Utkal Gourab Madhusudan Das
Utkal Gourab Madhusudan Das was born on 28 April 1848. He was the first graduate and advocate of Odisha. He was born on 28 April 1848 in a village called Satyabhamapur,20 kilometers from Cuttack district of Odisha.
He is known as Kulabruddha which means Grand Old Man and Utkal Gourab, which means Pride of Utkal, and was referred to as a poet and freedom fighter.
He was born to a Zamindari family from father Choudhury Raghunath Das and mother Parbati Debi.T hey had initially named him Gopalballabh. Gopalballabh was the Magistrate at Bihar Province and the father of Ramadevi Choudhury. Madhusudan had adopted two Bengali girls; Sailabala Das and Sudhansubala Hazra. Sailabala was an educationist who had trained from England and in whose name the famous Shailabala Women’s College of Cuttack was founded. Shailabala was a Bengali, and her parents had left her in the care of Madhusudan Das and his wife Soudamini Devi at Calcutta now Kolkata. Sudhansubala Hazra was also a Bengali and she was the 1st female lawyer of British India. Madhu babu was the house teacher of Ashutosh Mukherjee, the former Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University in Calcutta and Janakinath Bose, father of Subhash Chandra Bose at Ravenshaw College.
He was also Known as ‘Madhu Babu’ by the common people,he worked for the political, social and economical upliftment of the people of Odisha and served his motherland as a lawyer,social reformer and patriot.He founded Utkal Sammilani which brought a revolution in the social and industrial development of Odisha.By his long political fight he united Odisha & modern Odisha took birth on 1 April 1936.This day is celebrated as Utkala Dibasa.
Painting / Art By : Renowned Artist Pitambar Nayak, Cuttack.
