‘Anita Agnihotri’s ‘Mahanadi’ : A mysterious anecdote of marginalized people’s lives in the Mahanadi basin’/ অনিতা অগ্নিহোত্রীর ‘মহানদী’ : মহানদী অববাহিকার প্রান্তিক জনজীবনের এক মরমী উপাখ্যান

Abstract

Anita Agnihotri’s recent book ‘Mahanadi’ is a popular novel. Although the novel Mahanadi is river-centric, it is also a novel of social realism ethos. Novelist Agnihotri is a wander lust-loving passion. To satisfy this thirst, she has traveled to various pilgrimage sites, rivers, mountains, dense forests and jungles in India, She has enriched her bag of experiences by traveling to various places in the country and abroad. She has repeatedly traveled along the 858 - kilometer long Mahanadi, from it source at the foot of the Sihaws mountain in Dhamtari district of Chhattisgarh to its mouth near Jagatsingpur in Cuttack district of Orisha, and has gained diverse experiences. In this regard, the writer Anita Agnihotri says— “For many years, I have traveled around the Mahanadi basin. Not continuously, but repeatedly, in isolation. I have been the companion of so many people’s families, I have sat at the invitation of so many houses. While resting on the side of the road, I have found lost folk songs and rural history.” (‘Amar katha’, page-9)

            Anita Agnihotri begins the novel ‘Mahanadi’ by describing the amazing beauty of the spring forest nature of the Mahanadi basin. But in ‘Mahanadi’ the story is not only about the river, the course of the river, the natural scenery of the mountains and dense forests on the banks of the river, But ultimately the story of the poor and marginal people of the Mahanadi basin. Admitting this, Anita says— “I have a bias towards marginal people…This story is ultimately not about the river, but about the people.” (‘Amar katha’, page-9)

             Anita Agnihotri’s has dedicated the novel ‘Mahanadi’ to the people of the Mahanadi basin. Therefore, it is natural that she will highlight the happiness and sorrow of the marginalized people of the vast area of the Mahanadi basin and their struggle for life. Due to the attraction of this Mahanadi and its water, farmers, weavers, artisans, tribal tribes, keot-dhivars, blacksmiths, sahu, nagarchi, misad, yadavs, satnami or barbers and other tribal and non-tribal communities have settled here. And the Mahanadi is inextricably linked to the lives and livelihood of all these classes of people. But since the construction of the Hirakuddha Dam or Reservoir in the Jamda coastal region near Sambalpur, the suffering of the poor and marginalized people of about two hundred villages have known no bounds. Due to the conspiracy of political leaders for personal interests and fake promises, the poor professions in the past, who were somehow surviving, have all disappeared. The addresses of many people suddenly changed. The pictures of the people who were uprooted from their own birthplace for the Dam, the people who were uprooted and displaced, who were traveling to an unknown destination with their hearts full of sorrow, have been described by Anita Agnihotri such human language that the reader is stunned while reading it.

             Moreover, storyteller Anita Agnihotri has created a card to connect us with her by providing a beautiful and relevant description of all the myths, folk-lore, customs, rituals, worship, folk-beliefs, superstitions, vow stories and folk-songs that are inextricably linked to the lives of ordinary marginalized people in the Mahanadi basin region.

          This is how writer Anita Agnihotri in her novel ‘Mahanadi’, tells the story of the continuous degradation of the marginalized lower-class communities living in various regions of the Mahanadi basin due to various reasons, there happiness and sorrow, disappointment, broken dreams, exploitation and deprivation. She portrays it in such touching language that the readers also feel sympathy and compassion for those communities.