TheDaak review

Paraja by Gopinath Mohanty, translated by Bikram K. Das, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997, 384 pages, ISBN: 9780195623918, Rs. 545

By Tahseen Fatima

“When there was no poison in the fresh air,

But only faith;

And no mosquitoes drank our blood,

And there were no snakes to bite our heels;

When there were no paths in the jungle for the outsider,

Jhodia shoulders carried no burdens except their own.

And when it was time to die,

They laid themselves down on land which they,

And not the outsider, possessed.

And in this land of hills and valleys, the earth belonged to the Jhodia,

And to nobody else” 

Mohanty, 1987, p. 94

Gopinath Mohanty’s Odiya novel Paraja and its English translation by Bikram K. Das is an ode to the Paraja tribe living in the hamlets across the Eastern Ghats, the roads that link to the towns of Koraput and Rayagada. The above song from the book contains within itself a vivid description of the tragic lives lived by the tribal communities. It describes their life amidst nature, hills, and valleys before outsiders, what Mohanty calls mosquitoes and snakes, launched an invasion to ‘drink their blood’ and ‘bite their heels’. Such an invasion brings death, destruction, and loss to the community that had stood the test of time. Paraja, written in 1945, is the tale of a family living their daily mundane lives with contentment and hope towards a better future. This hope gets attacked by the outside world as laws, and state administrators forcefully separate its inhabitants from nature. This separation does not make any sense to the people who have always lived in the jungles and considered its produce to be their own. This forced estrangement of humans from their natural surroundings gives us a glimpse of the upcoming destruction that would change forever the simple lives of a tribal family consisting of a patriarch and his four young children. 

Bikram K. Das notes that Gopinath Mohanty had spent a lifetime trying to understand the lives of the tribal communities living in the mountains and the forests. He belonged to a generation of writers to whom social commitment came naturally. Mohanty has told stories of the tribal communities through a variety of novels, among which Paraja stands as a testament that feels entirely contemporary. Mohanty was awarded the Jnanpith Award in 1974 and it was stated that “in Mohanty’s hands, the social is lifted to the level of the metaphysical” (Das, 1987, p. vi). Paraja transcends the boundaries of a fictional novel with its deep realist symbolism and tragic pessimism. The story begins with a description of the lush forests housing happy populations, singing and dancing in their age-old folk traditions. Soon this would become a tragic memory, not just in the story but also in the lives of many such tribal communities living in the vast expanse. “The blissful innocence of the tribal existence cannot endure: it is foredoomed” (p. vii).

Paraja consists of one hundred and fourteen chapters that take us to the hamlets of the eastern ghats and make us witness the rapid changes brought into the lives of a slow-living community. The conflict over ‘Jal-Jungle-Jameen’ between the actual inhabitants and the modern state apparatus leads us to the tragic end of the easy, peaceful, communitarian lives of the tribal folks, which underlines the backdrop of the story. The story revolves around Sukru Jani, who lives in the hamlet of Sarsupadar along with his two sons, Mandia and Tikra, and two daughters, Jilli and Billi. Sukru’s wife, Sombari was taken away by a man-eating tiger three years ago. He misses his wife, but as Das remarks, he finds the event comprehensible as it was a part of their lives. 

“What he cannot comprehend, however, is the infinitely convoluted process by which he and his children are transformed from free men into gotis or serfs, bound to the sahukar (moneylender) forever. He cannot comprehend why a man should be arrested and fined for cutting down trees in the jungle” (p. vii).

Sukru Jani is happy with his life and has envisioned a big and fulfilling future, with his sons and grandsons living and cultivating across the vast fields. This vision leads him to the forest guard to ask for his oral permission to cut down the jungle trees in order to convert the land into an agricultural plot where his sons could make their little huts. While the forest guard allows him to do so, he has sinister gains in his mind. The guard desires Jilli, Jani’s elder daughter, and wants to have her against their will. The guard cannot take their refusal and considers it to be disrespectful. He returns to the village with the state machinery and accuses Sukru Jani of illegally felling the trees of a preserved forest. The members of the tribal community have always been scared of the outside world and its laws and have lived under a constant threat of being accused of things that they do not even know. One can easily feel the loss of community and solidarity that has developed with this outside interference. When Sukru is accused, no other member of the community comes forward to bear witness to his innocence and the sly play of the guard. The family is fined “four score rupees” (Mohanty, 1987, p. 36), which marks the beginning of their slow destruction. 

