Mother of 1084 notes

Comprehension:
I. Answer the following questions in one or two sentences:
From which police station did Brati’s family receive the call?
Ans: Kantapukur
What is the occupation of Sujatha and Dibyanath?
Ans: Sujatha works in a bank and Dibyanath is a chartered accountant.
According to Nandini who betrayed Brati?
Ans: Anindya, Brati’s friend, betrayed Brati. Nandini said that Anindya’s
betrayal had caused the death of Brati and others.
Brati used to recite Tagore’s poem _________.
Ans: ‘The Young Hero’
Who are the companions of Brati?
Ans: Samu, Parth, Laltu
What is Sujata’s first act of rebellion after the marriage?
Ans: Sujata’s first act of rebellion was when Brati was two years old. She
had refused to be a mother of fifth child.
Why did Sujata rebel second time after the marriage?
Ans: Dibyanath said to Sujata, “You needn’t work any longer. Why don’t
you give up the job and look after the household? Mother is dead.”
Sujata refuses to leave her job. But her husband does not want to hear
her words. Finally, Sujata stucks to her job and it was the time when
second rebel takes place.
Brati suffered from ______when he was in class ten.
Ans: jaundice
Why was Brati encountered?
Ans: Mother of 1084) is story of a mother (Sujata) whose son (Brati),
corpse number 1084 in the morgue, was brutally encountered 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.
Name the children of Sujatha.
Ans: Two sons (Jyoti andBrati) and Two daughters (Nipa and Tuli)
What is Tony Kapadia’s profession?
Ans: printing saris
When did Sujatha plan to have her operation?
Ans: Sujata planned to have her operation after Tuli’s wedding.
Who is Dhiman Roy?
Ans: Dhiman Roy is a poet (washed out poet).
Who is the only breadwinner of Somu’s family?
Ans: Somu’s father

II. Answer the following questions in a paragraph:

Explain the early days of Sujata’s married life.
Ans: Sujata came from a rich and orthodox family, having little faith in the
modern education system. Still she was sent to study at the Loreto
College where she did her graduation. Sujata was thoroughly honest but
her husband, Dibyanath, was a man degraded to the sub-human level.
Sujata remained a very responsible woman throughout. When she came
to know that Dibyanath had financial problems, she decided to take a job
to supplement family’s income. Nobody cared to know why Sujata
wanted to work, why she had made all enquiries herself and found a job
for herself. Nevertheless, "The family had encouraged and
supported her." Even her mother-in- law had said that she should
have taken up a job earlier though her son Dibyanath had not asked her
to take up a job, Sujata was contributing to the family kitty. She had a
shadowy existence
She was submissive, faithful and without an existence of her own. Her
husband and her mother- in-law were the persons in authority. They
refused to see Sujata's merits which though were obvious to everyone
else. When she went to attend the interview for the job, her family
connections, her aristocratic bearing and her pronunciation of English
distinguished her from other candidates though several of them had
done B. from Loreto College.
This novel presents the story of Sujata's hardships and misfortunes she
suffered all through. She described her story in retrospect with honesty.
It was due to her sympathy with those youngmen who were fighting for
social justice and were killed by insensitive and atrocious people and the
government. She became mother of 1084 due to her love for Brati and
his comrades.
Sujata had a great regard for Hema, since she had given all attention to
Brati, and loved him too. Sujata was hurt when Hema reported that she
was severely rebuked by Tule. Sujata was no longer a submissive
woman. She warned Tuli not to speak harshly to Hema ever after.

How is Dibyanath’s mother a stereotypical mother-in- law?

