q you have received padma shri and many other national and international awards how do you feel about the latest one utkal ratna a to be very honest awards never mattered to me writing gives me immense pleasure so i enjoy doing it i have never bothered about awards q how and when did you start writing a i love reading books and always had an inclination towards writing in my 20s i wrote many prose pieces and stories but never thought about getting them published later i started writing poems and enjoyed it thoroughly poetry provided me solace and a different kind of joy soon i started sending my poems to overseas magazines and journals for publication and it received good response also this encouraged me to write more q you spent your entire life teaching physics in various colleges in odisha how did you manage time for writing poems a i taught physics with my mind and wrote poems with my heart i loved teaching physics and was passionate about writing so there was never problem in striking balance between the two q you have written over 27 books which one of them is your personal favourite a its difficult to answer i have worked hard on all my works and all are close to my heart q what are the works you are busy with at present a my autobiography in odia pahini raati has been published recently and it is being translated in english and bengali i am also busy writing two books of poems one in odia and another in english i plan to publish them by the end of this year q is it true that you command more respect overseas than at home does it hurt you a frankly speaking i dont think about it much i love my work and enjoy doing that i would say being hurt and ignored often helps a poet i often draw inspiration from my pain and sufferings for my poems q are you happy with the present scenario in odia literature a i dont want to comment on it q any regret about any unfinished work a i genuinely wanted to translate some odia classics like rudrasudhanidhi into english so that people outside odisha will know about our rich literature but the dream remained unfulfilled q any piece of advice for budding writers and poets a writing poetry isnt an easy task one really needs to work hard to hone ones skills and remember there is no shortcut for it it needs complete dedication to evolve as a good poet or writer according to me young writers should read as much as they can they should read the works of poets and authors of other countries