Transforming Objective Reality into Images and Symbols - One more look at Jayanta Mahapatra's poetry

Abstract

What is Reality? Reality is something that exists. There are two kinds of realities. One is subjective reality and the other is objective reality. Subjective reality is linked to our senses. It is the reality that we perceive through our mental filters and it is often conditioned by the past. Objective reality is different. It is how things really are. Objective reality demands perceiving things which exist independent of our mind and is in totality. This by implication means that we have to focus on its specific characteristics in order to perceive a thing objectively.(Facets of Unity p. 206 The Enneagram of Holy Ideas by A.H,Almaas) Objective reality is whatever remains true whether you believe in it or not. There is deep poverty, squalor, hunger, homelessness, and prostitution linked to poverty in this world. Giving expression to these realities without imposing one‘s own view is objective reality. Jayantha Mahapatra, who comes from Orissa, writes on varied subjects which exist in and around him. The focus of this paper is
to understand Jayanta Mahapatra‘s poetry in the perspective of transforming objective reality into images and symbols. How does Mahapatra see things which exist in and around him and describe them in beautiful images and symbols?