Ans: Dibyanath’s mother was a very strange, inhuman quality of
mother-in-law. She did not want her daughter-in-law to have children.
She would go away to her sister at the time of the childbirth instead of
helping her daughter-in-law started making very pathetic scene it was
when the daughter-in-law started making necessary preparations,
packing her bags etc. for the childbirth though the mother-in-law was at
home because her sister was not in Calcutta. Perhaps she could devoid
of love or sympathy for the daughter-in-law who was in labor pains,
clamping her teeth to check her cries induced by pain before the
childbirth. One reason adduced for this apathy was that her husband
died after the birth of her first child.
How is Somu’s family and Nandini’s condition a reflection of the
struggles of the time?
Ans: Mahasweta Devi, as a humanist has wielded her artistic
sovereignty in exposing familial, economic, social, and political
conditions which are oppressive factors that undermine insidiously the
dignity of marginalized. Mother of 1084 is a story that deals with the
trauma of the protagonist Sujata in the Naxalite backdrop of Calcutta of
1970. The narrative is closely interwoven with the experience of three
prominent women characters such as Sujata, Somu’s mother and
Nandini. They belong to varying stratums of life in terms of social and
economic seams.
Explain the relationship of Amit and Nipa.
Ans: Amit is Neepa’s husband. When Amit began drinking, Neepa
started to live with his cousin in his house. Amit could not tell his cousin
off or talk it out with his wife.
Comment on the symbol of appendicitis in the novella.
Ans: Mahasweta begins with the exposure of the morality of a family,
takes Sujata out of its confines to let her meet and interact with others
lying beyond, only to bring her back to the family at the end, and then let
her make a last, desperate effort to accept its norms and adjust to it,
before she collapses. The end is ambiguous, but becomes significant,
thanks to the thin line of a clue that Mahasweta keeps running from the
beginning—the pain of appendicitis and the painkiller tablets. For while it
allows Dibyanath to rationalize and put a lid on the facts—'The appendix
has hurst'.

Write character sketch of the following:

a. Dibyanath
Ans: What an irony-Dibyanath has nothing divya in him. He is the bloody
wretch, bereft of all graces of humanism. The novelist has presented this
character as a foil to highlight the virtues of husband of Sujata.
Dibyanath being the only son had been pampered with vengeance.
Nothing is said about his early life, while as he is extremely careless.
In the beginning of the story, he had three children- Jyoti was ten, Neepa
eight and Tuli six. But his wife recollects that he had never helped during
pregnancy or at the time of the childbirth. Sujata would not forget his
callous attitude. How miserable he had made his wife-no good husband
will leave his wife alone at this critical hour.
b. Sujatha
This novel presents the story of Sujata's hardships and misfortunes she
suffered all through. She described her story in retrospect with honesty.
It was due to her sympathy with those youngmen who were fighting for
social justice and were killed by insensitive and atrocious people and the
government. She became mother of 1084 due to her love for Brati and
his comrades. Sujata indeed was a 'Sujata' born of noble parents.
Sujata came from a rich and orthodox family, having little faith in modern
education system. Still she was sent to study at the Loreto College
wherefrom she did her graduation. Necessary as it was to find a good
match for her, the bridegroom chosen did belong to a well-known family.
Though it was not so rich, yet Sujata's father thought he would go far'
'Sujata held all such values, as comfort, security and all that which went
with that. Sujata was thoroughly honest but her husband, Dibyanath,
was a man degraded to the sub-human level.
c. Brati
Ans: Youngest most Favourite Brati is the youngest of the four children
of Dibyanath and Sujata. When he was born Jyoti was ten, Neepa was
eight and Tuli was six, but Sujata somehow had 'a burning desire for a
child. Brati's mother was not in a happy state during the pregnancy or
after that. She had been 'violated and defiled'. But her love for the
coming child was so great that she requested the doctor 'to save the
child' when she realized that her life or the child's was in danger. Brati
was born on the seventeenth of January, nineteen forty eight.
Brati was a very sensible boy, growing bit by bit. "Brati used to
sleep in the room on the second floor. That had been the arrangement
since he was eight. He was too timid a child to sleep alone, Sujata
suggested that Ham could sleep on the floor in the same room. Sujata
recalled, "Brati was haunted by fears, the fears that haunted an
imaginative child. A funeral procession in the night shouting
"Haribol !' was frightening. But then he outgrew all his fears. Brati
was now beyond all fears and all daring every right to live. Sujata looked
at Jyoti. Only when Jyoti slept did Sujata see a semblance of Brati's
features in his face.
h. Nandini
Ans: The novelist has presented Nandini as an angry young woman.
She was an active worker in the movement for social reform. For purging
the society of such evils as profiteering, drug peddling, spurious drugs,
disparity between the rich and the poor Spirited youths stood up to
accept the challenge without caring fo the odds. Nandini, though a girl
she was, had dedicated her life this great, noble cause. She knew well
that the evil-doers had a strong support from the depraved politicians
and the government Police was brutish in its support for the anti-social
elements. It was a credit for the young woman to work shoulder to
shoulder with the champions of the cause. Her Love for a Comrade.
Sujata went to meet Nandini because she and her son wer close friends.
Sujata came to know her when Nandini phoned to Brati and it was by
chance received by Sujata. It was a surpris to Sujata when Nadini asked
her why she had not gone to the Bank, since Sujata did not know that
Brati had told Nandini abou her job in the Bank. Sujata told her in a
matter-of-fact manner that she wouldn't go to the Bank today because
her young daughter, Tuli was to be engaged that day. Nandini gave her
address to Sujata with a formal request to meet her whenever the had
time. Sujata thought like a mother that Brati would be marria to Nandini,
unaware she was that Brati and Nandini were lovers in the way the
common boys and girls were. On one occasion Sujata asked Brati who
Nandini was an when he would let her see this girl-friend of his. Sujata
could imagine that they had become friends because they had dedicat
themselves to the same noble cause, had vowed to live and die it. In
order to tell his mother that she should not harbour s notions, Brati said
frankly, "She's no beauty," and his father wo not like her.
i. Somu
Acute oppressive forces like poverty, the loss of the only hope, that is the
death of Somu, caused by political atrocities and consequent death of
her husband asphyxiate Somu’s mother. Her struggle for survival
becomes her major concern that blocks her developing capacity for
autonomy. Her concrete words “A woman’s life is like a tortoise’s. She’ll
find peace only if she dies” depict not only the unbearable throes of
woman’s suffering but also represent the universal sufferings of
dispossessed. Somu’s mother’s intellectual capacity doesn’t allow her to
understand the Naxalite movement and its impact on youth apart from
what Somu is doing is not any evil. But the ghastly murder of Somu that
paralyses her heart makes her think and discern the injustice that exists
in the society.
j. Balai Dutt
Balai Dutt is Amit’ s cousin. Amit slept on the second floor. Their
daughter and her nurse shared a room on the first floor. Balai and Neepa
had their bedrooms side by side on the same floor.
Speaking on Dhinman, Balai says Balai said—Dhiman whines over the
twenty thousand young men languishing in the prisons. But don't you
see the fun? When the action- counteraction was on, they were all
whining over the tragedy of Bangladesh in the newspapers. Now that
things are under control, he feels he is safe enough to write.
Balai has a sense of class. He never plays his games outside the family
circle.

