If you lived in Puri in the 1990s and early 2000s it would be very unlikely that you never heard of a man called Nabakishore Pradhan (1972-2020). Unless one is a celebrity, to be widely known among people, whose age could be anywhere between 10 and 40, is a difficult feat to achieve. Fame works in mysterious ways in a place like Puri. You can effortlessly become famous here and emerge as a well-known public figure even before you realise it. But cross the Atharnala bridge and you are reduced to a non-entity with disconcerting suddenness. However, this should not tempt anyone to employ worn-out clichés like ‘local sensation’ patronizing outsiders might find useful. Before the global brutally devalued the local, Nabakishore Pradhan had brought young people together on big stages, given them liberating glimpses of thrill and glamour, and, more importantly, seeded their ambitions. He did all this with a nonchalant insouciance that was beyond any corporate executive. He flamboyantly embodied the warmth and energy of a vibrant vernacular world.
When he passed away on October 10, at age 48, after battling coronavirus, his friends and admirers on social media wrote moving obituaries sharing pictures taken with him. All of them said they had lost a brother, who had mentored and motivated them. The deeply felt sincerity of their grief shone through the shopworn phrases they repeated. To almost all of them, he was Nababhai. A local media which covered the news of his death called him an efficient organiser. But what exactly did he organise, one wonders? He hosted two major fests targeting the youth – Show Time and Glory Fest (co-organized with others). These events would be marked by a series of competitions climaxed with a gala evening with celebrity appearances and so on.
Today, one might take the seriousness of these events with a pinch of salt, given the frequency with which such shows are held. Social media enables youngsters to find a quick way of inviting and receiving attention. But before media went social, students from schools and colleges would eagerly wait for these annual events to happen. Not just students! Anxious parents who shaped their children’s career with cold ferocity would pester him with queries regarding the awards ceremony and their child’s prospects of winning these awards. Everyone hoped that their kid would be photographed with the ‘VIP’ guest while receiving the prizes on stage. The prize-giving ceremony, however, would often spill over to the next day since many would have left for their homes by the time their turns to appear on the dais came, and Nababhai would go to schools to do the honours during the lunch break. Kids would flock to him looking for their trophies and certificates. This man was always in a mess, trying to match the right stuff with the right name. Once I walked up to him, having received my trophy long before, to just say ‘hi’. Before he even saw me, his question was what award or certificate I was looking for. I reassured him that my problem had been sorted out neatly earlier. And this was true of almost all the events he organised– something would be out of place or the everything would be behind the schedule, and a bunch of young boys and girls from the organising team would be running helter-skelter, trying to put a semblance of order on things. But you didn’t mind because you were anyway away from school; the longer it took, the longer you stayed with your friends.
As if he hadn’t spotted enough talent already, Nabakishore Pradhan chose the playground at SCS College to hone the cricketing skills of young boys. For someone with his irrepressible zeal, what else could his team have been called but Winning Sporting Club? To those who took their cricket seriously, he might have been a hard taskmaster but, for onlookers, it was hilarious to observe his mannerisms on the field, his bawls and the stories he reeled off in his inimitably croaky voice. Dark, portly and restive, he could crack you up effortlessly without showing the slightest change of expression on his own face. In fact, those who remember him will agree on two things: One, that he was at his hilarious best when he was among young college boys. Two, he had a meagre stock of two songs (one Odia, one Hindi), which he would croon when asked to.
When he met you, he had a strange way of greeting you. He would start with, “Han, kana heichi?” (What is the matter with you?). As though something is the matter, and you are to tell him… My brother, who knew him very well, shared this anecdote with me when we reminisced about him. Once my brother was with a few of his friends chatting by the side of the road, and they spotted Nababhai riding a rickshaw. They greeted him using the same words that he would always use. Pat came the reply, “Don’t put that question to me, I am the one who is being taken on a rickshaw-ride, I should be asking after you guys”. On another occasion he waved at a young boy who was happily riding away on his bicycle, a cloth-bag slung across the handlebar. He asked him what he was up to and the boy said he had come to buy milk. Nababhai asked him in a tone of surprise, “You plan to carry the milk in that bag! How do you get your vegetables then? Stuff them in a bottle?” Unless you relished his devastating wit, you could only wish never to cross Nababhai’s path. But if you met him even once, you just could not get him out of your mind.
COVID 19 has cruelly taken away from us many who are so dear to us. With many dying, every individual is reduced to an anonymous statistic in official reports. When Nababhai died last Saturday, we lost more than what cold print told us we did. We lost an incredibly warm and lively human being. But more than that, a part of our childhood and early youth died with him. It felt as if a tiny but infinitely precious fragment of the Puri we knew so intimately, disappeared forever.
(The writer teaches English at North Orissa University, Keonjhar)
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