Odisha: Book, Music, and Film Recommendations

This came out of my January 2025 Odisha trip where I went to Bhubaneswar, ate a lot, and visited Puri, Konark, and Cuttack.

I don’t have a ton of recommendations here, but I have some good stuff, notably in the book and music sections. I’ll start with non-fiction, then fiction, then music, then films.

Books

I didn’t go to any bookstores in Odisha but there were some nice looking ones in Bhubaneswar, such as Walking Bookfairs and Modern Book Depot.

I didn’t find a ton of relevant reading material on Odisha, and much of the non-fiction I saw was generally academic and a combination of too expensive and too long and in-depth for the time that I had (apologies to the 1000 page, 9000 inr Imagining Odisha, maybe I’ll get to that on my next trip…). 

It’s too bad much of the reading material on Odisha is very specialized and niche, because the history and culture of the state are really fascinating. Also, most of what I found to read acted like there’s nothing worth knowing about Odisha in the past seven centuries or so, which is perhaps pretty true but I would have loved to read more about the culture of modern Odisha. 

A lot of what I read was actually online. Check out the 11 page essay Maritime Culture and Heritage of Ancient Odisha. I learned a lot. Covering similar material, I watched this great lecture Seafaring Culture of Odiya Merchants. But I summarized all of this stuff in the intro to the Bhubaneswar post, so you could just read that instead. 

And I always enjoy the history articles by Anirudh Kanisetti. Divine diplomacy—how Jagannath shaped a millennium of Indian politics has a good range of information about Puri and its Jagannath temple, and more broadly Odisha and grand temples in India. He also has a piece on medieval women rulers of Odisha, a bit too much information for me but it has some interesting bits. I only skimmed his article about the Ratnagiri monastery and Buddhism in Odisha as I’m saving it for whenever I visit the state’s famous monasteries, but this looks like a great read as well.

There’s also a lot of interesting material over at BBSR Pulse. I definitely recommend browsing! I found the info here to be a bit too niche for my interests but I appreciate it anyway.

I did find one pretty good book for beginners, though: Tales From the Land of Jagannatha by Devdutt Pattanaik. This is the first I’ve read from the very famous Pattanaik, known for his accessible writings on Indian mythology, history, and culture. 

Though this is a bit of a mixed bag, enough of it is quite good that I strongly recommend it for anyone taking a trip to Odisha. It’s a collection of 30 short pieces (probably all of them could be read in under five minutes) that mostly relate to Odisha, though after a certain point it runs out of directly related material to include and starts being like “Well, Jagannatha is a local form of Krishna, so here’s a bunch of information about Krishna.” The pieces are sometimes repetitive of one another. I assume most of them were previously written and published elsewhere, and I could imagine a stronger book consisting of a more tightly edited package of essays, preferably longer ones specifically written for the book. 

Still, much of the material is really interesting and insightful. I learned a lot of the local folklore surrounding the Jagannath Puri temple. There are fun stories about local festivals, foods, and traditions. Some parts were especially fascinating to me. One chapter retold a handful of short episodes that appear in versions of the Ramayana from Odisha. One speculated that Odisha could actually be Lanka from the Ramayana. One discussed the potential roots of Tantric Buddhism in Odisha. I often found the book a bit too much of a light read, I would have liked half as many essays with twice as much depth and detail, but I anyway found it to be a good companion on an Odisha trip.

If you want some kiddy comic book versions of the local folklore, Amar Chitra Katha delivered the goods fairly well. I liked two written by Manoj Das (more on him later): Purushottam Dev and Padmavati (free on Kindle Unlimited or Archive) and Sakshi Gopal (Kindle, Archive). I thought these were good fun. I also liked the one about some of the folklore at Puri (Kindle, Archive). I didn’t like the Konark one as much, the more modern art style made it hokier and the stories also aren’t as good, but if you like this format so far and want folklore on Konark then why not (Kindle, Archive).

I read two other non-fiction books that were okay. Tales of the Past - Odisha Saga is a series of short, easy to read essays (plus a travel piece and short fiction) on Odisha’s history. It’s not especially well written, and there’s some obvious ChatGPT assistance, but I was decently happy with it. I learned a fair amount about Odisha’s history that wasn’t in any other easy to read books. I also read Where is Ekamra by Bhuban Patra, which specifically had information on the history, folklore, and temples of Bhubaneswar. I found both of these short, inexpensive books randomly on Amazon. They served me well enough but I don’t have much enthusiasm for recommending them.