III. Answer the following questions in a page or two:

How is Mother of 1084 a saga of a bereaved mother?
OR
The novella is an awakening of an Apolitical Mother. Elucidate.
OR
Describe the encounter of Brati as explained by Somu’s mother and
Nandini
Ans: The novel, Mother of 1084, portrays the entire journey of evolution
in the life of the mother, Sujata Chatterjee, after the pathetic killing of her
son, Brati, during insurgency. Sujata loves and believes in her son to the
extent that she never suspected any of his activities. She is absolutely
shocked when she is suddenly called upon to recognize her son’s dead
body in the police morgue where she sees her son’s mutilated body
along with his other friends. It is here when one of the poignant moments
comes when Sujata asks for the dead body of her son but she is denied.
She realizes that her son’s identity as a human being has been erased
and now his dead body is given another dehumanized identity as corpse
no. 1084. A mother’s heart is torn apart when she sees the miserable
condition of her dead son. This compels people to feel that there still
remain people like Brati who live their lives for a cause which is very
objective in nature.
Sujata is a very conventional Indian woman who belongs to an affluent
family of Calcutta. She works as a bank employee. She is married to
Dibyanath Chatterjee who is a chartered accountant for the last twenty
four years. He is one of those rich elites who look down upon women as
well as the poor and those who fight for the rights of such marginalized
sections of the society. Instead of recovering the dead body, the whole
Chatterjee family except Sujata is engaged to save the honour of the
family by using their money and power. No one asks what a mother
wants. It becomes clear through the flashback memories of Sujata how
she has been neglected throughout her life even by her own husband
who goes to sleep with the typist girl of his office and deprives his wife of
his love. She is usually abused because of one reason or the other. She
has never been thought appropriate to furnish suggestions about serious
family matters. So, this time when she demands her son’s dead body,
others in the family do not care to listen to her.
The death of Brati awakens her mother from the illusion of upper class
cultured life. She now wants to discover what has happened to her son
together with other comrades on the night of their brutal killing. She
reads his books, notes, visits his friends’ houses and talks to Nandini,
Brati’s girlfriend, to explore unknown territories of her son’s life. It is
Nandini, an active member of the movement who helps Sujata to meet
the soul of her dead son. In Nandini, Sujata finds a revolutionary who
goes beyond her personal problems and becomes an uncompromising
fighter against the atrocities of police and other government machineries.
Sujata meets Somu’s mother who too is bearing the pangs of her son,
Somu’s death. The death of Somu has proved to be an irreparable loss
for this family as the whole family was looking towards him for their
future survival. The way, both the mothers wail the demise of their sons
is quite contradictory. This contradiction brings the multiple layers of
class division of the society on the surface. Sujata, to some extent, is
able to hold her feelings in which she has been trained since her
childhood whereas Somu’s mother does not know about these
complexities and cries uninhibitedly at the loss of her son. With the
passage of time, her plaintive loud crying has turned into sobbing for a
lifetime. She has to fight with the harsh circumstances of life after the
death of her son. Her problems are far deeper than those of Sujata’s life
because she has to fight for her survival together with her daughters. For
Somu's mother, there is no time to live in the past, a comfort which
Sujata can avail. The novel captures the sad realities of the movement
and comes face to face with her sense of estrangement from the double
standards of bourgeois society to which she belongs.
At a certain point in the novel, Sujata suddenly clutches her stomach and
wreaths in agony because her appendix bursts during her daughter’s
engagement ceremony. It is an epiphanic movement in her life. It seems
that she wants to implore people to speak out against the injustices done
to the common masses, against the brutal killings of the youths in the
hands of unreliable government machinery. The text mainly serves two
purposes; one it represents an exceptionally atypical journey of a mother
from demure, thoughtful, adoring to angry, confident, almost a rebel who
now seeks justice for all. On her way to find out the reasons of her son’s
commitment for the revolutionary causes, she gets an opportunity to
understand the exploitative systems of society and comes to know that
she herself is alienated as a housewife and as a mother on account of
the prevailing social and cultural values in contemporary society of urban
Bengal. Secondly, it depicts her principle concern-the long age
oppression and exploitation of tribals and the landless peasants in rural
areas despite the fact that she herself belonged to the educated,
upper-class affluent family. The novel ends amidst the oppression and
anguish, violence and vices, suppression and suffocation and more than
these-with a ray of hope for better tomorrow, at the cost of many
innocent as well as revolutionary lives.

