Bamra: Mitrabhanu Gountia – the man behind Sambalpuri folksong ‘Rangabati’ has a long-cherished dream to compile all his poetic compositions into an anthology of over 3,000 pages, he said.
According to sources, writer Mitrabhanu had created his own identity through this world-famous Sambalpuri folksong and also made the language globally popular. He has penned a number of folksongs like ‘Tetel patar saru saru’, ‘Kane chabe kana kuturu’, ‘Tui nuru thile nurinuri muin’, ‘Mandakini manar juli’ and ‘Jharamali nani.
Mitrabhanu has composed several popular melodramas in Sambalpuri dialect like ‘Chherchhera’, ‘Pakhal khurithi mahara’, ‘Bhai jiuntia’, ‘Gambhari bije’ and ‘Ratha jatra’, over a literary journey of 63 years.
Mitrabhanu was born March 17, 1942 at Bilunga village of Jarabaga panchayat under Bamra block in Sambalpur district. At the tender age of 15 years, he started creating his literary works, with satires like ‘Masa udusa kali’, ‘Parikhya chinta’ and then he never looked back.
In 1978, for the first time aired in a folksong-based programme named ‘Sur Malika’ of Sambalpur radio station his folksongs were voiced by Jitendra Haripal and Krishna Patel, where he gained overwhelming popularity. Then he had composed ‘Rangabati rangabati’ number, after being inspired by the unparalleled popularity of his folksongs.
This popular number of Mitrabhanu motivated a music album producer of Kolkata named P Majumdar to record the folksong in 1979, January 29. Subsequently, the folksong gained worldwide popularity for him. However, the song was used in many regional and national movies.
Of late Mitrabhanu was selected for fourth highest civilian award of the country ‘Padma Shri’ for this year. This has brought pride to him as well as for the entire state. “My success story owes to love and affection of western Odisha people”, he gleamed.