Ama Jillara Nari: Basanta Kumari Samanta

A profile published under the district column 'Ama Jillara Nari' (Woman of Our District), prepared by Bijay Prasad Pattnaik, celebrating Basanta Kumari Samanta as an ideal and inspiring woman of Ganjam district. Born in 1943 in Khallikote to Chandrasekhar Rath and Purnamasi Devi, she trained in fine arts, joined a government girls' school in Chikiti as an art teacher in 1966, and later served at the Khallikote Tahasil office until her retirement in 2001. The piece traces her marriage to Durga Prasad Rautray of Khandapada, Nayagarh, in 1964, and, in the absence of children, her lifelong devotion to painting, poetry, ghazals and travel writing — pursuits through which, the column notes, she found her truest sense of fulfilment.