Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Tigiria, to the lap of which my mother had delivered me, was a beautiful place to live in.
It had tremendous contributions to culture and literature of Orissa. The scripture of warfare – Veera Sarvaswa – was authored here. The scripture of the dance form that is now known as Odissi Dance – Abhinaya Darpana Prakasha – was authored here.
Pandit Bhubaneswar Badapanda, Kabibara Arttabandhu Pattanayak, Prof. Jayakrushna Mishra, Prof. Devi Prasanna Pattanayak are some of the stars Tigiria has posted in the sky of Orissa’s literature.
Entirely humanitarian kings like Banamali Tunga Champatti Singh Mohapatra, revered sentinels like Jagabandhu Rautroy Pattanayak, Freedom fighters like Madhusudan Pattanayak had their birth in this splendid soil.
The world famous Khandua is Tigiria’s contribution to Sri Jagannatha as well as to Odissi Dance. A splendid land of glorious Buddhist past, in post-independence period it has gradually lost its mana to continuous misrule.
Deeply affected by her ruin, in a solitude when none but her was in my heart, that past had enticed me into in its magnificence, which, forms a part of my forthcoming book ‘Ketebele Kemiti’. I am sharing here.