The conversation between Nandini and Sujatha is a revelation to

Sujatha about Brati. Explain.
Ans: The novel Mother of 1084 is full of incidents where we can feel the
anxiety and pain of women in patriarchal society. In front of the society,
she is worshipped and given equal status but in reality her existence,
opinion and pain does not matter and she becomes the epitome of
silence and patience, and her sacrifices and acceptance of everything
wrong coming her way make her the best daughter, the best wife and
lastly the best mother. Women who fail to do so are considered archaic
and obsolete.
In Sujatas’s meeting with Nandini, she told Sujata about Anandia who
was introduced by Nitu, a prominent activist, as a diligent worker but he
was a police informer. Nandini realizes that Anandia had joined the
mission with a programme, “a programme of betrayal”. Anandia, a two
faced mole of society who came as friend and companion in their
mission but was actually the reason of their death, he was part of that
feudal community who wanted to uproot the branches of their
movement. With the two faced society and two faced people around, this
group of five friends along with the other Naxal-guerrillas was fighting for
the vision and belief they believed in.

Describe the relationship between Brati and Nandini.

Ans: Sujata went to meet Nandini because she and her son were close
friends. Sujata came to know her when Nandini phoned Brati and it was
by chance received by Sujata. It was a surprise to Sujata when Nadini
asked her why she had not gone to the Bank, since Sujata did not know
that Brati had told Nandini about her job in the Bank. Sujata told her in a
matter-of-fact manner that she wouldn't go to the Bank today because
her young daughter, Tuli was to be engaged that day. Nandini gave her
address to Sujata with a formal request to meet her whenever he had
time. Sujata thought like a mother that Brati would be married to Nandini,
unaware she was that Brati and Nandini were lovers in the way the
common boys and girls were. On one occasion Sujata asked Brati who
Nandini was and when he would let her see this girl-friend of his. Sujata
could imagine that they had become friends because they had dedicated
themselves to the same noble cause, and had vowed to live and die for
it. In order to tell his mother that she should not harbour his notions, Brati
said frankly,She's no beauty and his father won't like her.
As the circumstances changed all of a sudden, Sujata met Nandin' after
the death of Brati, Sujata had t Nandini, the first reason for which was
love between Brati and Nandini. When Sujata asked Nandini directly
"You loved Br very much, didn't you ?" Nandini replied that
she did not think of him like a lover, she said, "I don't know whether
or not I'll forget him. I don't know whether or not he'll fade from my
memory. But it is not Brati alone. When I think so many died, for what?
Thus she made it clear that she loved him not due to any personal
reasons, but for his being a devoted worker who had died for the cause
Keeping His Mother in Dark Since you won't do anything else, why don't
you marry and raise a family, Nandini's predicament was that her mother
did not know what a great shock she was in. She had decided that she
would not marry to please her mother. She was against it, I still feel
disturbed and confused about so many things. Everything seems so
strange, so unreal. I can't identify with anything......... All that you people
find normal, I find abnormal, heart-broken she was but none, not even
her mother, knew her agony.

