We belonged to Satyabhamapur village of Puri District. My fathers’ name is Kanduri Charan Das who has died long back. Our village was very famous as Chaitnya Mahaprabhu was enlightened. My father was the only son of my grand-father. He has two sisters too.

My father was into workmanship and he used to travel to Bhubaneswar regularly for brass business. He has tie up with brass merchants of Balkati. He came to Bhubaneswar in the year 1960. Later, we all come to Bhubaneswar and stayed near Rajarani Temple. My father has brought 100 Dicimil land by paying Rs 5.00 per Dicimil around 1960.  We are 6 brothers and we have a sister too. Two of them had died and five of our brothers now survive and stay in Bhubaneswar. My father later changed his profession and became a petty contractor.

The existing house in Garage Chhaka where I currently stay was used as a rest shed and godown for our labourers. This land was given to me, and I constructed a small house in 1995 later enlarged it and completed construction in 2006. I put the house on rent as I was travelling from one place to another as my job was transferable in nature. I settled down at this place around 2012 when I retired from my job. Since then, I have been living in this place comfortably.

I started my schooling in my village school. I completed the matriculation in Satyabhamapur High school and I came to Bhubaneswar for higher education. I joined the BJB college and went on to complete my higher education in 1970. I later moved on to Utkal University and completed my master in labour and social welfare subject in 1976. I also completed my LLB there.

I started my career as a lawyer, in Bhubaneswar court. I did not find pleasure in it. Hence, I changed my profession later and joined Panchayatiraj Dept in the year 1978. I joined as Social-Education officer in Kodala. Then I moved to Sanakhemundi and Digapahandi Block. I was promoted to additional Tahasildar rank and moved to Aska block. I was also ASO in Berhampur for some time. I was also undersecretary works, and retired as additional Sub-Collector Sambalpur. I also worked as a consultant to a farm who was looking after construction related activities of NHAI. After working for two to three years I left the job.

I have two sons. While the eldest is working as an Area manager in Lucknow, the youngest one is working as a lawyer in Odisha High court. My post retirement life is blissful as I am spending time with family members and with community too.

Now a days, no one wants to take responsibility. The pond in front of our home was known as Kandara Pokhari. The pond was dug by britishers long back to provide water to the localpeople. Even the piligrims who used to visit Puri also used to draw water from this pond. The area around the pond was a thin forest and people don’t find it safe to travel in this area at night. The lands around the pond belonged to Lingaraj temple administration. Gradually, people encroached the land and reduced the size of the pond. The pond got polluted as no one took care of it. After much persuasion and a prolonged battle at court, the pond is now being cleaned almost after 15 years. There was Nallah, and people used to discharge water through this Nallah. But later people narrowed, encroached the Nallah and ensured that area is water logged during the rainy season.

The main occupation of the Bhubaneswaria was agriculture. The villages around Bhubaneswar were famous for paddy cultivation once upon a time. The villages used to raise good quality paddy and they also sold at very high price. I can remember during good rainfall years, my father used to take 4-5 days to bring the paddy from the farm to paddy husking yard. But later as urbanization creeped in, paddy fields were replaced by buildings. Now there is neither quality now quantity in paddy production. The cost of labour was very cheap and it was less than Rs 100/- per day. Most of them used to come from distant places and used to live in shanties. Hence, the slums developed in Bhubaneswar around 1985.

People used to come to Kedargouri, Megheswar, Lingaraj  , Kapileswar and Brahmeswar temple are few of the important places which were visited by people largely. As the population was limited in Bhubaneswar, these places often wear a deserted look. But during major festivals, the more people visited these places. But tourism was not developed around 1970s in those places. You can hardly found any major shops in these areas. Around 1980, Bhubaneswar was having less than 3 lakhs of population.

Gunanidhi Mohapatra the then chairman of BMC, Padia Sahu, Raju Sahu the owner of Raju sahu hotel were influential persons ( #influentialpersonsinbhubaneswar) in the area. People used to pay them respect and they were also open to ideas and supported community at the time of need.

There were few post offices in Bhubaneswar too. During 1970s, Post offices have started appearing in areas other than units. The post office was there in capital head post office, old town and Santarapur. Petrol pump existed near Kalpana Chhaka and was known as Rajarani Petrol Pump. Near market building a petrol pump existed too. There no parks during that period. The area where the present day Biju Pattnaik Park exists was a large vacant land.

There was craze for footballers in those times. People used to visit football match venues in large nos. Football matches were regularly organised in B.M Highschool, Capital High School and Unit-1 playground. Local clubs have local stars and they have their fan followings too. Even I was also a good footballer in my times. Gobinda Das, Mihir Mohanty and Aseema Mohanty were good players of my times. We have played together in few matches.

Garabadu Mashani is one of the busiest burial ground in those times. Later Satyanagar burial ground developed.  As population was very less in those days, the need of another burial ground was never felt. But the saddest part is people are encroaching Govt lands and heritages and making it difficult for the community to enjoy the space.

I used to miss the windy afternoons of Bhubaneswar. The gush of Wind used to bring in lot of solace to souls. Once the high rise buildings came up, we started missing those moments. The water bodies were now polluted. People used to get good quality drinking water from ponds and rivulets. But now they are polluted and we are only dependant on supply water.