Madhusudan_Das

His Life and Achievements: 59
was in the chair on the occasion, neatly turned the tables on him
by quoting a couple of verses from the 10th chapter of the Gita and
showing how the first Oriya graduate had maintained his first place
in the manifold activities of his later public life. He was a born fighter
or he would not have taken up so many problems that an average
man would have put away as hopeless. His own health he mastered
to an incredible degree by means of a strong will and a remarkable
control over his diet. I remember how at one of the meetings of the
Select Committee on the Bihar and Orissa Municipal Bill of 1921
we got him in the recess to turn out his pockets for his lunch to
find a few grains of puffed rice which he told us was all the solid
food he permitted himself to take in those days. And yet with such
a diet he was working 15 or 16 hours a day at the age of 72 or
73 and regularly taking his daily walk of 4 or 5 miles. Misfortune
overtook him later on which he met with singular vigour and fortitude,
and one could not help being struck by the stout heart that he carried
in a frail body. His ideas were cast in a large mould, and his unceasing
labours for the uplift to Utkal are at last beginning to bear fruit, though
alas, he passed away too soon to see Orissa a separate province.
• • •
(6)
THE PROTAGONIST OF ORISSA
C.L PHILIP
I had not the pleasure of meeting Mr. Das personally till I was
posted to Cuttack as Commissioner of the Orissa Division in 1930.
But from the date of my first advent to Orissa I had been given cause
to appreciate the esteem with which Mr. Das was regarded by his
compatriots. He was the man to whom all Oriyas looked as the
protagonist of Orissa, the one hope of the restoration of its former
glories. The fact that those who spoke of his activities almost with
bated breath, were sometimes very vague in their ideas of these ancient
glories, did not and could not detract from the sincerity of their
enthusiasm about the man who they believed, was to restore them
and place Orissa as a single and complete unit on the map of India.