Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Dec 13: Visiting his home state after a gap of two decades, Jagannath Mohanty was amazed to see a totally new city greet him upon landing at the Biju Patnaik International Airport. Now a vice-president (technology) at Citigroup, Mohanty migrated to New York almost twenty years back. He was in the city to attend the Global Conference at Nalco Auditorium Saturday. “I was surprised to see the city hosting an international hockey tournament. That was news to me. I’m definitely going to watch the India-Pakistan match live. No way am I missing that,” said Mohanty.
After a pause, Mohanty spoke. “The development and modernity is good to see. But somehow I feel sad that the locals are losing touching with their culture. That feeling of being in the city of temples is lost. We are more Oriya in US than here,” Mohanty said. Purna Patnaik, another participant in the conference, had left Orissa for San Diego around forty years back. “There was hardly a vehicle to be seen back then on the city roads. Fast forward forty years, and traffic has become a major headache. The city looks too crowded. But the good thing is that it is not lacking in connectivity and the infrastructure of the city is certainly miles ahead of what it used to be back then.” “I think the change has come only to the rich. The poor are getting poorer. Open defecation in the open is still unfortunately a very common sight. My neighbour in Cuttack uses the drainage as a dumping pit,” said Nishikant Sahoo, who has made Seattle his home. “I see locals speaking in Hindi. I have this vaguely unsettling feeling that our links to our culture are weakening,” said Kuku Das, an entrepreneur based in California. When asked what comes first to his mind when someone asks about his state, Sikhanda Satapathy, now a US citizen, said, “Oriya food. I’m very attached to Oriya food and culture, and I miss it terribly.”
