Hazar Chaurasivein ki Maa: Mahashweta Devi

Aparna Jha

Today, I completed the widely famous novel, Hazar Chaurasivein Ki Maa, written by the well known writer Mahashweta Devi. It was very long ago when I read my last novel. Don’t know why but while reading the book I felt as if I have lost the habit of reading. I used to read novels in continuation or say I was addict of it. Even if I started reading a novel during my exams I used to complete in that duration, be it any way, keeping these novels inside my textbooks or read at some place so that the family members could not get me, otherwise I would have been scolded.

THE BOOK

The book is all about a mother, struggling with her own family to keep her son in her memories, despite the disagreement of her husband, son and daughters. Her son dies in an Andolan sort of thing, which she was unaware of, her family takes, him as a stigma on the name of the family. The Mother, Sujata is always sad that she herself loved her son so much then how it went that she could not know what way he was moving on.Her fourth and the youngest son, Vrati dies in mutiny, her husband take his death a blot on the name of his family and forces her also not to think of him, but does not do this for consoling her but to remove his name from the family, to maintain his staure in the so called higher society.

The story is based on a family of higher society, where the husband treats his wife as a source to his entertainment and physical pleasure. It also narrates how the circumstances make the lady a rebel, who had buried her wishes and ego against the desire of her family and the husband especially. A sentence "zindagi mein jo cheezein ham apni ichcha k viruddha karte hain wohi kartavya hai" really it stopped me and i was compelled to think over this. The story is really a pathetic one, and describes how a mother chained in the responsibility of the family and maintaining the status of the family in the higher society does not get a chance to mourn even on her son’s death. The story is of just one day from the morning to night.

The name, Hazar Chauraseevein ki Maa refers to the number of his son who was nowhere registered in the crime list neither a list. She is not even allowed to think about him and neither can she cry like a lady who has lost her son in a similar sort of mutiny.