The demise of famous personalities is often a time of their reawakening. It is a time when their work comes alive again. It’s a time when your twitter feed is full of messages loaded with condolences and tributes and the fact that some of them are written so copiously, it makes it impossible to avoid luring into them. Mahasweta Devi has been one such personality, occupying a lot of space on social media and newspaper columns since her death a couple of days ago. Once I read memoirs on her by some prominent people, I started finding her and her work more and more interesting. One thing led to the other and I ended up spending my afternoon reading a book of short stories written by her.

The book is titled Breast Stories – a compilation of three short stories depicting the lives of three tribal women. Stories that send chills down your spine, stories that pierce in deep, make you feel weak and gruesome inside. The book is translated from Bengali by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and I strongly feel that a lot has been lost in translation. I found the translation difficult and consuming to grasp. Having said that, what I read today was powerful and something which was written without any undertone, with real style and real words to shake me up. This is something that makes you realize the power that writing holds.

Coming to the three stories, the first one, Draupadi, is based in the backdrop of the war between East and West Pakistan. Draupadi, or Dopadi (as she calls herself), is a comrade who is apprehended by the army. On not revealing the identities of her fellow comrades, Senanayak, the commander, orders to rape her. After each affliction, as soon as she gains her consciousness back, active pistons of flesh rise and fall, rise and fall all over her again and again. But, it is not the tribulation she goes through that catches your nerve. Its her reaction when she is brought to Senanayak afterward that has a seismic befalling attached with it. It is when she tears the piece of cloth given to her to cover her body and when she stands in front of Senanayak with her hands on her hips and her breasts wounded that you feel the shivers of Mahasweta Devi’s writing. With a body bleeding from every possible part she confronts the commander and spits blood from her broken lips on him. It is then that Senanayak almost collapses and faints. This story has a strong political and social connotation attributed to it. I couldn’t get all of it by reading the translated version but when you read about the story on other sources, you understand the nuances that Mahasweta Devi captured with so much intricacy.

The other two stories are titled Breast Giver and Behind the Bodice (Choli ke Peeche). I am not expanding on them here. They carry the same poignancy as Draupadi and have an impressionistic effect on the mind. There is an Italian movie made on Behind the Bodice named Gangor which I plan to see soon.

The courage, the sensitivity that spills from Mahasweta Devi’s writing is scintillating. It is pitiful that I have discovered her through her death but at the same time, I think it is the best way to celebrate her life and her work – by reading it, by getting acquainted with it. After reading just a small portion of her mammoth work I feel more matured as a person. What else can one ask for?

Shat Shat Naman to a life which had made a difference. A significant one at that.

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“India has lost a great daughter and citizen. Mahashweta Devi’s voice was raised in support of millions of people unheard and unrecognized. All of us who derived strength from her fearless presence and voice will miss her. We also celebrate a great life, full of creativity and a range of interests. She will continue to be an icon for generations to come.” - Aruna Roy, MKSS.