Mother of 1084: Performing the Documentary

A Film by Pushan Kripalani; Design and Readings by Anubha Fatehpuria and Navin Kishore

Report by Subrata Sinha

Seagull presented a unique event to mark the beginning of the birth centenary celebrations for Mahasweta Devi (14.1.1926–28.7.2016) at the Padatik Theatre, AJC Bose Road on January 4^th. The event showcased a 2005 documentary, Talking Writing, by Pushan Kripalani, which emerged out of four conversations between Mahasweta Devi and Navin Kishore in 2003, which was introduced by and interspersed with readings from the writings of Mahasweta Devi in English and Hindi translations by Anubha Fatehpuria and Navin Kishore. There could not be many worthier institutions or individuals to mark these beginnings than the Seagull, or Mr. Kishore, who have been instrumental in carrying much of the legacy of Mahasweta Devi’s literary corpus in translation to a wider global audience. The scope of the presentation, both the film as well as the interpolations, however, was much wider than what the title of the event suggested, and the audience could be thankful for a rare access in the private courtyards of a public intellectual who embodied her time through her writings.

            Sections of the film is already available in public domain, and it gives an account of Mahasweta Devi’s tryst with the act of writing and the process of becoming an author. In the conversations Mahasweta devi recollects the conviction she had for making a livelihood out of writing and the challenges she faced in her way of becoming an author. She speaks about the resistance from the literary fraternity which readily characterised her writings as mere ‘reportage’, but does not fail to acknowledge the unusual trust and support she received from her mother, who was immensely proud of her unconventional daughter. She also discusses her marriages and relationships in a very candid manner, along with their influence on her literary articulations and social activism with the tribal communities. And least of all, her words betray a proud mother who is happy to be reunited with her son after a long interval and could recite from heart his first poem, in translation. To be able to have a sight of the most intimate thoughts of a very public figure and author of Mahasweta Devi’s stature seems like a privilege in itself.

            The film also provides glimpses of the master narrator who could travel across times and spaces, taking her audiences along with her. Mahasweta devi recollects the day of Gandhi’s assassination. She has been carrying her son at that point, and returning from a theatre on 30 January 1948. She recollects how the mundane noise-bed of the everyday cityscape was gradually muted, and in that deafening silence spoke the ubiquitous radio signal ‘Mahatma Gandhi has been shot’! She recollects of Makar Sabar, who is forcibly subjected to vasectomy during the emergency of 1975, under the fear of facing jail-time otherwise as a member of a Criminal Tribe, a notion constitutionally abolished in 1952. The incredibly sad and beautifully humane story, as remembered by Mahasweta Devi, delves into the depths beyond the futility of mundane words. There is yet another anecdote regarding her novel Hajar Churasir Maa which might be of particular intrigue for our time. She recollects how three of four friends of her son Nabarun once came to meet her and said how she could only write about the Naxalites perishing in the villages, while ignoring the ones who are hunted on the city streets on a daily basis. Mahasweta Devi acknowledges the conversation as the primary source for the theme of the novel, which was later admired by the critics as ‘only really and truly political novel’. One might as well find it a nuanced entry to the very current debates over the notion of ‘Urban Naxals’, which is portrayed as malum in se by the Mo-Sha government and its Posha, or Godi media ecosystem.

The Screening of the Documentary. Credits: Naveen Kishore and Anubha Fatehpuria

            The documentary becomes very intriguing in its articulations on politics, more so, if we remember that the conversations were happening in 2003. In the initial minutes of the documentary, Mahasweta devi recollects, with a hint of derision, that once they believed in communist ideal (sic.) and that the imminent revolution was right behind the lamppost, and spends a considerable effort in dissociating herself from that once upon a time phenomenon. She decries the allegations of her being a Naxalite sympathiser and portrays it as an act of romantic empathy (‘because they gave life, when they knew writing on the walls may fetch a bullet’) devoid of a political camaraderie. However, such efforts of dissociating from a leftwing, communist politics take a seemingly sour turn when she speaks about her contemporaries. In the conversations, not available in the sections and snippets shared in the public domain, she talks about her former compatriots. To call Somnath Hore ‘disillusioned’, Samar Sen ‘deeply frustrated’ and claim under the same breath that ‘Disillusionment in the sense of pessimism amar aase na (does not come to me like that)’ may seem border lining on an illusion of grandeur, even for Mahasweta Devi; after all, none of the former two courted the ultra-right in search of relevance until they breathed their last. Such express disavowals and dissociations from the progressive, left-wing political ethos in 2003 will certainly provide materials of crucial import for the researchers of the literature and activism of Mahasweta Devi at the turn of the century and thereafter. 

            The interpolations from Fatehpuria and Kishore relied heavily on translations from various works of Mahasweta Devi, like Hajar Churasir Maa, and Layli Asmaner Ayna in English and Hindi translations; it would have been nice to find an express acknowledgement of the translators and the respective translations.  They also referred to Kishore’s conversations with Mahasweta Devi, which were outside the scope of the documentary. In one of such conversation, enacted during the performance, Mahasweta Devi (Fatehpuria reads) refers to certain words which she had collected and goes on to elaborate their meanings. This was one of those rare occasions in the performance when Bangla words were uttered, and one wishes they were given their fair share of care (subhiksha instead of subhikshma; janyatipatra wth a nasalised a instead of joyotipotro), given Mahasweta Devi’s emotional investment to these words: not only she proclaims those emotions within the scope of these conversations, but also described herself as dattavak to them in one of her essays (“I/My Writing”).

            The performance began with a poem by Navin Kishore, which talks about a ‘jailbreak in the Park Street cemetery’. Kishore has elsewhere described this poem as a testament of loneliness as a precursor to the writing being, a theme that he brings in within the conversations with Mahasweta Devi. Those moments of conversation might be valuable not only to the readers of Mahasweta devi, but also to the students of the creative process, influence, and reception across the generational bounds.

            Finally, the multi-medial performance, encompassing conversations, enactments, readings, and reminiscences marks a very pertinent beginning for the birth centenary celebrations for Mahasweta Devi. While the performance and the film portray deepest respect for the auteur, it also opens doors for critical, open-ended engagement around the life and works of Mahasweta Devi beyond narrow hagiographic temperaments. Good news is, a second show has already been scheduled for the 14^th, presumably with scope for more in future.