I was just a young man in the early 2000s, navigating my MA in English, specializing in Indian English and Literary Theory at Ravenshaw College, Cuttack.
The place had a charm of its own—one that could make even the most mundane feel poetic. Ravenshaw’s red-bricked walls stood witness to countless students lost in literary thoughts, but for me, it wasn’t just about the classroom. My true education began in the hostel, particularly on those balmy summer evenings.

A group of us, English literature students, would gather in the open, the sky streaked with hues of orange and pink as the sun dipped.



We’d sit with cups of tea, our hearts brimming with the thoughts that had been stirred up by the day’s reading. We soon realized that talking wasn’t enough; we had to write. It wasn’t long before I, too, began penning my thoughts—at first, awkward, unrefined, but authentic. That’s how it all began for me. We experimented, wrote on everything that touched us—love, nature, society, and the occasional rebellion against the literary canon itself. I tried my hand at different forms and styles, playing with the meter and rhythm, seeking my own voice among the myriad inspirations.

But the greatest inspiration of all was Padma Shri Jayanta Mahapatra, the living legend of Indian English poetry, who also happened to be a Ravenshaw alumnus. He was a frequent visitor to our PG English department, and we were fortunate enough to interact with him several times. Meeting him was like watching poetry come to life. He wasn’t just a poet; he was a force, a quiet storm of ideas and imagery. We debated, discussed, and questioned—Jayanta Mahapatra had a way of making us feel like our voices mattered. His visits were moments of epiphany, solidifying our belief that literature wasn’t just something you studied, but something you lived and breathed.

Fast forward to 2008, post my studies, and I found myself at ESSPL, working as a designer. It was there that I met another towering figure of literature, Rabindra K. Swain, one of Odisha’s notable English poets and the Managing Editor of Chandrabhaga, a literary journal. He was soft-spoken, with a smile that made you feel immediately at ease. During our first meeting, we discussed Jayanta Mahapatra, his works, and the lack of initiatives by Odisha’s literary organizations to use digital medium.

Rabindra gifted me a set of books: Jayanta Mahapatra’s Random Descent, his own Susurrus in the Skull, and a copy of the latest Chandrabhaga journal. That gift wasn’t just a set of books; it was a key to a journey. Soon after, in the evening of January 25, 2009, I visited Jayanta Mahapatra’s house in Tinkonia Bagicha, Cuttack. The visit was surreal—a blend of awe and responsibility, as if I were about to take part in preserving a slice of history. And in that evening something incredible happened.While we were there, a telephone message was received by Jayanta Mahapatra that he had been awarded the Padma Shri, one of the most prestigious civilian honors in India. It felt like a personal victory, as though all our discussions and ideas had led to that moment of recognition. I had the privilege of recording an interview with him around the same time, using a simple Nokia N96 phone. The poet, ever humble, gave us full permission to document his words, his thoughts. That interview still holds a special place in my memory—it was the culmination of years of admiration and learning.

As a tribute to the poet, Rabindra and I went ahead with our plan to create a digital presence for Jayanta Mahapatra. We built and hosted a website, ensuring his works reached not just readers in India, but a global audience. Jayanta Mahapatra even gave us a handwritten permission to publish two of his seminal books in electronic format. It was an honor, but more than that, it was a responsibility—to ensure that future generations would know his words, not just from dusty books on forgotten shelves, but in a form accessible to all.

That phase of my life, from the poetic experiments in Ravenshaw’s hostel to working with literary giants like Jayanta Mahapatra and Rabindra Swain, was a defining one. It taught me that literature and technology, two seemingly disparate worlds, could come together to create something lasting, something impactful. And it all started with a few scribbles on a warm summer evening.