Jayanta Mahapatra's Book Relationship Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Jayanta Mahapatra's Relationship
Is a Leaves of Grass in miniature
And here the Indian Walt Whitman
Is talking of his relationship
With the land of his birth,
Its nativity, striking of roots and the soil,
The historicity and ethos of it,
The myth and mysticism of the land,
The folk lore and the rhythms
Doing the rounds
Anthropologically, sociologically
The woes and wails of it
Seen in the repression or suppression
Of the womankind,
The superstitions and the mistaken beliefs,
The rock-built temples
And the faiths sustaining the people,
The lakes, rivers and forests,
The sea beaches and resorts,
The tortoises and crocodiles,
The mango orchards and black berries,
The sun-burnt earth of summer,
The dark daughters and the Shiva-lingam,
The sacred spots of Sati
And the lingam-yoni motif,
A poem of mythical structure and delving
It tells of Orissa and Orissan landscapes,
Oriya myths and culture,
Myth and mysticism
And historicity.