Santosh Kumar Panda, born on 2nd April 1983 in Dhenkanal, on a auspicious day of Ram Navami, the birth day of Lord Ram in Hindu Mythology belongs to a lower middle-class Oriya Brahmin nuclear family. His father was a govt. servant staying in quarters provided by state govt. He had his early education in many schools that made him scattered in his earlier life He had his early education in Oriya medium at Kabera Madhapur UP School (preschool), Kabera, Dhenkanal & then Dhanamandal UP School, Dhanamandal, Jajapur, Orissa & then high school in Niali High school, Niali, Cuttack which he left in midterm of his ninth grade & transferred to another school in Jagatsinghpur i.e. S.K. Academy, Jagatsinghpur due to his father’s transfer. He got a distinction among all the students from his school & got award for his achievements in his district. But then his father’s health became deteriorated more & after struggling for two years he finally died in 1999. This left him with huge responsibility as he is the elder son of a Oriya Brahmin family. So he dropped out one year in his twelfth grade in S.V.M. College, Jagatsinghpur which he found very intellectually engaging & at the same time very difficult to continue due to his worst financial condition. Then her mother after a very long long period of one year got posted after many many requests persuasions to higher officers in govt rankings as they had no such influential contacts there. & that made them somewhat stable. He then continued his study & got passed in first-class grade in his 12 th science exam which made her mother very proud as she didn’t expect such a result from his son due to their circumstances. A Then he went to Cuttack for the first time for preparing pre entrance for medical & engineering exam in 2000 & stayed there e for two years when he came in touch with all types of literature. Then after two years he could not qualify the state entrance due to neck throat competition & no quotas which changed his mind & he joined pharmacy in Bhubaneswar in a college regarded as one of the oldest college of country. Then he continued his study there for 4.5 years though its only for 4 years as the University is the culprit & now he had to do something to earn money as quick as possible to feed his family. So he decided to go to Delhi to do some job at his friend’ laboratory in AIIMS who was working there. But unfortunately he didn’t get anything & spend a very long 3 months there with his friend. Mean while the result of GATE entrance came out & he secured the good percentile to get admitted in a good college for higher study. But now the problem was the money which he could not manage& the Principal of the college even threatened him to withdraw his application form if he had no money. Then a unknown stranger came to him who remained a good friend till date & asked him about this situation which made him to arrange some money for the time being as his family borrowed the money & gave to him for the admission. Then his struggle continued for two long years in Pune which made him stronger & literally more affluent. After his Master's Degree in Pharmacy, he joined as a Lecturer in 2009 in a pharmacy college in Savarkundla, Amreli, and Gujarat. Then this job no more interested him & he quitted it & joined in a pharma company in Ganddhidham, Gujarat. Financial instabilities & family responsibilities made him to change to many more companies in the coming years. He still works in a company in Mumbai. Santosh Kumar Panda, began writing poems during his college days due to the exposure to too ups & downs in life at a earlier stage due to the demise of his beloved father But this propels him to be more confident to face the rhythm of life & observe it in a subtle way & does not in anyway distort his passion for poetry. He qualified for the All India GATE Entrance after a sincere hard work during his college days in Bhubaneswar for which he borrowed from his distant relatives which still he is trying to pay till date. Then he joined his masters in Pune University after a bank from his village after a lot of persuasion agreed to pay for his study there. This exposure made him more poetic & open the doors to many more literature & works. He got the distinction as always throughout his career in his study but inclined to his first love that is literature. He then during his late twenties published his poems online due to the larger reader base & no expense involved in it in Pune He began translating his favorite Oriya literature into English to expose the Oriya literature to the world. His works celebrate not only passion but consistently evoke a melancholic atmosphere laden with fears and sufferings. But slowly and steadily the poet released himself from this lonesome citadel of love, and learnt a complete absorption in and identification with culture and tradition of Orissa-all these run simultaneously, as it were, the poet is sincerely trying to uphold the lost dimension of blood and the living. Childhood memories occupy a considerable space in his poetry. The richness and sophistication of language, the softness and delicacy of the words chosen, systematized orchestration of authenticated experiences through the exact palpability of images, the sincerity of germinating on the 'feel' of the experiences, the sweetness of music emerging from a fountain-like flow of the verse-form contribute to the greatness and ingenuity of Panda's poetry.
