The Painted Voice

Bipin Nayak is not confined to any country, clan or class. He is the primordial man ever contemporary in the flow of time. He has definitely inherited the guilt of man and trying to free himself of that inheritance he gets entangled in higher guilts of masked hypocrisy. The contemporary world of man is insufferable in every rational sense. Bipin Nayak realizes man’s irredeemable self in his poetic responses to life. He has no solution to offer to make life more earth worthy or the earth more man worthy. Hence, he enjoys tears, tastes it like ambrosia and swims in it hoping to reach the other shore. – Prafulla Kumar Mohanty. Author and Critic
This collection of poems is meant to be a companion for those quiet times when you seek solace, inspiration, or simply a break from the world. The themes are varied, touching on love, nature, impermanence of life and the intricate contours of human relationships. Each piece represents a moment, a feeling, or a thought that you have encountered along the journey of life. These exquisitely translated poems are not overly long, allowing you to dip into them at your leisure, perhaps finding a spark of connection in a brief moment of reflection. As you read along, you will surely find a poem that speaks directly to your heart, offering a sense of understanding and companionship. – K. K. Mohapatra, Author and TranslatorTranslation has been described as a process like ‘taking a water colour on paper landscape painting’, and the ‘copying it in oil on canvas’ so as to find the ‘same landscape’ but ‘different (in) everything else’. This exactly what Namita Laxmi Jagaddeb has accomplished in recreating Bipin Nayak’s Swarachitra (The Painted Voice) from the original Odia. She could hear the poet’s ‘voice’ very intently and recreated that voice in such a way that one can dub it equally original and authentic. Namita is an acclaimed translator who knows very well how to transform a text for the readers and writers to read it and enjoy it as an independent, literary work. She has left no stone unturned to interpret the sound, syntax and meaning of Swarachitra which has been held as a lively and exciting book of poems. – Bhagaban Jayasingh, Poet and Critic

Born on 25th July, 1950 at Bhimpur, a village in Chikiti Tahsil of Ganjam District, Odisha, BipinNayak has made his mark as a trendsetter in modern Odia poetry. After completing Post Graduation at Ravenshaw College, Cuttack, he entered into Odisha Education Service (College Branch) and served in different parts of the State as Prof. of Economics and superannuated in 2008 as the Head of the Post Graduate Department of Economics, Khallikote Autonomous College, Berhampur. He too served as the Dean and Professor of Economics in GIIT, Berhampur. He was also a Member of Odisha Sahitya Akademy for two terms being nominated by Govt. of Odisha. As an outstanding poet, he has to his credit, eight published collections of poetry namely; i. Padasabda, ii.Nair Naksa, iii. Pabanara Jhoti, iv. Banda Gharara Basna, v. Aluara Atmalipi, vi. Swarachitra, vii. Apustaka, viii.Yatrara Ketoti Pada. He has received the prestigious Odisha Sahitya Akademy Award for Swarachitra in 2014. Besides, he has won several coveted and prestigious awards which include “Bisuba Jhankar Purskar”, “Sarala Samman”, “Chandrabhaga Samman”, “Biraja Samman”, “Chetabani Sahitya Sansad Samman”, “Sachivalaya Lekhak Parishad Samman”, “Samman from Kalinga Sahitya Samaj”, “Swet Padma Samman”, “Adarsha Pathagar Samman”, “Samman from Phalgu Sahitya Samaj” and so on. He too has received the coveted award of Koraput Literary Festival from His Excellency, the Honourable Governor of Odisha.As a poet, Bipin Nayak is widely appreciated by his readers for his unique style and stance. Each of his poems leaves a disturbing and lingering shadow in the minds of the readers from which he doesn’t like to free himself. Magicality with music, brevity with immensity, boundless meaning through binding words are the hallmarks of his poetry. Bipin Nayak is so unique that readers very often trace him in his writing, even though writer’s name is not mentioned. Very surrealistic in style, he often plays his words breaking the binary opposition so as to express the unsayable often not amenable through words. It is for the future generations and scholars to find out his stance and semiotics, his postmodernist experiment and playfulness of words in Odia poetry. Mr. Nayak is a believer in artifacts of words than in the so called meaning and medium. For him, poetry is an aesthetic exploration through the fragile, fluid words that can be liberated from conventional canons and connotations.Besides being an outstanding poet, Prof. Nayak has penned some stories which are very distinct in style and content. Some of his stories like “Yasoda”, “Phula Tolibara Ketoti Sahaj Upaya”, “Jane Mahapurusanka Samparkare”, “Nai O Nachiketa”, etc are very offbeat and unconventional and widely appreciated by his readers.As a post modern scholar and essayist, he has written on the nature and character of post modernism, on the archaeological theory of knowledge as explained by Michel Foucault and on Bakhtin’s theory of addressivity in Odia. As a thinker, critic, lyricist and above all as an orator, he is widely acclaimed by his fans and detractors too. As a Prof. of Economics, he is also very much loved and respected by his students.

Dr. Namita Laxmi Jagaddeb is an accomplished academic, a bilingual poet and translator, a scholarly essayist and a committed social activist. She has her Master’s Degree, M. Phil and Ph. D in English from Berhampur University and PGCTE from CIEFL, now EFLU, Hyderabad. As a lecturer in English, she has been teaching at Mahima Degree College, Bijapali, Jharsuguda, Odisha. An author of exquisite poems on a variety of themes including womanhood, peace, nature, love and divinity, her poems are widely published in reputed journals and anthologies. She has three books of translation: a collection of poetry from Odia to English; a non-fiction from English to Odia and a fiction from Tamil to Odia. My Love, My Seasons, an English translation of Tapan Pattnaik’s Odia collection of poems Rutura Basnare has been published by Black Eagle Books, Dublin, OH, USA in 2019 and included at Columbus Metropolitan Library (US). Ame Sabu Naribadi Heba, an Odia rendering of African feminist writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi’s We Should All Be Feminists and Vaadivaasal Maidan, an Odia translation of Tami novelist C. S. Chellappa have been published by Anubad Sahitya Parishad, Bhubaneswar in 2022 and 2023 respectively. Further, Dr. Jagaddeb has edited three volumes of English poetry. The Intimate Whispers has been published by ESN Publications, Tamil Nadu in 2021 as part of World Book of Records, London. Post-Modern Voices, Vol-7 has been published by Earth vision Publication, Gurugaon (Haryana) in 2022. Rock Pebbles Anthology of Poems-2023 has been published by Rock Pebbles Publications (Odisha). She has presented highly valuable research papers in 25 national and international seminars and conferences in India and abroad. Her research articles have been published in several reputed peer-reviewed journals and anthologies.In recognition of her multifarious attainments, Dr. Jagaddeb has been honoured with many a precious national and international award including “Temirqazyq- the Best poet of the World, 2018”, “World Laureate in Literature, 2019”, “World Poetic Star, 2019” by WNWU, Kazakhstan; “Dr. Hannan Awwad Peace Award, 2019” by The Palestine Centre of International Pen; “Naji Namman Literary Prize, 2020”; “Byotkesh Tripathy Best Paper Award (Runners Up)” in ICPN 2019 by Berhampur University; “Bharat Ratna Indira Gandhi Gold Medal, 2018” and “Bharat Ratna Dr. Radhakrishnan Gold Medal, 2019” by GEPRA, Tamil Nadu; “India 100 Women Icon Award, 2021” by FOXCLUES and “Best Woman Academician, 2021” by ESN Publications, Tamil Nadu.