Sachi Rautray Compilation

Poet Sachidananda Rautray was born on the 13th May 1916 (1913?) in the village Gurujang near Khordha. His father Prasanna Kumar Rautray was a lawyer. Sachidananda was adopted by the elder brother of his father in early childhood. He spent most of his working life in Calcutta (Kolkata) as the labour officer at the Kesoram Cotton Mills which brought him in close contact with the workers and their problems.

Active in writing for over 75 years, Sachi Rautray was considered to have brought in ultramodern style into Odia literature. At the same time he also touched the public sentiment deeply and was called the people’s poet. Revolutionary tone and content of his poems led to some of these being banned by the Bitish during the freedom struggle. Sachi Rautray’s poems also bear the stamp of intense socialism and this led Gopinath Mohanty to label these poems as thunder.

Sachi Rautray started writing at the age of 15 years, his first poem appearing in the children’s magazine Panchamruta in 1928 and has left behind over 40 books in Odia and English from his long creative life. He received Padmashree (1962), Sahitya Akademi award (1963), Sovietland Nehru award (1965) and Jnanpith award (1986).

In addition to the poems he strived to present the literary and cultural heritage of Odisha in the National and International fora. He was deeply troubled by the improprieties found in the Odia literary sphere and tried to raise his voice against it. For him life was a phase of waiting. He used to say, “what is lived is life, not what is acted.” He viewed man firstly as human, not animal nor god and maintained that one who does not see the humanness in man does not see anything.

The table below presents the writings of Sachidananda in digital form. Clicking on the images will open a preview of the work. The complete file can be opened/downloaded by clicking on the ‘Download’ link below the image.