Date:26/02/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/02/26/stories/2007022612940300.htm

Other States - Orissa

Noted theatre personality Gopal Padhi passes away

Staff Reporter

Gour Gopal Padhi

BERHAMPUR: Noted theatre and literary personality Gour Gopal Padhi passed away in Puri on Sunday.

Padhi hailed from Ganjam district and was a major force in the theatre movement started in Orissa by Kavichandra Kalicharan Patnaik through his 'Orissa Theatre' troupe. He was also attached with another theatre group, 'Modern Theatre' since 1944 and produced more than 150 plays. He also directed more than 20 plays for `Modern Theatre' which included plays of noted playwright, Ramesh Panigrahi like `Chakri' and 'Bindu Balaya'.

He had retired as a head postmaster.He was one of the major translators in Orissa. He continued translating short stories from English, Telugu, Bengali, Urdu, Hindi into Oriya till his death. His translated compilation of stories of Somerset Maughm is yet to be published.

He had also translated several Oriya books into English, which included `History of attacks on Jagannath temple'. His noteworthy translation works were collection of short stories by O.Henry, collection of ghost centuries from eighteenth century Europe, works of K.Abbas and Sunil Gangopadhyay.

After his retirement he had preferred to live in Puri.