Discuss the impact of Naxalite movement in the novella.

Ans: Mahasweta Devi's Mother of 1084 probes into the Naxalite
Movement of the early 1970s from a feminist and a humanist point of
view. Being a postcolonial writer, she stands at the intersection of vital
contemporary issues of politics, gender and class. Recording history was
her self-imposed mandate permeating her depiction with trenchant satire
against government and soul stirring poignancy for subaltern, peasants,
outcastes, untouchable, tribal and young idealists. In her introduction to
Agnigarbha (Womb of Fire, 1978), Mahasweta Devi admits, “Rural India
has the appearance of an enormous graveyard.. Movement has been
the most significant and inspiring event for a number of decades in this
country.” ( It is only in the course of voicing one's moral, social and
ideological place that a person could probably hope to reconcile some
wounds of tyranny and subjugation and rise to protest the system of
oppression personally or collectively. Attempting self-liberation, Sujata,
the mother of 1084, has learnt to make a way out on the long road to
hegemony. The economic and social exploitation has forced the
dispossessed to the Naxalite Movement. As Sumanta Banerjee puts: It
was a senseless orgy of murders, misplaced fury, and sadistic tortures,
acted out with the vicious norms of the underworld, and dedicated by the
decadent and cunning values of the petty bourgeois leaders. (1983, 17
7) Mahasweta Devi continues this process of documenting the
exploitation in her other works such as Agnigarbha (Womb of Fire),
Chotti Munda and His Arrow and The Glory of Sree Sree Ganesh. Here
she focuses on the responses of a cross-section of the fighters and their
survivors. They are both, those who endure the mutilations and injuries
of the holocaust, and those who have survived through the days of
horrible violence in sham insularity. Samik Bandyopadhyay writes:
The adoration of god men, the euphoria over the Bangladesh war, the
pretences of radicalism and scandals commercial and amorous
constituted for the letter a lifestyle that guaranteed their security. At one
level at least the urban guerrillas were reacting against the immorality of
this lifestyle and rejecting the social-familial system that had nurtured
them. The rebellion against the middle class mores need not be an
explanation even of the urban Naxalite rebellion, but that would be the
one aspect that could rationalize the Movement in retrospect to a fairly
affluent, sensitive and enlightened mother, who had not known till the
shock of an early morning phone call from the police morgue that her
favourite son had become part of the movement.
The play is a yawning psychological sketch of a mourning apolitical
mother, who instead of drowning her son's memory in tears, keeps the
ardent ideal alive during the traumatic time. Her personal anguish turns
into political awareness and metaphysical understanding only after the
unexpected and mysterious death of her younger son Brati, with whom
she has always shared a very keen relationship, unlike her other
children. It is his life and activities that Sujata fails to understand which
enhance her soul thrilling quandary. Sujata comes to know of the facts
behind Brati?s sacrifice exactly two years after his death. The learning
process continues till the end of the play involving her in a series of
meetings and encounters with the people whose cause Brati
campaigned. She is one of those victims whose dear ones have been
killed in a skirmish with the people in power. Brati, like other youth, was
disillusioned with the existing social and power systems. They harbour
many evils which boom on the credulity of the innocent people.
Consequently, Brati rebels through movement. Later on, the movement
spread to the metropolis, when the urban highbrows, out of a sense of
guilt, resolved to take part in it. Jai Sen puts, “for their guilt in
acquiescing in the perpetuation of a system of exploitation from which
they had reaped benefits for generations.”
Brati protests against the „internal colonization? and irrational ethics of
all those establishments that add to the woes of the underprivileged. The
play begins with a morning phone call that Sujata receives from the
police to identify corpse number 1084 which is, in fact, Brati?s. The play,
like Asif Currimbhoy’s Inquilab, is a commentary on the historical
movement. Being a tricontinent writer, Mahasweta Devi purposefully
writes historic and domestic literature to portray the actual situations of
contemporary society. As Sujit Mukherjee observes:
Mahasweta Devi turns, with Mother of 1084, to recording the present
instead of reconstructing the past. It is a typical play of documentation in
which she seeks the roots of the revolutionary fervor of the urban rebels
in their discontent with a system that upheld a corrupt and insensitive
