Author Description

Mayagherare Kalidas (Kalidas in the Encircling Net of Maya), first published in 2002, happens to be the fourth anthology of Odia poems by Bhagaban Jayasingh, one of the most outstanding poets of our time now. This long poem, rather a sequence of 33 poems, has been built upon the fundamental Hindu concept of 'maya' (Sanskrit: illusion), and our attachment to the things which are illusory in nature. Kalidas, the persona is that of a fallible 'everyman' who has a subjective misperception of the world as ultimately real. These poems have depicted Kalidas's experience of unreality through his attachment to life, love, pleasure and sex notwithstanding his response to human suffering, despair and death which he thinks are real. Jayasingh happens to be the first Odia and Indian poet to dwell upon maya as the persistent and dominant theme of poetry.