Tribute | Jayanta Mahapatra’s purity in poetry

The late writer Jayanta Mahapatra took Indian English poetry to the world stage

When the sun went down,

the elegant white peacock

crossed the land it had once known,

as though restoring words to their purity.

— ‘The Poet’s Death’;

(Jayanta Mahapatra)

Mahapatra could not have had himself in mind when he wrote this poem. However, these lines perhaps best describe him, both as poet and human being. He was, after all, a soul as gentle and rare as a white peacock, whose imagination restored words to their purity.