There was a nice looking collection of essays called Essential Odisha, but I didn’t feel like spending 1000 rupees without a sample or even a table of contents page available. I have a good feeling about it, though.

I asked a very well read friend for his Odisha history suggestions. He said the following:

“Difficult to say - odiya history tends to be either academics lamenting how little it is covered, Odiyas very defensively exaggerating every single thing that didn't happen in Odisha, and Bengalis saying "this is really actually just another part of bengal there's no separate Odisha" 

Ashok Rajagopalan is considered the main guy about Gajapati in particular but even he basically glosses over the period between Kalinga/Ashoka and the 16th century in maybe one page”

I looked up the writer he suggested but all I found were kid’s books about an elephant. So there you go.

Now onto fiction. There’s a fair amount of Odia language literature that’s been translated, here’s one list, though these books mostly sound depressing and don’t interest me. I got two novels from Odia writers but I don’t really recommend either. I loved three of the four short stories I read from the The Greatest Odia Stories Ever Told collection, though (read on to know which, and it is currently free on Kindle Unlimited).

While researching I came across a famous and well-respected writer from Odisha named Manoj Das, who writes in a mix of Odia and English and who can claim Graham Greene as one of his big fans. I was surprised I hadn’t heard of him! I was also surprised that not a ton of his work is available on Amazon. I googled around a bit but couldn’t find anyone discussing what his best works were. I picked up A Tiger at Twilight & Cyclones, two short novels (I believe both originally written in English) bundled into one book, both sounded good. 

I only had time to Tiger at Twilight, which was around 150 pages. I thought it was okay. It started off strong, and I liked what it was going for. A gothic small-town Odisha tale with all of my favorite things: Maharajas! Ancient curses! Tigers! Mysterious women! The first half was good fun, but it ran out of steam as it went on, with neither the characters nor the story really clicking, and I felt it was overwritten. Everyone on goodreads seemed to like it more than I did. 

Though I was mixed on the book, I liked enough about it that I was curious to read more from Das, so I sampled some of his short stories as well. I enjoyed the first two stories available in the Kindle preview of his Selected Fiction collection, though I wouldn’t say they’re must reads. The story I loved, though, was the folklore inspired Mrs. Crocodile, available in The Greatest Odia Stories Ever Told or in this link if you can get around the paywall. Das is definitely an interesting writer and I love the milieu he works in, so I’ll perhaps read more from him in the future. 

Another big name Odia author is Pratibha Ray, and I thought her novel Citadel of Love sounded very fun. A time traveling romance at the Konark temple that incorporates history and legend! But I found it to be very badly written and quite stupid and gave up after 75 pages. A better translation would have helped, but I don’t think even a great translation would have saved it. It was tedious and tacky and had laughably bad dialogue and painfully obvious East vs. West analysis. 

This was so bad and her work is so acclaimed that it piqued my curiosity and I felt compelled to read Ray’s story Salvation in The Greatest Odia Stories Ever Told, and it was… great? I’m so confused. I thought this was a sharply observed portrait of a very unusual and uniquely Indian family life, and it is one of those short stories that manages to tell a big story in a small space. So I guess I’ll give Ray another chance, though the only other translated work I found is Yajnaseni: The Story of Draupadi which doesn’t really interest me at the moment.

Another intriguing Odia novel I saw was A Time Elsewhere by Jagannath Prasad Das, a historical novel that apparently tells the story of Odisha in the second half of the 19th century and is about the royals of Puri and the great famine and the state’s cultural development and I guess somehow it all fits together. I considered getting it, but some of the reviews I saw said it’s hard to follow for those who don’t already know the history. 

Maybe I’ll give it a shot one day, though, because J.P. Das’ story The Mantra in the Greatest Odia Stories collection was perhaps my favorite that I read. Baba-fiction, one of my favorite literary genres. I recounted the entire story to my wife over a 20 minute car ride the next day, she really enjoyed it too. I would like to read more from Das, though translations aren’t widely available. 

The takeaway from all of this is that The Greatest Odia Stories Ever Told is worthwhile. That will be my go to book on future Odisha trips. There are 24 stories that span from the early days of the Odia language short story to more contemporary authors, and everything I read was well translated. Plus, the cover has our good friend Navagunjara on it. The same team of translators also have Maguni's Bullock Cart And Other Classic Odia Stories, but this is restricted to the classics, spanning from 1898 to 1945. I read the titular story (available in the Greatest Odia Stories collection) and it’s a nice story and worth reading, but I found it too old fashioned for my liking and (perhaps unfairly) don’t feel so drawn to this classics collection (here’s a trailer for the film version of that story, and here’s a rave review of the Classic Odia Stories collection). Also relevant is The Big Book of Odia Literature, edited by Manu Dash, a 750+ page volume which contains poetry, plays, short stories, and essays. Noteworthy, if not for me. 

