’s item.

Published after a gap of almost three years, the magazine has a special section called Pachha Jharka or Rear Window in which these collectibles have found a place.

Former vice-chancellor of the university Devdas Chhotray, who himself was a student of Ravenshaw and has edited the magazine, said: “I was utterly dismayed to find that many old and torn books, pictures, rare journals, including previous issues of the college magazine, had been dumped in a corner in gunny sacks. The first thing that I did was scanning the old issues and uploading them on the university website. Now, just by a click, one can easily read hundreds of pages of the magazine dating back to the 1920s and 1930s, which has been a chrysalis for many major writers of the state.”

He said when Ravenshaw College was elevated to the status of a university in 2006, it underwent several changes, especially in terms of faculty members. “Therefore, the publication was discontinued for some time until one edition came out in 2009. Invited articles from former students, who have created a niche for themselves in contemporary Odia literature were featured. Therefore, we wanted the next issue to be even better — something that everyone would like to treasure,” he said.

The annual magazine has a brief mention of on-campus activities of the last decade. It starts with an “Invited” section in which eminent personalities, who were former students or had visited the university in the recent past, had contributed articles.

The first one is by Sam Pitroda, chairman of the National Commission for Innovation Council and advisor to the Prime Minister, who visited Ravenshaw University last year, has written on “Shifting Paradigms — Blueprint for a Knowledge Society”.

One can also find enlightening articles by writer Manoj Das, Odissi dancer Priyambada Mohanty Hejmadi, administrator Lakshmidhar Mishra and sociologist Andre Beteille.

The articles were evaluated by literary experts so that the standard of the magazine could be maintained, said associate editor of The Ravenshavian and reader in political science Netaji Abhinandan. “We wanted to make it more than a college magazine. We have published about 3,000 copies and they would be distributed among students, faculty members and eminent persons who have written for us,” he said.