Writers Editors Critics (WEC) (eBook)

     PAPERS AND POEM ON MAHASWETA DEVI

Mahasweta Devi: Death cannot claim a Valiant Soul

Ketaki Datta

Mahasweta Devi’s death came as a blow at the point of time when the whole world was being rocked by incendiaries and violent acts of terror. I am an avid reader of Mahasweta Devi’s works, not for her bare style and scintillating vocabulary, but for the underlying responsibility of making the youths aware of their existence on this earth. The youths cannot remain zombie by reading her works, they feel like working for all around them, for leaving a better universe for tomorrow! And, my own reaction on hearing the news of her abrupt demise was a journey to the days in the past, when I was dealing with “Mother of 1084” as a college text and asking the students to feel the plight of Brati’s mother, who was a bereaved mother of a dead son, bearing the identifying number: 1-0-8-4. The whole class fell silent when the corpse of the mother’s son, who died during Naxalite uprising, in the ‘70s, waited to be identified by his mother. Being a teacher, delving deep into the sad event and taking it as an issue to be judged in the light of critical theory was next to impossible for me. I shed tears, not always silently, and my students shared my grief by falling silent for some moments. No doubt, literature has a certain power to stir the inmost feelings, but, the work that weds fact to fiction has a strength of its own, that can hardly be gainsaid.

Mahasweta Devi is a name of a movement, which never ends, never will end. The tribals of Purulia lost their ‘mother’ on the day when the writer-activist-humanist breathed her last. Such a soul cannot breathe her last, such a messiah cannot have an end. Jesus, in the garden of Gethsemane had an inkling of his imminent crucifixion and Mahasweta Devi had an inkling of a universe being crisscrossed by valueless strife and altercations, violence and bloodshed, betrayal and apocalypse. Christ had resurrected himself and Mahasweta would resurrect herself through the conscience of each individual of modern times, who feel her absence within and gets a spur to go out on a mission to change the society.

The genius of all times, started off her writing career with the tale of Rani of Jhansi. And, even she had to take a stint of an English teacher for a length of time too. But her real call came when she began to pay visits to Purulia where the tribal people—Khedia and Shabar found a ‘mother’ in her. We, the so-called sophisticated arm-chair thinkers, cannot even imagine in our wildest dreams how Mahasweta Devi used to pay regular visits to the illiterate, un-reclaimed populace, who needed an exposure to the wider world. And, Mahasweta Devi came to their aid.

After short stint as a teacher of English in a local school, Mahasweta Devi devoted her life to writing fiction and fighting for the cause of the downtrodden. In the stories like “Stanadayini” [The Breast-Feeder] and “Draupadi”, the plight of women, especially those belonging to the lower rung of the society, come to the fore. Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak translated these stories and felt as though the bare style, the powerful, un-ornamental diction, direct and straight approach to the problem the women face usually, are natural attributes of the stories, bearing stamp of a compassionate heart, weeping within.

Aranyer Adhikaar, Rudaali are just a few novels which had been filmed by eminent directors, as Hazaar Chaurasi ki Maa. The voice of the have-nots, the hoi polloi got heard through her mighty pen. The wails of Draupadi, the suppressed sobs of Brati’s mother, the professional breast-beating cries of the professional crying women–all speak of the struggle of the women who were treated shabbily, since aeons.

The recipient of Sahitya Akademi Award, Jnanpith Award, Ramon Magsaysay Award and Padma Vibhushan never stood aloof from the ordinary men, the individuals who mattered the most to bring viable changes in the society. The present writer, too, had several chances to run into the gracious writer/activist in numerous programmes, either at Bangla Academy or Jibananda Sabhagriha or Rabindra Sadan. Everywhere she greeted this present writer with a smile saying, “. . . Just teaching in a college will not do. Come, stand beside those who have no spokesperson to tell their stories to the people who matter.” This writer used to smile back and nod in the affirmative but never took any initiative to that end save teaching one or two poor students free of charge at her residence. The remarkable progress in tribal education, improvement in the lifestyle of the tribals, financial grants for the tribal children who come out with flying colours in different board examinations—all owe to incessant efforts she had put in, to better their deplorable plight. Such was the enlightened lady, who thought of her ‘children’ before all. Nabarun was her own son, but she had even million sons apart from her own. Mahasweta Devi, the wife of Bijon Bhattacharya [her first husband], hailed from a family of talents. Ritwik Ghatak, the renowned filmmaker was her relative, Bijon Bhattacharya created stir in the theatrical scene of Bengal by writing his epoch-making play, Nabanna. Hunger, poverty can change a person to a strange one, Buddhadev Dasgupta, in his film of the eighties, Neem Annapurna had also pointed that out.

