Hajar Churashir Maa

Book Review

Hajar Churashir Maa (No. 1084's Mother) is a 1974 Bengali novel written by Ramon Magsaysay Award winner Mahasweta Devi.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajar_Churashir_Maa It was written in 1974 on the backdrop of the Naxalite revolution in the Seventies. Hajar Churashir Maa (means Mother of 1084) is story of a mother (Sujata) whose son (Broti), corpse number 1084https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajar_Churashir_Maa in the morgue, was brutally killed by the state because of his ideology of advocating the brutal killing of class enemies, collaborators with the State and counter-revolutionaries within the Party. The story starts on the eve of Broti's death anniversary when Sujata recollects her son starting from his birth. She meets Broti's close accomplice and tries to justify Broti's actions and his revolutionary mentalities. Throughout the story she is portrayed as a strong woman who fought against the odds. She is advised to forget her son, as people like her son are what are often called "cancerous growth on the body of democracy".https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajar_Churashir_Maa It's a story of a mother as she relives, years later, the death of her son in the political upheaval that left almost no home untouched.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajar_Churashir_Maa Hajar Churashir Maa also portrays the other faces of the human stories that emanated from the restless political adventure of the vibrant Bengali youth, which was ruthlessly cowed by the then Congress government until the Communist Party subsequently displace them and again themselves ruthlessly cowed its opponents.

Mahasweta Devi’s work uniquely stands out in the sea of popular fiction of this day. Her writing has little to do with the petty everyday idiosyncrasies of the privileged; she shuns the needless or the unnecessary. In her matter-of-fact no-rhetoric writing one sees no romanticism in the plight of women who are most directly and drastically affected by the patriarchy. Her characters are from the bottom of the socio-economic class; they are real, multi-dimensional, and well-formed. To Mahasweta Devi, they are the needful.

Although it was originally written in Bengali, Breast Stories was translated into English by feminist critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in 1997. The three stories are titled: Draupadi, Behind the Bodice, and Breast Giver. They have one connecting thread – the breast, a metaphor for the exploitation of women from marginalized communities.

Devoid of wishful thinking, these powerful stories draw attention to the systemic oppression that numerous women face today in the Third World. Rape has been used as a weapon of war in Columbia, Iraq, Sudan, Nepal, and Afghanistan. Women are constantly harassed on the streets, be it in the metropolitan city of Delhi or underdeveloped villages. Our bodies are policed and objectified not only by monsters but also by well-intentioned men. This book is a reminder of these bitter truths and many more lest we should forget.

Breast Stories is a refreshing book for those who want to dive into Indian feminist fiction, especially for people like us who have the privilege of sitting in front of our computers and reading this review. Readers who know Bengali have the advantage of enjoying this book in its unadulterated form. Those who do not know Bengali need not despair as Spivak has made a decent shot at translation, with detailed introductions before each story which might irk some, but are helpful nonetheless.