Historical legacy of colonial experience and the subsequent efforts at decolonization are the commonalities generally identified between India and the Latin American nations. But it is interesting that there exist common contextual and ideological markers in the reading of the literatures of these nations. Narrative technique and story telling, which, as Gabriel Garcia Marquez says, is the way "my grand mother used to tell the story" lend `magic realism' to the tale, as in the works of Jorges Luis Borges in Argentina, besides Marquez in Columbia. This paper attempts to identify comparable storytelling modes and `magic realism' in the works of Oriya writers like Gopinath Mohanty, Manoj Das, Pratibha Ray and Rabi Patnaik. It is demonstrable that the common techniques and modes in the literature of Orissa, a culturally rich state in India, and Latin American nations reveal the awareness of the real and the surreal and help forge common imaginaries across cultures.

Christopher Columbus' landing at San Salvador on his intended voyage to India may have marked the beginning of a commonly shared imaginary between India and Latin America. Common to this world view and the historical legacy are the colonial experiences by the indigenous people in both the lands, the crippling effects of Western domination and the various movements for decolonization, under the aegis of the Non-Aligned Movement, and finally a vibrant intellectual tradition created by Nehru, Gandhi, Tagore as well as Marquez, Borges and Neruda.

It is therefore appropriate that we are currently engaged in exploring literary traditions common to Latin America and India in a comparative framework. An essential requisite in this exercise is to recognize the differences in the historical experience as well. Clearly, the whole of Latin America is not a homogenous unit as it is under the overarching linguistic influence of Spanish and Portuguese, just as the various multilingual and multiethnic traditions of India do not make for easy generalizations about a unified whole. Nevertheless, there are common contextual and ideological markers that must impact on our reading of two great literatures. Today, for instance, imperialism and neocolonialism coexist with the ongoing resistance to the unipolar world.

Stories (the) Grand Mother Told: Magic Realism in Contemporary Oriya Fiction, ideological markers, Narrative technique,culturally rich, great literatures, spirits, demons, vampires, priests, soothsayers, charlatans, industrial city, fictional study, erotic desire, social control, moral ambiguity.