Do you have any skills that would enable you to survive and flourish if you were transported back 700 years in your current place of residence?

Anyone in such a predicament will be considered a loon or possibly even murdered.

Using Firang examples (for a point in the future)…

“Language” didn't mean what it does know; French was a collection of over a hundred dialects and English wouldn't even be remotely understandable to the average Londoner for another 200 years. Everything would work on personal references; outside one's community or guild, people would be unpersons or vagabonds. Even the regular acquisition of food or a minor chill would be a constant concern. And that's in EASY mode- Western Europe.

Early 14th Century Chodaganga Orissa was NOT Easy Mode.

It's 1319 CE. The glory days of the 13th Century when Oriya writ ran unquestioned from Ganga to Krishna are gone. Peaceful raiders loot the countryside. Holy cities from Mathura to Varanasi to Omkareshwar island are gone. Slave markets and Camp hovels profligate in the ruins of once-great cities.

From North, South, West, the Peacefuls press upon the realm of Gajapati Bhanudeva II Chodaganga, regent of Jagannath himself. Defeat at any stage means the destruction of Orissa, the annihilation of Oriya and Oriya culture, the desecration of our Temples, and the end of the last hope of Hindus on the Continent.

Anyone being transported there from modern times would stick out like a sore thumb.

Even more so than in Early Medieval Firangistans. You see- Medieval Orissa was one of the most bureaucratic states anywhere in the World. Every inch of land had been mapped out, parcelled, and monitored. The country was a de facto Theocracy with constant vigilance against the Mleccha being the motto. From the remote forest outposts in the Dandakaranya to the mudflats of Kantei, Oriyas faced off against the entire Ummah stretching from Spain to Siliguri.

The typical educated Oriya youth would be spotted within hours.

He will be lead to the Constable's office in the village - or if one wasn't deputed on account of budget cuts and/or loss of manpower (Orissa still wouldn't have recovered from the disaster of the 1280 famine & the final loss of Bengal)- to the local Zamindar. Now the typical Quoran, even if he were Oriya, wouldn't be able to speak early medieval Oriya OR Sanskrit OR early Kannada OR any of the contemporary languages people were expected to know. And they'd know- “linguistic diversity” only flourishes in poorly centralised areas, unlike Chodaganga Orissa.

Worse, the typical Quoran would be an Atheist, convinced about the joys of “logic” and “humanism”. Most likely he'd inform the now-alarmed Constable/ Zamindar of the fact that their positions are owed to Orissa being a “fascist Imperialistic dictatorship” engaged in the most grievous mode of Islamophobia, and that the near-constant state of Total War maintained by Medieval Oriyas was but an expression of their being inherently violent “Hindu terrorists.”

Then there'll be no more words, for this typical Oriya Quoran would be summarily executed by the responsible authorities for being a most irritating Peaceful spy.

“Skills” count for nothing. Fortresses can be crushed, Cities can be razed, Books will burn and the Sciences will be forgotten. But as long as we have the gods, nations will endure.

Anyway…

I, for one, am the minority among minorities along minorities- a believing Hindu among the few Hindus still left in our secular Republic.

While I may not share the faults of the typical educated Oriya and I'm neither a heretic or an atheist degenerate- I still can't speak the language, have no clue of the contemporary script, and no idea how to interact and whom to interact with. I'm pretty sure where my ancestors would be at the time- give or take a few dozen miles, but even a dozen miles is a big distance and what on Earth would I be expected to tell the then-reigning Head of the Household anyway?

On the plus side, Medieval Oriyas were apparently far more polite & honourable than the modern bunch. So I won't be in trouble unless I go to the border districts with their constant threat of Peaceful raids.

As it is, we know less about 14th Century Orissa than about the preceding two centuries, given the havoc the later Peaceful invasions… apologies, I've heard we use “interaction” to avoid triggering people on Quora… with the libraries and colleges at Puri and Cuttack during Bhanudeva II, Narasimhadeva III, and Bhanudeva III. So it's not like I can saunter up to some official whose name I recall from the records and ask for aid. Sriramdeva, the only guy I recall from the time, would be a mere boy at the time. And I can hardly be expected to turn up at Barabati Fort and demand entrance. They'd call me a spy.

I foresee a long period of begging in front of the local temple while I stitch together a working knowledge of the lingo. Then, they'll probably draft me into the army - as with all able-bodied men they find- during the big Peaceful interactions in the early 1320s. And what will happen thence, who knows?