Bhubaneswar: Odisha is mourning the death of noted Odia poet and former bureaucrat Ramakanta Rath, who breathed his last at his Kharvel Nagar residence in Bhubaneswar in the early hours on Sunday.
Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi said Rath will always be remembered for his contribution to the Indian administrative service and to the world of literature. He was the former chief secretary of Odisha. His works earned him national recognition, including the Saraswati Samman and Sahitya Akademi Award.
Rath, a Padma Bhushan awardee, is survived by three daughters and a son.
The legendary poet’s final rites will be performed at Swargadwara, Puri, on Monday with full state honours.
The Poet-Bureaucrat
Born on December 13, 1934, in Cuttack, Rath was born to Loknath Mohapatra and Prabati Devi. He, however, was raised by his maternal grandfather Biswanath Rath, a Sanskrit teacher at Ravenshaw Collegiate School, who adopted him since he had no son.
Rath completed his master degree in English from the erstwhile Ravenshaw College and joined Indian Administrative Service in 1957. He spent the initial service period in hilly and tribal belts of Kalahandi and Phulbani.
He began writing poems in his college days. Those along with others which he wrote while in the administrative service took the shape of the first anthology of poems ‘Kete Dinara’ (Of Many Bygone Days), and was published in 1962.
His other literary works include ‘Sripalataka’, ‘Anek Kothari’, ‘Sandigdh Mrugaya’ ‘Saptama Rutu’, ‘Sachitra Andhaar’, ‘Simanta Basa’, ‘Pheri Chahinle’ and ‘Sabudina Sepakhe’. These uniquely blended prose and lyricism. The 1977 collection Saptama Ritu is considered a classic in Odia literature and won him the Kendriya Sahitya Akademi Award in 1978.
His magnum opus, ‘Sriradha’, won him the prestigious Saraswati Samman in 1992. One of the finest long poems in Indian literature, it delves into the spiritual and emotional complexities of Radha’s devotion to Krishna, using them as metaphors for love and human consciousness.
Rath was honoured with Sarala Award in 1984, the Bishuva Samman in 1990, and the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 2009. In recognition of his outstanding contribution to literature, he was conferred with the Padma Bhushan in 2006. He received ‘Atibadi Jagannath Das Samman’ for the year 2018 for his contribution to Odia literature.
His works, known for their philosophical depth and modernist sensibilities, explored human emotions, existential dilemmas, and Odisha’s cultural ethos. His romanticism and death were siamese twins, one inseparable from the other. It was he who wrote: ‘What Shall I Wear on the Day of my Death’.
He believed that a poet should not claim that it was he who created the poem. Instead a poem is created by situations and circumstances, which are not under his control.
Rath served as secretary to the Government of India and as the chief secretary to the Government of Odisha before retiring in 1992. He later worked as a consultant for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Guyana. Additionally, he served as vice-president of the Kendriya Sahitya Akademi and honorary chairman of the Odisha Maritime Academy.
Condolence Messages