Sukru, along with his younger son, Tikra, leaves for the sahukar’s house to convert themselves into gotis who shall work for the lord to arrange the fine amount. The sahukar represents the existence of exploitative feudal relations, where the time for which the father and the son are bound to him remains undetermined. In the due course of time, Mandia is accused of illegally distilling liquor without a license. He too gets a fine of fifty rupees. All these laws and concepts of illegality make no sense to a community that has always lived off natural produce. Liquor is a very important dietary substance in the lives of tribal populations who have to toil in difficult terrains. Liquor enables them to quench their hunger and tiredness and enables them to work. The accusation leads Mandia to the sahukar who is soon transformed into a goti as well. These men are forced to divorce their pristine ways of living their daily lives and are separated from their families and land. Sukru gets a chance to return to the village during the harvest festival, and the readers get a glimpse of sadness in the atmosphere surrounding the festivities. It is during this time that Mandia and Jilli’s prospective partners decide to ditch them and instead get married to each other. The loss of love, friendship, and companionship further pains the already disheartened and disturbed siblings. 

Jilli and Billi are left alone in their home and are unable to sustain themselves for a long time. They have to take up the work of migrant labourers and shift out of their village. While the newness of their surroundings fancies them, soon they realise their physical and sexual exploitation in the labour camps. They grow sad and lonelier day by day as they miss their life back in the jungles where women would assemble at the pond to bathe, talk, and fetch water. They sense alienation and a loss of their life and community in the outside world. While Sukru Jani mortgages his land to set himself free and gets back his daughters, he comes to understand that the landlord has no interest in returning his precious land. He initiates legal procedures against the lord but loses the battle as the villagers and magistrates are bribed against him and his case. In the meantime, a relationship develops between Jilli and the landlord much to her father’s dismay. After losing the case and his daughter to the landlord, Sukru Jani along with his sons decides to go to the lord and ask forgiveness as a last resort to bring an end to their miseries. The drama unfolds when Mandia loses his cool and raises his axe to bring down the sahukar’s head. The curtain drops with Jilli running away and the father and his sons surrendering at the local police station. 

Paraja is a story which shows that the entire ethos of a materialistic civilisation is based on encroaching upon and engulfing a primordial and elemental way of life. It is about the aboriginal tribes and their relationship with the nature that surrounds them. It reflects the harrowing changes that are experienced by marginalised communities. The story also provides interesting insights into several other themes. One notices that there exists absolute freedom experienced by the young folks to choose their partners and even run away, thus indicating their choice to get married. However, this choice is limited to people belonging to the same tribe. Sukru’s unhappiness is visible when he finds out about the developing relationship between Jilli and the sahukar. While the sahukar’s sinister plot cannot be forsaken in this understanding, a sense of patriarchal control over a woman’s sexual choice and agency looms large. Further, a sneering contempt for the dombs represents the hierarchies that exist even in these social settings. Sukru Jani’s dream of converting the forests into far and wide agricultural lands shows some form of insatiable greed that surrounds human beings. These intricacies prevent us from romanticising the jungle’s existence as absolutely egalitarian and give us a critical lens for understanding and situating the family’s lives.

Mohanty’s story writing has the capacity of transporting people to lands they have never visited. Paraja is a similar experience. The tone of the story makes one feel as if they are sitting beside the characters with red flowers in their hair, visiting the pond, plucking fresh produce, and cooking mango seed powder. One can sense the smells and the sounds of the village situated between the mountains. Mohanty showcases the ability to transform a story into a work of social awareness. The lives of certain communities are based upon the nature that surrounds them. Any attempt to distance their relationship is bound to bring death and destruction. The use of folk songs throughout the narrative brings a sense of calm and provides direction to the art of storytelling. Bikram K. Das states, “No translation can hope to capture the varied riches of Gopinath Mohanty’s Odiya prose, vigorously colloquial and forthright at one moment and sublimely effervescent and lyrical at the next” (Das, 1987, p. viii).