Mahasweta Devi Features In Google Doodle; Top 5 important things you must know

On the occasion of social activist and Bengali author Mahasweta Devi’s 92^nd birth anniversary, Google today paid tribute to her with a Google Doodle. The Bengali author won a slew of awards such as the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Bharatiya Jananpith Award, the Ramon Magsaysay Award and the Padma Vibhushan.

Mahasweta Devi has also initiated a new move in Bengali literature that blends history, fiction and myth with a touch of documentary reality. She is revered as one of South Asia’s most decorated authors who passed away in July 2016 following an age-related illness.

So here are the top 5 important things you should know:

1. Mahasweta had led an unconventional lifestyle. “Although she has dabbled in many professions, writing has been her living since the early 1980s. Her early proximity to the People’s Theatre Movement and the Communist Party confirmed her in her unconventional lifestyle and when in the  1950s she travelled widely in Madhya  Pradesh by herself, trying to retrace historical memories in order to write- a biography of the Rani of Jhansi, her training as an activist journalist had begun,” wrote Malini Bhattacharya.

2. Malini went on to say, “Later when she became involved with tribal and other oppressed communities and their struggles to establish their own rights, this training would stand her in good stead. In her own words, while working among the tribals in Palamau, “I have covered all of the districts on foot. I walked miles, stayed somewhere overnight, went from place to place”.”

3. It’s worth noting that Mahasweta Devi’s famous works were ‘Hajar Churashir Ma’ (Mother of 1084), ‘Aranyer Adhikar’ (Right to the Forest, ‘Jhansir Rani’ (The Queen of Jhansi), ‘Agnigarbha’ (The Fire Within), ‘Rudali’, ‘Sidhu Kanhur Daakey’. All her works gave an insight into the oppressed lives.

4. As per Malini Bhattacharya, Mahasweta Devi never called herself as a feminist.

“This is because in her perception sexual exploitation always forms part of a much larger pattern of exploitation,” she wrote. However, her works focused more on women’s rights. Particularly, her short story ‘Choli Ke Peeche’ inspired Italian director Italo Spinelli to make the multilingual ‘Gangor’.

5. “In Mahasweta Devi’s view, the tribal life in India is an ‘undiscovered continent’ ignored by the mainstream centres of power and existing on the verge of extinction,” MN Chatterjee wrote.