Kuntala Kumari Sabat
She composed the inaugural song of ‘Utkal Sammilani’, chaired by Acharya P.C. Roy in 1924. the poems in the anthology ‘Archana’ echoes the voice of poor and lowly, the depressed and the marginalized. Her poetic longing for brave new world is expressed in most of her poems. Some of her poems published in ‘Sphulinga’, inspired the youth of Orissa and infused dynamism in them. The volume ‘Ahwan’ captures the spirit of Gandhi’s clarion call to people to join the struggle for freedom. In her poems ‘Sphulinga’ she wants to inspire his fellowmen to get lessons from the history and to get out of the present set up and dullness. Her poems in Ahwan created tremendous sensation. Her fame as a patriot and poet spread over the country. She had a transterrestrial longing for an ideal world, a golden era ruled by love, justice and beauty. The yearning for liberty is always marked in her poems like ‘Garjat Krishaka’. She expressed the poetic anguish over a cause of the elitish exploitation on the toiling mass. The entire gamut of Kuntala Kumari’s poetic works oscillate between her love for her land and people and the love for God. The poetic identification with the sufferings of common men presents twofold note at one moment she protests and revolts and at the next, she discovers the mystical design in everything and everywhere. In nature, and all its creation see could she the face of God. Her poetry, in some degree, reveals all the romantic traits : “Love of nature, love of beauty, imagination, love of past and a wearied sadness.” No doubt she has enriched the Oriya literature by her pen. Her commitment to explore the possibilities of a free world with faith in love, beauty, truth, goodness and wisdom. Her noble sentiments and her feelings for the sublime have given her poems a universal appeal. Her writings were regularly published in the ‘Samaj’ and ‘Sahakar’ under the title ‘Delhi letters’. She expresses the socio-political life of pre-independent India and makes a zealous attempts to reform the tradition ridden society. In the novel, ‘Na-tundi’, She expresses real thing of the land. ‘Raghu Arakhit’ is one of her most outstanding works. It narrates the social character regarding marriage, where a compensation was given to the bride’s family.