Dasuram's Script

By Bhima Prusty

A tribal poet, charged with treason, creates a code language for Naxalites while in jail.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harper XXI
• Release date: Dec 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9789351362401

Bhima Prusty

Bhima Prusty teaches in a college in Jajpur and travels frequently to remote tribal areas. Existentialism and alienation are his forte. Prusty has ten volumes of stories and novels to his credit. He is a recipient of the Odisha Sahitya Akademi Award.

Book preview

Dasuram’s Script

Bhima Prusty

edited and translated from the Odia by

Mona lisa Jena

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dasuram’s Script

About the Author

Copyright

Dasuram’s Script

Ihad identified Dasuram of Guduripanka village. The slender, harmless, innocent-looking, smart singer-poet Dasuram.

At that time, I was going through a disastrous phase in my life. I was in love with a girl from our Party. A meeting was convened in the forest of Mandimera to discuss our love affair. According to Party’s rules, we had to wait another year if we were contemplating marriage. And, before that, I had to get myself sterilized.

Since I was to wed my beloved after a year, she was shifted across the border of Andhra Pradesh by a Party order so that we would not neglect our duties. I was removed from the guerrilla battalion and my guns were withdrawn. I was ordered to report on mass contact and the cultural affairs of the Gajapati and Rayagada districts.

Actually, one’s philosophy in life is shaped by another philosopher’s thoughts – for instance, Mao tse Tung. I had mugged his philosophy while I was working for the Party. ‘To combat the enemies, we have to equip ourselves with arms and become armed soldiers. But it is not enough to secure ourselves against our enemies like that. We have to have a cultural army to support us, too. That will fortify our attempts and strengthen our solidarity. Only then can we defeat our enemies.’ It was when I was in search of establishing that cultural connection in Guduripanka village that I met Dasuram.

I was in hiding in a Saura tribal’s hut for four or five days, deep within the thick forests of Adaba. I was planning my strategy – what to do and where to begin my job. Then a Party informer, Junus, came. That Kui had a dream that one day he would hold the gun and don the Party uniform. He was deeply involved in his work in the lower ranks of the Party hierarchy.

Junus was the first person to tell me about Dasuram Maleka. I had asked him, ‘What is he doing now?’

‘What will he do? He is from a poor family.