As the name suggests Born of the Soil is the story of those whose entire lives revolve around the same soil they are born and brought up in—our farmers. The story is an English Translation of Matira Manisha, a sensational Odia novel written by Kalindi Charan Panigrahi, an influential Odia writer of 1930s. The basic element of then Odia literature was social realism which unmistakenly was inspired by Tagore’s way of dealing with such issues through his stories.
The formidable challenge that comes in the way of any translator is to keep the essence of the original text alive which has been remarkably taken care of by Bikram Das. As any other folk tale, this story is set in a small and rather insignificant village in the district of Cuttack, Odisha. Shaama Padhan, a man of high moral character and a farmer by profession who lives in a crumbling house of mud walls and straw thatches with his family is the main protagonist. The story unfolds when the poor man dies and his moral values and principles have to struggle to reside within other members of the house. Will his children follow the path of Dharma or divide everything that his ancestors had bestowed on them?