Jagannath Prasad Das, affectionately known to his friends and admirers as JP, was born in 1936, the year Odisha (then Orissa) became a separate province. It was the first province to be formed on the basis of language in British India. When JP was a schoolboy, India won independence from colonial rule. These two formative historic events exercised a significant influence in the shaping of JP’s sensibility and outlook. A sensibility marked by a deep affinity for Odia literature, both ancient and modern, seamlessly blended with a profound concern with a nation in the making, which was striving to leave a mark on the world. In almost all his essays, while making a point, JP would invoke examples by moving effortlessly from the local to the national and the global. His intense love for Odia literature and culture was not tainted by even the faintest trace of parochialism.J.P. Das. Photo: By arrangement.He received his early education in village Banapur, where his father Sridhar Das (1901–1988) taught at a school. A man of letters, Sridhar Das was a writer of children’s books, translator, lexicographer, and grammarian. Literary historian and scholar Binayak Mishra (1894–1971), was his friend and neighbour in Banapur. From early childhood, JP was thus exposed to a world of books and authors, and as a young boy he attempted to contact eminent writers and stay in touch with them. Once he showed me with a measure of pride the signature of renowned essayist Shashibhusan Ray (1876–1953), whom JP had met as a young student in Cuttack. After he himself became an established author, JP ceaselessly encouraged and mentored generations of young authors. For several years, under the auspices of The Poetry Society (India), he led workshops where young students were taught the art of writing poetry. Many of them went on to become well-known poets. Moreover, throughout his writing career, he translated into English the works of several young poets from Odisha and helped them gain wider visibility. He took special care to promote poetry written by women and Dalit authors and brought out several collections of their poems in translation. As a writer, JP displayed astonishing versatility; nearly all the fields of literature, from the historical novel to nonsense verse, absurd plays to art appreciation, and modern poetry to literary criticism, were enriched by JP’s brilliant inventiveness and playful imagination. His poetry earned him wide acclaim, among them the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1990 (which he did not accept) and the Saraswati Samman in 2006. Irony tempered by compassion is a defining feature of JP’s poetry. The ingenious use of understatement provided him with a powerful mode of illuminating aspects of the modern human condition. Take the following excerpts from his poem ‘Poetry’, a profound meditation on the poet’s relevance in the world, expressed in a deceptively light-hearted tone:People often ask aboutthe meaning of poetry –even they who won’t touchpoetry with a bargepole.But then no one bothers to askabout the meaning of Timeor the definition of Love,or about the purport of Life. It’s for sure, as someone said,that no one reads poetry –neither fishmonger nor chief minister,neither publisher nor professor… No one reads poetry,not even she for whom the poem was written.One might then saythat poetry is of no consequenceand has no relevance to life.That’s true.But then,come to think of it,what is life itselfbut a few obscure linesof some stray poem?The cover of JP’s first published book of poetry ‘Pratham Purush’ (1971), designed by master filmmaker Satyajit Ray.Although acknowledged as a major Indian poet, it is JP’s historical novel Desh Kaal Patra (1991), translated into English as A Time Elsewhere (Penguin, 2009), which has garnered immense readerly and critical appreciation. The novel evocatively dramatizes the transformative and disruptive changes that reshaped Odisha in the second half of the nineteenth century. Unlike other historical novels, which revolve around extraordinary individuals and momentous events, Desh Kaal Patra inventively assembles apparently disparate biographical fragments and incidents which eventually reveal shifting patterns of significance. As Jatindra Kumar Nayak observes in his introduction to A Time Elsewhere,… no single person or event dominates the centre-stage in the colonial drama…. What gives coherence to this kaleidoscopic picture is the vision of decay followed by regeneration, which unifies the narrative.An artful and unobtrusive narrator, adopting the technique of meticulous reportage, enables the reader to recognise these patterns through wry humour and subtle variations in tone. The reader glimpses the contours of a new order gradually emerging from a world deeply unsettled by alien colonial policies and devastated by a terrible man-made famine. JP shows how in the midst of all these upheavals human creativity asserted itself in unsuspecting ways, combating the forces of destruction through both assimilation and resistance.