Devdas Chhotray


Devdas Chhotray is an Indian Odia author, administrator and academician. He was the first vice-chancellor of Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, Odisha. His work consists of poetry, short stories, lyrics, musicals and screenplays. Chhotray's father Gopal Chhotray, a recipient of Padma, Central Sahitya Akademi and Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, was an architect of modern Odia theatre.

Early life, Education & Career

Chhotray was educated at Ravenshaw College and Cornell University. After joining the Indian Administrative Service in 1971, he worked in West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and New Delhi. In 2006 Chhotray became the first vice-chancellor of Ravenshaw University, obtained UGC approval for the school in six months.
Chhotray was director of the Orissa Film Development Corporation from 1983–89 and 1996–98, chairman of the publications committee for the fifth International Children’s Film Festival in 1987 and was vice-president of the governing council of the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune from 1999–2001.

Books, Writings

He has written a collection of stories, Lal Machha, the lyrics for more than 75 films in Oriya and television musicals. Chhotray is known for his collaboration with Akshaya Mohanty, a pioneer in modern Oriya music from the 1960s until his death in 2002, as Mohanty's principal songwriter .
He has written screenplays for feature films in Oriya. One, Indradhanura Chhai was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1995.
In addition to Chhotray's anthologies of poems and stories in Oriya, notably Nila Saraswati and Hati Saja Kara, English translations of his poems have appeared in Longing. An anthology of his poems in Hindi, Ret Ki Sidhi has been published in Delhi.

Awards

Chhotray's four decades of poetry and lyrics have been translated into Indian and foreign languages, and he has been published in Bengali Awards and the 2008 Rajdhani Book Fair Award 2008 for poetry.