Sambeet Dash

A pre teen Nilakantha Das shifted to the temple town of Puri, a place closest to his village for studying in Middle School. While staying in a CHHATRABAS or Student’s abode (also called Mess in the local lingo), it was essential to get a Brahmin cook, as the boarders won’t eat food cooked by cooks belonging to any caste other than Brahmin. Finding cooks was the easier part, but retaining them over a longer period of time was a constant challenge.

Luckily for them one cook stayed long enough to form a bond with the fellow boarders. Being a fellow SASANA BRAHMANA (from upper caste Brahmin dominated villages surrounding Puri), he was familiar with their needs and was never treated as a servant. A religious person, he religiously prepared frugal but freshly cooked hot meals for the residents befitting all occasions. The food was mostly Rice, Dal with boiled Eggplants (Brinjal) – interspersed with occasional fish, shrimp HALADI PANI (turmeric laced curry).

During exam nights he would wake them up early in the morning, the best time to study, motivating them to focus and never forgetting to keep tab on the errant students who would escape to watch JHULANA JATRA (Swing Festival of Radha and Krishna), a popular religious fair in the town. “Do well in academics, you will succeed. So and so is a HAKIMA (big officer) now, for he studied hard. You should emulate him” – he would read the riot act, yet never going overboard over the boarders.

But it was not in Nilakantha Das’s fate to become a HAKIMA. Destiny had other things in store for him. Soon he came in touch with Gopabandhu Das, a locally well known charismatic figure, later famous as UTKALA MANI or the Jewel of Odisha. Along with his other friend Acharya Harihara, they would often travel to Gopabandhu’s native village of SUANDO on the banks of river BHARGAVI to serve the local populace troubled by the recurring, frequent epidemics, especially the deadly, malignant Cholera.

One evening the friends were sitting on a CHAANHA (a carpet sewn from coconut leaves which is plentiful in that area) overlooking an incessant burning funeral pyres on the river bank at twilight hour extending into night. Cholera was taking its toll. The cremation grounds were busy with multiple dead bodies arriving one after another destined to get consigned to the flame. As they watched jackals fighting over half burnt cholera corpses, Pandit Nilakantha and friends promised to themselves – rather than going for government jobs, the most cherished for the young and educated ones, they should devote themselves to SAMAJ SEVA (Social service).

No disease was as devastating and scourge among the people, as the dreaded Cholera was. The dysentery causing disease would create havoc, frequent loose motions followed by quick dehydration, killing in hundreds, often wiping out entire villages in matter of weeks. Nilakantha Das has vividly described the cholera epidemics of the year 1899, just after the famous RATH YATRA (Chariot festival) in Puri. Hundreds of dead bodies were strewn around the famous BADA DANDA (Broadway), the lifeline of Puri town connecting the temple.

No one would ever dare to get close to the gruesome BAADI MADA (the cholera carcasses) rotting on the road. The few HADIs or untouchables enlisted to clean would carry them out on carts and dump them after digging mass graves on sallow, sandy soil close to the sea. It was a common sight to see few of those left for dead struggling to crawl out of the pits, begging for water as every passersby would avoid them – lest they earn the wrath of BAADI THAKURANI, the Goddess of Cholera and be her next victim.

Young Nilakantha’s School was closed for 15 days due to the cholera epidemic. With nowhere to go, he started walking on the Jagannath SADAK – the Highway towards his native village of Sri Ramachandrapur. The road of 6 miles was full of dead bodies, he counted 39 of them. The stench was unbearable. He saw a group of snarling jackals vying for a corpse, scavenging from whatever meat left on the body already turned white from dehydration. This unforgettable scene was ghastly enough to leave him with a lasting memory.

Cholera was not the only epidemic of the time. The Calcutta – Puri train service was established in the year 1901. It brought many new things to Puri along with hordes of pilgrims, improving its economy. Along came a new disease in the form of Malaria, brought by the new arrivals from Bengal.

This hitherto unheard disease soon started spreading its tentacles in the city via female Anopheles mosquitoes. Nilakantha Das had its share, as he had a bout of Malaria and became extremely weak, but survived as destiny had more things in store for him.

TO CONTINUE…

(This is the 2nd in the series of recapitulation in the writer’s own words portions of Pandit Nilakantha Das’s Odia biography.)

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