Sarojini Sahoo

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Sarojini Sahoo (Oriya: ସରୋଜିନୀ ସାହୁ ) (born 1956) is an Indian feminist writer who has received the Orissa Sahitya Academy Award, 1993, the Jhankar Award, 1992, the Bhubaneswar Book Fair Award and the Prajatantra Award.

Born in a small town of Dhenkanal in Orissa (India), Sarojini has MA and PhD degrees in Oriya Literature and a Bachelor of Law from Utkal University.

She now teaches at a degree college in Belpahar, Jharsuguda, Orissa.

She is the second daughter of Ishwar Chandra Sahoo and (late) Nalini Devi and is married to Jagadish Mohanty, a veteran writer of Orissa, and has a son and a daughter.[1]

Contents

[edit] Short stories

She has published nine anthologies of short stories.

Her other Oriya anthologies of short stories are:

  • Sukhara Muhanmuhin (1981)
  • NijaGahirareNije (1989)
  • Amrutara Pratikshare (1992)
  • Chowkath (1994)
  • Tarali Jauthiba Durga (1995)
  • Deshantari (1999)
  • Dukha Apramita (2006)
  • Sarojini Sahoo short stories (2006) (ISBN 81-89040-26-X

The most recent selected short stories were translated into English from Oriya and published by Grassroots (Kolkata).

  • Srujani Sarojini (2008)


She has been conferred with Orissa Sahitya Akademi Award and Bhubaneswar Book Fair award for her short stories collection Amrutara Pratikshare.

[edit] Novels

Seven novels are published so far:

  • Upanibesh (1998)
  • Pratibandi (1999)
  • Swapna Khojali Mane (2000)
  • Mahajatra (2001)
  • Gambhiri Ghara (2005)
  • Bishad Ishwari (2006)
  • "Pakshibasa" (2008)

Her novel Gambhiri Ghara proved to be a bestseller in Oriya literature. Her novels have gained a reputation for the frankness about sexuality and of feminist outlook.This novel has been translated in to Bengali(Bangladesh) under the title of "Mithya Gerosthali"(ISBN No :984 404 287-9) and has been published by Anupam prakashani, Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2007 .

[edit] Awards

She has been conferred with:

  • Orissa Sahitya Academy Award, 1993,
  • the Jhankar Award, 1992,
  • the Bhubaneswar Book Fair Award (1993), and
  • the Prajatantra Award (1981,1993),

[edit] Feminism

Sarojini Sahoo is a prime figure and trendsetter of feminism in contemporary Oriya literature. For her, feminism is not a "gender problem" or any confrontational attack on male hegemony. So, it is quite different from that of Virginia Woolf or Judith Butler. She accepts feminism as a total entity of femalehood which is completely separate from the man’s world. She writes with a greater consciousness of women bodies, which would create a more honest and appropriate style of openness, fragmentation and non-linearity..[2] . Her fictions always project a feminine sensibility from puberty to menopause. The feminine feelings like restrictions in adolescence, pregnancy, the fear factors like being raped or being condemned by society and the concept of a bad girl, etc, always have thematic exposure in her novels and short stories.

Her feminism is always linked with the sexual politics of a woman. She denies patriarchy limits of sexual expression for a woman and she identifies women's sexual liberation as the real motive behind the women's movement..[3] For her, orgasm is the body's natural call to feminist politics: if being a woman is this good, women must be worth something. Her novels like Upanibesh, Pratibandi and Gambhiri Ghara cover a myriad of areas from sexuality to philosophy, from the politics of the home to politics of the world.According to Linda Lowen , as an Indian feminist Sarojini has written extensively about the interior lives of women and how their burgeoning sexuality is seen as a threat to traditional patriarchal societies. Her novels and short stories treat women as sexual beings and probe culturally sensitive topics such as rape, abortion and menopause from a female perspective..[4]

[edit] Sexuality

Sexuality is something that can be related to a lot of other aspects of culture, tightly linked with an individual life, or into the evolution of a culture. Anyone’s class or ethnic or geographic identity could be closely associated to his/her sexuality, or any one’s sense of art or literature. Sexuality is not just an entity in itself. But still, either in west or in east, there is a reluctant outlook towards sexuality, and society has always tried to hide it from any open forum. The censorship on speech, and adding decorum to dress and declaring the sexual organs.

