Dr. Sarojini Sahoo - A Contemporary Writer from Orissa

--By P. Neelakantha Achary, Staff Writer

"The world would be a lot of poorer without sexual energy in art, music, literature, drama, architecture, design, poetry and cooking", Dr. Sarojini Sahoo says in one of her posts on Sexuality and Spiritualism in Indian literature. In fact, few writers dare to write on such subjects, and she is one of them.

Dr. Sahoo needs no introduction to readers of contemporary Oriya literature. Sarojini has emerged as a writer crusading for the cause of feminism through various experimentation in her fiction. Most of her stories and novels tend to become no-holds-barred exploration into the feminist self of a feminine soul.

She is the daughter of Orissa and her work reflects the true image of feminism in the society. Her feminism is always linked with sexual politics of a woman. She denies patriarchy limits of sexual expression for a woman and identifies women's sexual liberation as the real motive behind the women's movement. She is the ray of hope for millions those aim to root out the gender difference from the society.

Let's have a look on her major work and achievements - A distinguished feminist writer, and former editor of Pallaba, a fiction oriented Oriya journal, she has been conferred with the Orissa Sahitya Academy Award, 1993, the Jhankar Award, 1992, the Bhubaneswar Book Fair Award and the Prajatantra Award.

Dr. Sarojini Sahoo was the first Oriya writer, whose novel has been translated and published from Bangladesh. Her novel 'Gambhiri Ghara' was a bestseller in Bangladesh when it published under the title of Mithya Gerosthali by Anupam Prakashani of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

She has published seven anthologies of short stories and five novels. The anthologies are: Sukhara Muhanmuh (1981), NijaGahirareNije (1989), Amrutara Pratikshare (1992), Chowkath (1994), Tarali Jauthiba Durga (1995), Deshantari (1999), and Dukha Apramita (2006). The novels are: Upanibesh (1998), Pratibandi (1999), Swapna Khojali Mane (2000) Mahajatra (2001) and Gambhiri Ghara (2006).

Born in a small town of Dhenkanal in Orissa (India), Sarojini has MA and Ph.D degrees in Oriya Literature and a Bachelor of Law degree from Utkal University. She now teaches at a Degree college in Belpahar, Jharsuguda in Orissa. She is the second daughter of Mr. Ishwar Chandra Sahoo and Mrs.(Late) Nalini Devi. She is married to Mr. Jagadish Mohanty, a veteran writer of Orissa and has a son and a daughter.

This would be more noteworthy to mention here that - Delhi Doordarshan, the National Channel of India has featured her life and creations in its special tele-serial "Literary Postcard". In politics, recently all political parties have promised to reserve 33% of legislative seats for women in their manifesto, but this has not been passed into law as the male-dominated parties oppose the bill, she briefed in an interview. The women issues would be on priority in India, if such writers pitch their thought to public through their writings. Hats off to this "Woman of Substance"!