Surendra Nath : The modern-day literary protagonist

Surendra Nath was born in the steel city of Rourkela, where his father was working in the SAIL steel plant. He did his primary education in D-Souza English Medium  School, Rourkela. On joining Sainik School, he set ambition to join the armed so as to serve this great nation India. In those formative years of schooling itself he was inclined towards reading and writing stories in   English. 

Soon after passing out he qualified to join the premier

[While graduating from NDA]

National Defence Academy at Pune. It is to be noted only those crème  de la crème academically topper students with physical fitness could only qualify to join this premier school. On passing out from the NDA he joined Indian Navy. He saw his share of action during the Sri Lankan crisis when he was in a ship that ferried, to and fro, the Indian Peace Keeping Forces(IPKF). Over the time, he rose to the rank of a Commander and altogether commanded a vessel loaded with missiles.

While his stint with Indian Navy he got the opportunity to travel across the globe. While cruising in the high-tide of the oceans, the crew didn’t get to read the newspaper. There were neither smart phones, laptops, Facebook or WhatsApp to dissipate the information. Surendra altogether started a news bulletin service in his ship itself. It got readership among the crew members of the ship. He use to gather the latest global news by tuning in to the local radio  stations where so   ever his ship was voyaging. He use to draft the text and typed them in paper and use to cyclostyle in the ship itself. It was called Ranvijay Flash. This news bulletin use to publish exciting anecdotes of the voyage, occasional interviews of crew members and humour in the lighter vein. Every morning Ranvijay Flash was looked forward by the crew members of the ship to read. 

Way back in the year 2000 he took voluntary retirement(VRS) from the Indian Navy and joined an international school in Dubai. There, Surendra Nath realised writing was his second calling and wrote many short stories and articles which were published in a few magazines. With the advent of internet he joined a couple of online writers’ forums. He was a subject to face criticism from the fellow writers online.

After a spell of seven-years in Dubai in the year 2007 he returned to India. By then he was already fifty. Without considering the age factor he took to serious writing. He thinks the skill of writing is a wisdom that can’t be either taught or learnt in any school, college or Universities. One who gets the grace of Ma Saraswati could only compose the stanzas of literature let whatever the language may it be. Over the the decade he wrote several short stories that were published in mixed anthologies by multiple authors.

[Surendra Nath Mohanty with Ruskin Bond]

[Surendra while addressing at KIIT's Children’s Literary Festival ]

In the year 2015 while working with KiiT International School, Bhubaneswar,  he released his first full-length  novel titled “Karna’s Alter Ego”. At Kiits he came in contact with Mr Ruskin Bond. Surendra started a national children’s magazine titled Kloud-9. Surendra  was the editor, while  Mr Bond was the chief editor of this magazine. In the year 2012 Surendra undertook a massive project to organise a National Level Children’s Literary Festival in KIIT, Bhubaneswar. In this mega festival students from across the country participated. It was a huge success and kept on celebrated every year until now. In these literary festivals, he came in close association with renowned authors like Mr Ruskin Bond, Mr Manoj Das and Mr Chandrahas Choudhury, all of whom were of great inspirations to him.

[Late President of India APJ Abdul Kalam could be seen along with Achyuta Samanta the founder of KIIT on the left and writer Surendra Nath on the backdrop]

Sometime during early 2016, he chanced upon a social media post in Facebook. It was about a person cladded in white dhoti and vest. That person was barefooted, but receiving fifth highest civilian Award i.e. Padma Shri award from the President of India. It was none other than Sambalpuri poet Haldhar Nag. Surendra got curious to know about him while looking at his awkward appearance.  

Soon afterwards, Surendra watched him being interviewed on the TV. While the host was questioning  in Oriya the guest Mr Haldhar Nag was answering in his mother tongue i.e. Sambalpuri dialect. It was evident none out there in the audience understood what the guest was speaking. Haldhar recited two of his Sambalpuri poems on the show. Intriguingly the host herself missed the depth of this man’s literature. It was then Surendra realised the poetic works of Haldhar Nag deserves to be read by a wider spectrum of audience. The dialect of western Odisha, in which he writes, is a different tongue even for the majority of Odias to understand. Surendra decided to translate Haldhar’s poems into English. 

In April that year, he visited Mr Nag in his village, Ghess in Bargarh district and sought his permission to translate his works. To his pleasant satisfaction, the poet promptly agreed. Thus, was born Kavyanjali in October 2016.

Surendra firmly believes poet Haldhar Nag is a wizard of

Sambalpuri literature. Due to the neglect of this language his poetic works have been ignored by the world. So Surendra has undertaken the noble job to  translate the poetic works of Haldhar Nag in to English so as it could be read and appraised by the world audience. Surendra undertook the voluntary job of translating Haldhar Nag’s poems. Under the series of Kavyanjali Surndra Nath is publishing the English translation of Haldhar Nag’s poetic works.

The first volume of Kavyanjali was released in October  2016. Now Surendra Nath got back with the second edition of Kavyanjali. While Volume-3 of Kavyanjali is on the midway. Surendra has completed the sequel to his earlier novel “Karna’s Alter Ego” which is scheduled to be published before the end of this year. Both his books are centred around Karna, his favourite character from the Hindu epic Mahabharata. But Surendra’s stories are not to be confused as mythological ones. They are set in the present-time context. Surendra Nath Mohanty is a modern-day literary protagonist who idolises Karna and is much as  like him.

You may please buy the two editions of Kavyanjali from Amazon from the following links: 

Buy Kavyanjali Volume-2

Buy Kavyanjali Volume-1

Book release of Kavyanjali-2 at Tapaswini the District Auditorium, Sambalpur

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