Depiction of Tribal Life in Gopinath Mohanty's the Ancestor (Dadi Budha)

Abstract

The dissertation paper attempts to analyse the representations of tribal life presented in Gopinath Mohanty's novel THE ANCESTOR. It is originally written in Odia by Gopinath Mohanty, and later translated by Arun Kumar Mohanty into English. It is a novel about the lives, customs, belief and rituals of the tribal communities and about the outer intervention that causes disintegration of tribal society disrupting and affecting tribal harmony in adverse ways. Tribes are rich in their culture, custom and folk tradition. Tribal society lives in isolated areas and their social life style is different from the main stream society. Its culture, customs, rituals and traditions are in heritage from the earlier generations and moves to the next generation. The life of tribals changed significantly under British colonialism. This effect is also found in the Paraja tribe. Overall the study explores the blissful moments, the plight and the outer intervention of Paraja life. Gopinath Mohanty, the first Oriya recipient of prestigious Jnanpith award is considered one of the most significant novelists of twentieth century. The pictures of the primitive world that his novels depict are purely honest Tribals, who could not be the part of main stream society and dwell in remote areas of forests and hills, sparkled as the prominent subject to his major novels. Working as a member of state civil service in Koraput district with a predominantly tribal population, Gopinath Mohanty had the juncture to be familiar with life style, culture, customs, ritual, festivals and songs and dances of these tribal people, as well as he interacted with the miserable conditions, poverty and pathetic scene of these blissful innocence tribals.