“Once upon a time there was a king named Dasrath… King Dasrath had…”, the earliest memories of Aja is of his booming voice telling me this story on several sultry summer afternoons, lying on the thin mattress laid on the ground in his room. Living very close to Ajaghara, which contrary to the feeling it invokes, was a “quarter” of the coalfields, made for an interesting and very involved childhood. Having lost Aai 25 years back, Aja was always the grandparent whom I was close to. As I write a memoir, and I choose not to call it an obituary, I have beside me a diary he gave me about four years back and from which I try to glimpse into his life.
The intitial memories of Aja draws a picture of a man who was devoted to his routine. He would cycle back from work in the afternoon, change, sit on his broad pidha for lunch (during which I would compare what he got to eat and what I did earlier), and take a short nap. He would wake up after an hour and cycle back to office. The timing, the ritual, the routine was fixed. The shirt and pant, and there were just a few of them, neatly ironed; the hair, impeccably brushed; the big cycle, never dirty. Sometimes, the image of the shelf (built in the wall) of his room flashes in my mind. Each item, a radio, Kayam Churn, the torch, everything was placed exactly where they were supposed to be. Aja loved discipline.
As Aja has written in his own words, his forefathers came from Kannauj in Rajasthan and were Kanyakubja Brahmins. They came to Odisha and settled in Puri. On invitation of Raja of Talcher Gadjat they moved to Talcher and settled in the village Ramachandrapur (now known as Kandhal). Aja’s paternal great grandfather Gobinda Praharaj was gifted rent free land in the said village for their sustenance by Maharaj Ramachandra Dev of Talcher. Gobinda Praharaj’s son, Trilochan Mishra was a sankskrit scholar and royal ambassador of Talcher. As an ambassador he visited Bamra state and was conferred the title of “Dakhinabarta” for his eloquence in Sanskrit by Raja Sri Basudev Sudhal Dev, KCIE. Aja’s maternal grandfather Balakrushna Mishra was a Minister of Estate at Pallahara. Aja was the 4th child of Rudra Mohan Mishra and Krushna Priya Mishra.
As a child I always saw that at Ajaghara there were always a lot of people. In fact the front tin shed room, where cycles and chappals, and sports equipment in a corner, and an almirah with books, later scooter rested at night was a meeting room of sorts. Every evening when I used to land at Ajaghara, there would be people huddled there. People who were largely labourers in coal mines. In mines that was underground, where pay was precariously low and threat to life astronomical; where mercy of the officer was an extension of the British Raj and where very few people would listen and help. And there was Aja, who would often be heard talking in the loudest voice, reprimanding, arguing; all of it to help those labourers fight for justice.
Constitutional law, industrial law, Mines Act were his interest areas. Since childhood I have seen these thick books in the cupboard, and Aja would read them, mark them with red, blue, purple, place bookmarks and make notes. Was he a lawyer? No. He was just interested and invested in them. So much so that the self-taught man went to courts and tribunals to fight for and gave relief to coal mine labourers. It is evident from his writing that he was very proud to head the team of trade unions that fought the pension case of workers under “National Coal development Corporation Rule” and won it in favor of the employees. Thousands of workers were benefited by the ruling who were granted pension under Coal Mines Provident Fund Act & Rules. Aja writes that he was inspired by famous trade union leader Dhuliswar Bastia of Rourkela, who established the Rourkela Mazdoor Sabha.
If something was integral to Aja, it was his love for reading. Newspapers would fall short for him. Since resources were limited, there used to be subscription of one Odia newspaper. He would then ask us to get the English newspaper from our house, another Odia newspaper from the neighbor, someone would bring another and Aja would read all of them. Regularly, each day, without fail. He rarely read fiction. Non-fiction was his genre. He did not pursue higher studies, for situation at home never permitted so, but the erudition he achieved merely be reading, and reading rich text, be it good quality editorials, legalese in thick labour law books or anything that came his way, was exemplary. Very few well-read people of his generation and of that place would be able to write sentences that were coherent and impeccable. And that reading was a habit he carried on much late into his life. Perhaps the loneliness, of not having Aai by his side, triggered him to read more. How ingrained this habit of reading was in him is reflected in the fact that much later when he made less sense of what he was reading, he would still read the newspaper and underline (which he had a habit of), but this time the whole of the page.
If he read so much, he also wrote. He wrote poems, of a very high caliber. He wrote opinion pieces. More than a hundred for the newspaper “Khabara”, which incidentally was started by his father-in-law, Sambadika Gourab Dibakar Mishra and was revived after decades of going out of print. His poems have been translated and published. He has recited his poems in a few Kabi Sammilanis. All of these make more eminent sense when seen with the backdrop of the fact that there never has been a rich intellectual environment at Talcher. Aja never had that network that would prop him up to a bigger scene. And yet he kept up this habit of writing until he lost interest in any of it, in all of it.
If he read and wrote so much, his commitment and belief in bettering the education environment of Talcher was rock solid. As office-bearer of “Odisha Coal Mines Labour Federation (Hind Mazdoor Sabha)” he contributed his might in establishing the engineering college at Sarang where 60% reservation for coalmine employees was fixed back then. Aja was active in establishing of Nehru Shatabdi Central Hospital and was an Executive Member of “Central Hospital Advisory Committee”. But clearly his indelible mark is in establishing the “Deulbera Colliery Model High School” (now a nodal high school) in 1962, a school that served as an oasis of education. Aja was, for a long time, Secretary of Deulbera Colliery M E School (Middle English if you are wondering) and was instrumental in getting it into government fold. Another school which we was involved in establishing was Saraswati Sishu Mandir in 1993.
Aja loved being a public persona. The fearlessness he carried, the adherence to truth, the socialism in belief, all of it brought him to organize and be part of important movements. As Aja writes his most memorable moment was organizing a meeting of the great Jayprakash Narayan and associating himself with Acharya Binoba Bhave who came to Talcher during the Bhoodan movement. The list of leaders whom he hosted, associated and worked with is a long one. Dr Harekrushna Mahtab, Biju Patnaik, Madhu Dandavate, Pramila Dandavate, Samarendra Kundu, Bhagabata Behera (who was instrumental in arranging George Fernandes escape on the eve of Emergency; and there is a Talcher link there), Kamala Sinha, Nandini Satpathy, Devendra Satpathy, Surendranath Dwivedy, the list is long. I think Aja would have loved to be in active politics, but again, he was too upright, too truthful, too outspoken and too honest for the role.
One can’t help but think that Aja deserved much more in life. For the passions he had, for the knowledge he possessed, for the acumen he showed, for the capabilities he displayed, in a fair world, Aja would have gone on to become a great lawyer specializing in constitutional law, or a political strategist advising the who’s who of Indian politics, or a writer of many anthologies of poems, or an op-ed writer sharing his views on television. Aja had a huge share of upheavals in his personal life. The struggle was a constant. That is a regret that would stay. But he perhaps believed in reincarnation, or so I hope for I have never found him to be deeply religious, and in that case, all the above would materialize in another life I hope.
There is a lot to learn from the life Aja led. For a self-made man, to provide for a big family of seven children and numerous relatives, to help the most downtrodden and faceless in the society, to associate actively with socialist movements, to keep the fire of reading and learning burning forever, to help build few major educational institutions in Talcher, to organize rallies and sports competitions and events, and all these at the face of grave challenges at home, with limited resources at disposal, without a conducive environment makes Aja’s resilience stand out. His accomplishments have been exemplary and grit enormous.
My Aja, Brahma Shankar Mishra was an institution. And he will be missed.