But neither the society, nor the legislature, even the judiciary, also do not stand by the side of sexuality to support it. In the West, James Joyce’s Ulysses or even Radclyffe Hall's Loneliness in the Well or Virginia Woolf’s Orlando are some examples which have to suffer a lot for describing sexuality in literature. In the west, sexuality in literature grew with feminism. Simone De Beauvoir in her book The Second Sex, first elaborately described the gender role and problem away from the biological differences. In Oriya literature, Sarojini is considered as a prime person to discuss sexuality in her fiction with a sincere effort to express her feminist ideas..[5]

The novel Upanibesh was the first attempt in Oriya Literature to focus the sexuality as a part of social revolt by any woman. .[6]

Medha, the protagonist of Sarojini’s novel, was a bohemian. In her pre-marital stage, she was thinking that it was boring to live with a man life-long. Perhaps she wanted a chain free life, where there would be only love, only sex and wouldn’t be any monotony. But she had to marry Bhaskar. Can Indian society imagine a lady with bohemianism?

In her novel Pratibandi,.[7] Sarojini has also described the thematic development of sexuality in a woman. Priyanka, the protagonist of the novel has to encounter the loneliness in the exile of Saragpali, a remote village of India. This lonliness develops into a sexual urge and soon Priyanka finds herself sexually attached with a former Member of Parliament. Though there is an age gap between them, his intelligence impresses her and she discovers a hidden archaeologist in him. Sarojini has painted successfully the difference of sensibility towards sexuality among male and female. Sarojini has her own credibility for the frankness to deals with the sensitive matters either it may be in politics or in sexuality. She has gained a reputation and has her own place in the history of Oriya fiction.

Her novel Gambhiri Ghara she describes an unusual relationship between two people, a Hindu house wife of India and a Muslim artist of Pakistan. It is a net oriented novel. A woman meets a very sexually experienced man. One day he asks if she had any such experience. The woman, Kuki, scolds him and insults him by calling him a caterpillar. She said without love lust is like hunger of a caterpillar. Gradually they become involved with love, lust and spiritually. That man considers her as his daughter, lover, mother, and above all these as a Goddess. They both madly love each other, through the internet and on the phone. They use obscene language; they kiss each other online. Kuki does not lead a happy conjugal life though she has a love marriage with Aniket. The novel is not limited to only a love story. It has a greater aspect. It deals with the relationship between State and individual..[8] Safique, who is not a Muslim by temperament, and as a historian, thinks the Pakistan of today has separated itself from its roots and looks towards Arabian legends for his history. He protests that the syllabus of history for the school would start from seventh century AD, not from the Mahenjodaro and Harappa. This broad Safique was once arrested after the bomb blast of London for allegation of being associated with the terrorist. But is it a true fact? Later Kuki came to know that Safiques is trapped by a military junta. The ex-lover of Tabassum had revenged on Safique by arresting him with an allegation of terrorism.

Here Sarojini deals with the question of terrorism .[9] There is often discussion about terrorism caused by an individual or by a group. Society rarely discusses terrorism caused by a state. What is a state? Is it a group of people that resides within a political and geographical boundaries? Are a state’s identity, mood and wishes separate from its ruler? Is the wish of George W. Bush not considered as the wish of America? Has it reflected the mood and wish of the people of America? So, every time, the state’s arranged anarchism or terrorism is merely a reflection of a terrorism caused by an individual. The great truth lies beneath Safique, as a terrorist develops from the mind of a military man.

Thus from sexuality to politics, Sarojini’s frank view always stir the readers..[10]

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Official web site, accessed 11 August 2007
  2. ^ [http://orissadiary.com/personality/writer/sarojinisahoo%20.asp access 8 may 2008
  3. ^ [The HarperCollins Book of Oriya Short Stories :ISBN 81-7223-312-4
  4. ^ Indian Feminist Author Sarojini Sahoo Explores Female Sexuality
  5. ^ [Oriya Women’s Writing :Paul St-Pierre and Ganeswar Mishra,Sateertha Publication,ISBN No :81-900749-0-3
  6. ^ [The Amari Gapa : Special Issue on Sarojini :May-July ,2006
  7. ^ [ISBN No :81-7411-253-7
  8. ^ [http://http://www.boloji.com/women/099.htm accessed 8 May 2008
  9. ^ [http://oriyanari.com/id21.html acessed 8 May 2008
  10. ^ [The Amari Gapa : Special Issue on Sarojini :May-July ,2006