There’s also one of Satyajit Ray’s Feluda stories set in Puri, titled Hatyapuri (aka House of Death). I’ve found these to be kinda fun but too kiddy for me, from the few I’ve read, but maybe it’s worthwhile for some of you.

Music

I didn’t fall in love with anything from Odisha but I heard some good stuff.

There’s some fun folk music collections. Assorted Oriya Folk Songs is quite good. Naa Tara Chema, around 25 minutes in, is my favorite. This set of folk songs sung by Sudha Mishra is good too. Pakshi Rajo Charhike and Alo Bau Lo Bau, the singer’s own compositions, are my favorites on there.

Another good collection is Ratha Yatra Special From Orissa. Based on the title I assume it’s mostly devotional music performed at temples and festivals. Jee Gadi Ratha is my favorite song here. Another I liked is Kalia Dhana by Shyamamani Pattnaik.

I also liked the Folk Music Of India (Orissa), which I found on Youtube, different from the stuff above. There’s some interesting music in here. The instrumentals are particularly different from most Indian folk music I’ve heard, and there’s a range of musical styles, so I definitely recommend listening to the whole thing.

For Odissi classical music, there is the collection L'Inde : Musique traditionnelle de danse Odissi by the Ensemble traditionnel de l'Orissa. I’m not sure if this is great, I just like the name and the cover art. I couldn’t tell you how the Odissi music is distinctive other than references to Jagganatha. Beyond this I just typed “Odissi music” into Youtube, turned on autoplay, and let the algorithm take over from there.

I heard the name Balakrushna Das brought up as one of the greats of modern Odia music, but I didn’t find any guides to his work. I listened randomly on Youtube, including several film soundtracks, and some of his work is indeed very good. Mansara Bilapa is a lovely album. He did the Naa Tara Chema song that I mentioned above as my favorite from one of the folk music sets. 

Film

I think I’ve only seen one Odia film, so I don’t have much to say here. 

The most notable festival success for an Odia film is Indradhanura Chhai which played in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 1995. I have no idea if it’s available to watch anywhere, in decent quality or otherwise. I hadn’t heard of the director Susant Misra but would love to watch his works. Here’s a trailer for his 1999 film Biswaprakash, set in Puri.

Also, the excellent Film Heritage Foundation has restored Maya Miriga (here’s some before and after footage), which played in the Critics’ Week section at Cannes in 1984. It’s the only feature from Nirad Mohapatra who mostly made documentaries plus a few Doordarshan serials. 

I don’t have anything else on my list, but I’m open to recommendations. The trailers I saw for some NFDC films looked good, such as Shesh Drushti and Nirbachana.

As for more recent films, which interest me less, in Bhubaneswar I caught a film called Baida (which played with subtitles). It’s a found footage horror movie that has a fun folklorish story and is decently well made with a good village setting, but it’s let down by mediocre writing and paper thin characters. I’m glad I saw it, at least in Odisha, and at under 80 minutes it’s one of the shortest Indian movies I’ve ever seen so it gets special kudos for that. Not something to seek out though. 

I would have gone for another Odia movie that was playing but I couldn’t confirm subtitles and didn’t feel like chancing it. Based on trailers I watched, there aren’t a lot of good looking new films, but some look watchable and are made more interesting with their tribal settings. Daman is the best reviewed Odia film of recent years, maybe I’ll watch it one day. Amartya Bhattacharyya is probably the top independent filmmaker of Odisha today but his films don’t really interest me. Maybe you’ll like his work. Baradwaj Rangan liked his Godard tribute…

Also, none of her work takes place there, but Mira Nair actually grew up in Odisha. 

The Hindi film Zwigato is set in Bhubaneswar. That one looked good. (I actually went to see it but had to leave because the promised subtitles weren’t working. The five minutes I watched were good.)

Check out my Bhubaneswar post for info on the Maharaja Picture Palace, I loved that theater.

There are also some good looking documentaries. Director Shankhajeet De has one called In the Shadow of Time, about shadow puppets. And he has some others. Plus, old Films Division footage of Odisha and a doc on Odissi dance.