“A white-hot anger impels me to write.”
The indomitable voice of Mahasweta Devi, champion of the downtrodden, volatile crusader for human rights, haunts our collective memory. Anger against social injustice fanned her inner fire, and words became her weapons of struggle.
Mahasweta’s own chequered career is as fascinating as the fictional narratives for which she is famous. Born in East Bengal (now Bangladesh) in 1926, Mahasweta, daughter of Manish Ghatak and Dharitri Devi, moved to West Bengal after Partition, and was educated in Midnapore, Santiniketan and Kolkata.
In Santiniketan, Tagore’s ideals left a deep imprint on her worldview. There she learnt to love and respect nature and the world of animals: never to harm a living creature, or randomly break a leaf from a tree. This passionate concern for all forms of life, and for the universal right of all humans to live with dignity, became the driving spirit behind her lifelong campaign in support of the marginalised and the dispossessed.
In the years of her marriage to playwright Bijon Bhattacharya, Mahasweta battled financial hardships. She found herself compelled to sell hair dye powder and at one point even supplied monkeys to the US for research. Later, she taught English Literature in a college. The disintegration of her first marriage brought heartbreak, and a new relationship.