CEATIVITY! CRY! CRY!

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

I pride in my control over emotion. Now I feel it is a false pride, because my soul wants to cry. To cry would mean that I have no control over emotion. So if I agree with my soul to cry, my pride will collapse. I cannot bear with collapse of my pride. Therefore I will not cry.

Creativity! You cry; you therefore cry. Cry on my behalf. Cry on behalf of the fellows like me who are reluctant to cry in the public. Cry. You cry.

In fact, you should cry. You alone should cry. I love you and fellows like me too love you. But neither they nor I have made any sacrifice to love you. He made many a sacrifice. He sacrificed lucrative comforts in order only to be with you. I do not know if you know, but I know very seldom shall come a man like him who can make as much sacrifices for you as he did.

He topped Utkal University in English. Joined the fraternity of teachers. Left it. He joined Life Insurance Corporation as an administrative officer. Left it. He joined as an officer in State Bank of India. Left it.

He left jobs that generate comfort, that promise comfort, that increase comfort, that ensure comfort, that enhance comfort. Why? Why he left all these jobs one after another? Because, like the musk in the body of the deer makes him run after his own self in search of the musk un to the last, you Creativity, made him run after himself in search of you till he breathed his last.

He joined the profession of journalism, not as an employed journalist, but as a freelancer. He wanted to remain beyond the bounds of job lest job-charts restrict his love for you.

He did not go for reporting politics or industry though that allures many. He preferred reporting arts and culture. This is all for you, for the love for you, Creativity, for the love and commitment for you.

After him you won’t find a scribe who dreams for and brings out a journal on book review in a place where publishers do not update their catalogues! After him you won’t find a man in media who, in the present environment of Orissa, makes it possible for her artistic activities to have a nationwide constituency. You will miss your committed comrade forever.

So, Creativity, cry, you cry.

Cry for Bibhuti Mishra whom on November 29 the omnipotent emptiness has snatched away from you. Hence you cry.