Thirty-eight years in front of a classroom
From a matriculation placed among the top hundred in Odisha, to a doctorate, to the principal's office — and, the whole way through, students taught for nothing.
His early schooling was done under the eye of his father, Bhubanananda. At matriculation from the G.C.D. High School at Rayagada he was placed among the hundred best candidates in the whole of Odisha — the first public sign of what he could do.
From there to the historic Ravenshaw College at Cuttack for his degree; then a master's in English Literature at Utkal University; and later a doctorate from Magadh University.
The classroom
He began in 1977 as a lecturer in English at B.N.M.A. College, and taught afterwards at Basudevpur College, Bhadrak Mahila College and Dhamnagar College, leaving the last of them in 2015 as its Principal.
What the students remember is the grammar. His command of Nesfield and Wren & Martin was close to total, and he could make a rule plain in a way that outlasted the lesson by forty years. An uncountable number of them still call him ଗୁରୁଦେବ.
He treated teaching as service rather than trade. Students in difficulty were taught free of charge, and where he could manage it he paid their college fees himself.
B.N.M.A. College, Palashingha — where he began in 1977, and to which he kept returning for its functions long after.
A friend in need
Among his friends he was the one who got called first. “ବନ୍ଧୁ ଆପଦ ସମୟର ସାଥୀ” — a friend is the companion of your bad times — was not a line he repeated but one he acted on, without first weighing what it would cost him. They remember him, in his own English, as a friend in need.
Family and faith
He looked after his own parents to the last day of their lives and considered it unremarkable. He kept cows, lived without display, and after retiring turned steadily more to reading — every evening, the eleventh skandha of the Srimad Bhagavata.
He died on 11 October 2025.