Oriya Stories (Great Writers) by Vidya Das

Author:Vidya Das [Das, Vidya]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Srishti Publishers & Distributors
Published: 2009-07-08T18:30:00+00:00

Tadpa

Gopinath Mohanty

Tadpa was his name. Like all names a symbol and that was its justification. Otherwise, it meant nothing. According to the rules of his language, maybe, it was not necessary to be related to a person in the minds of those who assigned names. After all he was a Kondh and his language was not Oriya. In his society, parents had no freedom to choose a name. All the villagers would gather. The priest would go on reciting an almost endless list of names; the ritual worship would go on with offerings of fowl, unbroken rice, coloured powders and raisin. The kalisi, the woman possessed, would throw one rice grain after another into a pot of water reciting mantras all the while. The name, the mention of which would make a grain stand erect, would be picked by her.

That is how Tadpa got his name. To understand it one must go back into the past when an encyclopaedia of names was prepared. If one asked the Dongria Kondhs of Niyamgiri hills as to who prepared it, you would get the answer, like the answer to so many other questions, that it was Mahapru, the one who made day and night, the hills and the valleys. You may even be admonished: don’t you know who made all this? Why then ask like a child?

So, it was Mahapru who created all this, including the five thousand feet high Niyamgiri hills in Koraput district and the Dongrias living there, their language and society. Also, it was he who created this beautiful name, Tadpa. And the man Tadpa got it by his will.

An endless memory of the axe falling with thuds on tall trees and Tadpa remembered how miles of hill- slopes were shorn clean and then planted with oranges, pineapple and jackfruit. Elsewhere the run-off on the topsoil exposed only dark stones where not even a blade of grass grew, only dried up moss covered it. Somewhere else there were even now awesome forests with stout creepers and bamboo trees. At intervals of six to ten miles a small hamlet of five to fifteen houses and then, once again, the jungle.

Some outsiders were descending a fearsome slope of the hill when they met Tadpa. It was half past nine at night, in the later part of the month of Aswina. Niyamgiri was cool even in summer. And now the warmth generated by walking could hardly counter the cold. But they, numbering seven, had no time to feel the cold as they walked along a footpath which looked like a small tunnel meandering down in curves through stones. They had to walk with careful steps. Along the road, hidden by tall and dense trees, there was a rushing stream deep down the hills. One could hear the sound of its falls. A little carelessness and one could stumble and plunge into its waters. A small torchlight showed the way. After a week in the hills, the batteries had become weak. There was

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