But topping all, the depiction of Sujata, Brati’s mother in the film Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa stands nonpareil. The turbulent times of the seventies had been brilliantly, rather flawlessly portrayed by Govind Nihalani on the screen. The present writer feels tempted to dwell on this novel, which had been translated brilliantly by Samik Bandyopadhyay in the form of a play and it served as the basic text for Nihalani. While this present writer had been asked to contribute to the prestigious volume on “Naxalites in Cinema” by Prof. Pradip Basu, an eminent academic [presently Professor of Political Science, Presidency University, Kolkata], who rose like a phoenix from his ‘Naxalite’ past, she could not but think of contributing on “Mother of 1084” as a document of the turbulent times—the seventies.

Being mother of Brati, it is really surprising when, Sujata confesses at last that she knew her son hardly! She knew not her son, inside out! She was madly fond of her son, even though, the family with materialistic demands and aristocratic background was absolutely nonchalant to the presence of her youngest son in the cocoon of their household itself. Brati proved himself rebellious of the ideals of this family, by joining a group of young adults who felt deprived, outcast, who had only dreams galore in front of their eyes, like the surging tides of the sea. They dreamt of ushering liberation of thoughts, of ideals, of the political framework of the nation, of everything and all. It was the decade of LIBERATION, as the appellation ran. But, in reality, these rebellious youths were hounded out of this state, were butchered, were stamped as anti-socials. Brati, just a day before his birthday, on the sixteenth of January that year, had gone to Somu’s place, where in the dark of the night all these brats were called out by a group of boys who opposed their ideals and had been brutally hacked to death. Somu’s father, running amuck, seeking justice from pillar to post, died immediately after, leaving the family in the lurch.

As the story ran, Sujata, a bank-employee, went from one acquaintance of her dead son to the other, for sharing the inconsolable grief, in search of solace. But at the end of the day, she came back home for her daughter’s engagement, and finding all pretences reaching their heights in the so-called elite social circle, she felt lonely, absolutely cooped up in her own world with the threadbare remembrances of her dead son, Brati, all around. The picture of the sham and pretension has been faithfully etched by Mahasweta Devi. Saroj Pal, the cop, who refuses to hand the corpse of 1084 to Sujata came to Tuli’s engagement on invitation, though he dared not come upstairs to avoid direct interaction with the mother of corpse No. 1084, to whom he had been harsh and irascible. He congratulated the newly-engaged couple, however. After all, HE HAD BEEN ON DUTY!!! Dibyanath, who loathed the ways of his son’s life, kept pining for him in front of all, feigning as if he were the best father, and Brati, the best son of this world. Though he had to hush up his ‘unruly’ son’s case, though he had to take all possible care to see his son’s name not figuring in the eminent dailies! All pretence, all sham! It was only Hem, the maid, who kept weeping all day long, silently, as on this day, Brati’s existence had been snuffed out from the face of earth! It was only Sujata, the mother, who kept dropping by at the places of Brati’s friends and dear ones, sharing memories of that ill-fated day when her son’s existence stood nullified, just as they suffered the same lot, losing their dearest one, perhaps the only breadwinner of their family. Sujata re-explored her dead son in their company, in Somu’s room, in Nandini’s place, where Brati used to whisper words of endearment in her ears. Back home, while the merrymaking was on, she saw Brati in a blue shirt, getting ready to leave, halting a while beneath the stairs, throwing a long look at her! Sujata fell on the ground, her appendix being suspected to be burst! It is not stated by the author whether she came...