Prabhat Nalini Das had the distinction of being at the top of her class at every university she attended. She was a gold medallist and topper at Ravenshaw University, where she earned her B.A. English,. She earned an M.A. in English at the University of Allahabad, where she topped the university, earning three gold medals. She earned another Masters in English at the University of Minnesota as a Fulbright Smith-Mundt Scholar, and topped that university as well, winning several honours, including being the Best Graduate Student of the year from the Department of English, the Fellowship Association of the University of Minnesota Prize; the Delta Phi Lambda Award, and a special medal for proficiency in writing. At Minnesota, she stood out as a star student of Samuel Monk, Ricardo Quintana, Robert Penn Warren, Murray Krieger, Allen Tate, John Berryman, Elizabeth Jackson and John Hospers, who later became the first US Presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party. She was awarded an honorary D.Litt. by Ravenshaw University in 2011.
Das was born to Krishna Priya Devi and Radha Krishna Das, professor and head of the Physics Department at Ravenshaw University, and a classmate, friend and colleague of Satyendranath Bose. They belonged to a Zamindari family of Puri district in Odisha. She married Bidhu Bhusan Das, public intellectual, academic and senior government official, thereby becoming the eldest daughter-in-law of Rai Bahadur Durga Charan Das, a top-ranked government official from the elite Indian Administrative Service. Her children are Prajna Paramita, the first Odia girl to qualify for the Indian Foreign Service and the Indian Administrative Service, choosing the former as she placed amongst the top candidates across India; Oopali Operajita, Distinguished Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, polymath, an advisor on public policy and international affairs to leaders in the Parliament of India, Planetary Woman Hero and virtuosoOdissi and Bharatanatyam dancer; and Ashutosh Sheshabalaya, journalist and technology consultant who wrote the bestseller, "Rising Elephant", and works as a security advisor in Europe.
Academic Career
Prabhat Nalini Das had an uninterrupted and very successful career of 38 years. Even after her retirement, she continued to teach and mentor students and supervise Ph.D. dissertations, right up until 2018. She taught at Ravenshaw University, and Sailabala Women's College, Cuttack, before being offered the position, at age 31, of head of the Department of English at Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University, by the industrialist, Sir Shri Ram, and Dr. Olive Reddick, founder of the United States-India Educational Foundation, USIEF, in India. She was also Lady Shri Ram College's Vice Principal and, for a period, its Acting Principal. She introduced federative teaching as well as the double tutorial system at Delhi University. She was appointed as the first Director/Dean of Humanities of IIT Kanpur, at age 35, after turning down an offer from Sir Shri Ram to assume the post of principal of Lady Shri Ram College. She was, afterwards, head of the Department of English at Ranchi University, a senior research fellow at the American Studies Research Centre, Hyderabad, and founder-professor and head, Department of English, Utkal University for almost nineteen years. Das also served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the North Eastern Hill University, Shillong, with independent charge of its Kohima campus, in Nagaland. She was a Fellow at the Shakespeare Institute - University of Birmingham, located at Stratford-upon-Avon. A lifelong feminist, Das shattered many glass ceilings during her career.
Pioneer in Orissa Textiles
Das was a pioneer in the revival of the Orissa ikat saris and southern Orissa's Berhampur silk saris, as well as its tussar saris. She began designing her own saris at 23, in 1951, starting off at the "Mata Matha" in Cuttack. So prized is her collection of saris that part of it was requested for display at The Smithsonian during the Festival of India in the US, in 1985. Her collection was admired by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay and Pupul Jayakar both of whom were her friends.
Expert in Apex National Committees and Organizations
Patron of Odissi Dance and Music, and Film and Theatre in Odisha
Together with her husband, Professor Bidhu Bhusan Das, she supported and patronized Odissi dance and music, set up an international film screening and appreciation society, both in Ravenshaw College in the early 1950s, and, later, in Bhubaneswar; and encouraged and patronized Oriya and English theatre, again, right from 1951 onwards. They helped Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, Guru Pankaj Das and Guru Deba Prasad Das, when their career trajectories were evolving, starting in 1951; and, later, in substantive ways, when these gurus sought their help and advice over a protracted period of time. Das and her husband produced several plays at Ravenshaw University. As well, Professors Bidhu Bhusan Das and Prabhat Nalini Das started the first ever film appreciation society in Odisha, at Ravenshaw University, in the early 1950s, exposing their students to the finest international and national cinema. They were patrons of many theatre movements in Odisha; and the Bhubaneswar-based Renaissance Theatre Group, which had a very successful run for almost three decades, producing several national theatre festivals each year at Rabindra Mandap, Bhubaneswar, was patronized and set in motion by both Bidhu Bhusan Das, who was its president, and Prabhat Nalini Das.
Author and Translator
Das translated several major Oriya works into English. Fluent in six languages - English, Odia, Bengali, Sanskrit, French and Hindi - she was able to translate with great ease across these languages. She introduced Translation as a subject into the post graduate curriculum whilst Head of the English Department at Utkal University, in 1974, making it one of the first universities - if not the first - to do so. She invited renowned author Gopinath Mohanty to Utkal University for two years as a Distinguished Visiting Professor and Writer-in-Residence, under the University Grants Commission scheme, in the late 1970s. Four days before she passed away, her translation of Sitakant Mahapatra's poems, "Till My Time Come - Twenty Poems from SAMUDRA - Odia" was released.
