MAHASWETA     DEVI 

                                              

                              A great literary figure and undaunted  social activist Mahasweta Devi passed away yesterday.She was 90 years old. She  played a significant role to uplift the extremely backward community, Kheria Sabar.

Wife of one of Bengal’s most prolific playwrights and litterateurs, Bijon Bhattacharya, the activist-writer grew up in the family of Bengal’s leading writers, poets and filmmakers. Filmmaker Ritwick Ghatak was her uncle. Influenced by the Communist movement of the 1940s, she chose to work among the poorest of the poor in the tribal areas of southern West Bengal and in other parts of the country.

“And the people whom she came across in real life slowly made their place in her stories and novels,” said Joya Mitra, a prominent writer and a close associate of Devi.

There are very few writers who are capable of narrating – directly – what they experience.

She is more famous for her work related to the study of the Lodhas and Shabars, the tribal communities of West Bengal, women and dalits. She is also an activist who is dedicated to the struggles of tribal people in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. In her elaborate Bengali fiction, she often depicts the brutal oppression of tribal peoples and the untouchables by potent, authoritarian upper-caste landlords, lenders, and venal government officials.

Mahasweta Devi was winner of the Sahitya Akademi and the Jnanpith  Ramon Magsaysay awards. GOI honoured her with Padma Vibhushan

At the Frankfurt Book Fair 2006, when India was the first country to be the Fair's second time guest nation, she made an impassioned inaugural speech wherein she moved the audience to tears with her lines taken from the famous film song "Mera Joota Hai Japani" by Raj Kapoor (the English equivalent is in parentheses):

“

This is truly the age where the Joota (shoe) is Japani (Japanese), Patloon (pants) is Englistani (British), the Topi (hat) is Roosi (Russian), But the Dil... Dil (heart) is always Hindustani (Indian)... My country, Torn, Tattered, Proud, Beautiful, Hot, Humid, Cold, Sandy, Shining India. My country.” Her  works include among others--

The Queen of Jhansi 

Aranyer Adhikar 

Agnigarbha 

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  When the Asiatic Society of Bombay honoured her I  had an opportunity of meeting her and taking her autograph in her book “ Hazar Chaurasi Ki Ma “.This sensitive novel deals with the psychological and emotional trauma of a mother who awakens one morning to the shattering news that her beloved son is lying dead in the police morgue reduced to a mere numerical—Corpse no., 1084. It is a watershed novel both in terms of approach and content.

 Incidentally, the film saw the return to the screen of Jaya Bachchan as the Mother—an outstanding performance.

P.P.Ramachandran.

29 / 07 / 2016