Sunday Column: Characters & Colours

A doyen of Odia literature, Manoj Das left millions of his ardent admirers shattered as he left for his heavenly abode on April 27. A writer par excellence, Das, 87, was a winner of several…

On the 85th birth anniversary of well-known writer J.P. Das, I remember his short story ‘The Mantra’ and his carefully-conceived character Suhasini. Apparently, Suhasini might seem to be a…

With the 107th birth anniversary of eminent writer Gopinath Mohanty just round the corner (April 20), one of his less-discussed characters Kamala comes to mind. The character appeared in his…

 It was the birth anniversary of Jnanpith award winner Ashapurna Devi a couple of days ago (Jan 8).  Also, a Padmi Shri awardee in 1976 and a recipient of the prestigious Sahitya Akademi…

On the 190th birth anniversary of Savitribai Phule, celebrated as National Women’s Day, exemplary Odia writer Fakir Mohan Senapati’s Rebati comes to mind. Born on January 3, 1831, Savitribai…

Today is December 6 – the day on which Vladimir Nabakov finished writing his famous novel ‘Lolita’ in 1953. Little did he imagine his book would become so controversial and his character…

Feasting on fairy tales in my childhood, the one story that amazed me was the famous tale of the Beauty and the Beast. I remember an illustrated book which had the picture of a lion-head…

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been voted as the 2020 ‘Winner of Winners’ (Women’s prize for Fiction) a couple of days ago for her novel ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’. This took my imagination to one…

Some literary characters gain much more prominence than their creator. One such creation is Count Dracula (popularly referred to as ‘Dracula’) who was more influential than Irish author Bram…

Recently, I watched Ben Wheatley’s ‘Rebecca’ (2020) and my senses hovered to the famous line: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again”…this sentence often disturbs my equilibrium and…