establishment both in the family and in the State.
Brati?s mission of life is to liberate human beings from the grabs of the
hydra-headed exploitative mechanism which regards the dispossessed
sufferers as „other, disqualified and inadequate?. He is dedicated to
creating a class-less society where mankind enjoys equal rights, equal
access to identity and attempts to voice against the „epistemic violence?.
Ironically the autocrats of the ruling party look at the young rebels as a
malignant tumor on the face of power politics, hence a conflict between
the oppressor and the oppressed, resulting in brutal muggings and
counter muggings and an orgy of vicious killing under an excuse of fake
encounters. Brati is slaughtered along with Somu, Partha and Bijit, in
one such encounter. The native power in the shape of Saroj Pal, the
DCDD- Deputy Commissioner, Detective Department, steps into the
shoes of the previous British imperialists. Observing the Indian scene
Gayatri Spivak views, “The mindset of the imperialist is displaced and
replaced in the comprador capitalist.
Sujata’s visit to the persons beyond the course of her experience is a
confrontation which uncovers the secret areas of understanding her son.
In the introduction of Mahasweta Devi’s Bashai Tudu, Gayatri Spivak
writes, “In fact, these confrontations take place across the
cleavages of hierarchies of power, of class and commitment.” These
confrontations serve two purposes. Firstly they let Sujata come face to
face with the realities of life and secondly of self-
realization that the „other is a self-shadow?. So far she has been forced
to adjust herself to the patriarchal social codes and conducts and
unconsciously she has accepted them as they have
gone into her psyche. As a matter of fact, she is heedless to Brati’s
revolution against the traditional social ethics and beliefs. Nandini makes
her conscious that she is able to achieve a voice, “(smiling) It’s for you to
take the first step. Isn’t it your obligation to set a model for the younger
generation to follow? Why do you demand loyalty by virtue of a
relationship? Why don’t you try to earn it by virtue of your integrity? You
won’t be honest, won’t forge relationships and then you put the whole
blame on us.” Nandini’s tone presents her as an angry young woman
livid by the cruelty and torture of police. However her resolute confidence
in humanity is inspiring and moving. In fact Sujata’s self-realization
occurs in her company. Nandini asks her:How can you be so smug and
complacent? With so many young men killed, so many imprisoned, how
can you wallow in your complacency? It’s your „all’s right with the world,
let?s go on nicely? That frightens me most. How can you carry on with
your pujas, concerts, cultural festivals, film festivals, poetry fests? The
Naxalite storm has gone but its ruin and wreckage left. The nightmarish
reminiscences of the disruption and turmoil still disturb the survivors.
They could not come out of themselves and readjust to mainstream
normal life. Somu’s father feels cheated being unconscious of the
monstrousness of the crime executed by the ruling party with tacit
backing from the police. He goes to the police station for support, when
the furious crowd slaughtered his son, Somu, Brati and their friends. His
optimism was devastated. As Somu’s mother says to Sujata, “… he died
of the shock. O God! Is there no justice in this country? God! No justice?
He went on and on asking till he was dead.” In an orgy of violence
Somu’s mother has lost the last bread-winner for the family.
Consequently many mothers and sisters have been given hopelessness.
Their social situation is wretched and aching. Mahasweta Devi reveals
the pathetic life that seems to mock at the fate of history reminding that
nothing has changed in imperial strategy except the name of the new
rulers. Initially Sujata could not mix up with Nandini and Somu’s mother.
Bit by bit she finds a dialogic hybridity? that echoes her inaudible cry of
anguish and harassment in their perpetual miseries and woes. However,
the oppressors sense a rebel in her and accordingly ban her visit to
the houses of the underprivileged. Sujata and Somu’s mother, both are
victims of the shots and upshots of Naxalite Movement. The bond,
established between them, is natural and it feasibly turns into a major
threat to the privileged ruling people. They fear that the sufferers may
learn to revolt for the common cause against all kinds of persecution.
Sumanta Banerjee, throwing light
on the upshots of Naxalite Movement writes:

There are thousands of sufferers who are not being allowed to lead
a normal life. For years the police have been trained to suspect every
young man as a potential rebel, and they find ready preys even among
those unfortunate youth who were perhaps once on the fringe of the
Naxalite