‘A Time Elsewhere’ by J.P. Das.Interestingly, if JP chose to plumb the depths of 19th-century Odisha through a historical novel, as a prolific writer of short stories – seven volumes of his stories have been published in English translation – he focused on portraying the churn in the contemporary world, the world he belonged to. Moreover, the action in his stories unfolds in largely undefined and unspecified locales. In them, prevailing stereotypes are vigorously undermined, and moral dilemmas confronting men and women are depicted without sentimentality. In quite a few of his short stories, which are often long enough to be treated as novellas, JP traces the slow decay of the self of powerful or gifted individuals.Many readers of JP may not be aware of another aspect of his writerly existence, namely his valuable contribution to children’s literature. Usually perceived as a reserved and punctilious person, he hugely enjoyed the company of children and communicated effortlessly with them. To engage and entertain them, he would sometimes perform magic tricks. The playful side of his personality and his depth of understanding of children’s psyche found vibrant expression in a substantial body of nonsense verse and limericks. As Sumanyu Satpathy noted, JP’s verses for children eschew the didactic impulse and radiate pure delight. Take, for instance, his limerick titled ‘One Night at the Dak-bungalow’:As I lay down on bed, and put out the lanternSwarms of mosquitoes descended in a squadron.They were about to whisk me awayBut I was pinned to the bed, where I layBy millions of bedbugs gathered in a platoon.(Translation: Sumanyu Satpathy; Illustration: Priyadarshi Patnaik, Nanasense. NBT, 2013)An illustration from ‘Nanasense’, by Priyadarshi Patnaik.The creative dimension of JP’s career as a writer was complemented by his significant contribution as a scholar. Anyone who knew him reasonably well would have been struck by the lively inquisitiveness of his mind and the range and depth of his reading. Erudition had become second nature to him. When he was around 81, he underwent a major brain surgery and was unable to recall names and faces for a while. One night, sitting beside his bed in the hospital, I asked him to explain an intricate matter concerning rhythm and meter in Odia poetry. He promptly did so with examples from medieval Odia literature even as he could not put a name to my face. His scholarly rigour is evident in his acclaimed books on art history – Puri Paintings (1982), Chitra-pothi: Illustrated Pal-leaf Manuscripts from Orissa (1985) and (with Joanna Williams) Palm-leaf Miniatures: The Art of Raghunath Prusti of Orissa (1991). Based on extensive fieldwork, archival research and interviews with individual artists, these works not only deepen our understanding of the concerned art forms, they also celebrate the uniqueness and beauty of Odisha’s artistic traditions. JP’s creative journey did not pause even after he relocated from Delhi to Bhubaneswar in 2018. He remained intellectually active and, with the help of young friends, embraced social media with much enthusiasm. This enabled him to effectively share his thoughts, ideas and views with the younger generation and engage in a lively dialogue with them. In fact, selections from JP’s Facebook posts were published in two volumes titled Short Takes (2024). ‘Short Takes’ by J.P. Das.The restless urge to experiment with literary forms and themes never deserted him. He employed the technique of dramatic monologue to great effect in his bold picaresque novella Sayan (2024) where the ageing protagonist confined to his bed recounts his many adventures and escapades to a woman who had come to interview him.Above everything else, JP was an extremely generous human being. His many acts of generosity towards individuals and institutions were quietly concealed from public view. He enjoyed the company of his friends, who belonged to diverse social classes and age groups. Till the very end of his life, he remained unfailingly hospitable. Unusual in many respects, and sometimes brusque and unpredictable, JP rarely ever imposed his views on anyone, even when he disagreed with them. In my more-than-a-decade-long close association with him, I learnt much from watching how he conducted himself in the spheres of private and public life. His decision to donate his body to a hospital for the use of medical students indicates how he wanted to remain useful to society even after death. The will he wrote forbade the observance of religious rituals after his death as well as any remembrance meetings; in death he stayed true to the principles he lived by in his life. JP’s passing leaves an aching void in the world of letters; for me, to whom JP was a dear friend and an indulgent mentor, it is a deeply felt personal loss. Then I tell myself that JP’s world is still there for us to lose ourselves in, and for younger readers to discover.Animesh Mohapatra teaches English literature at Delhi College of Arts & Commerce, University of Delhi. He is currently editing J. P. Das: A Reader for Sahitya Akademi.