Body of Work

People, Power & Prophecy in the writing of Mahasweta Devi

By CHITRALEKHA BASU

Originally published in the September 2016 issue of the Caravan Magazine

Sometime in 2000, I watched the actor Sabitri Heisnam play the eponymous protagonist in a stage adaptation of Mahasweta Devi’s 1976 story ‘Draupadi.’ Set against the backdrop of the Naxalite movement…