Book review: Mother of 1084
The short story titled Mother of 1084 is written by Mahasweta Devi, a prolific writer who mainly writes stories regarding women and their position within the Indian society, as most of the characters are women living in poverty. However, the short story regarding Mother of 1084 is seen to be quite different from the other stories by Devi considering that she concentrates on a woman of middle class. Mother of 1084 is a story of Sujata who hails from an affluent family as she is given permission to pursue her B.A., after which she got married and bore four children.
The first part of the novel presents Tuli, sujata’s youngest daughter who is on the verge of being engaged to a Swedish exporter Toni, on a day when his son Brati was born and as fate would have it, he died on a similar date. The occasion is that of a fresh beginning that threatens to shutter into memories of a sad end and Sujata’s shifts to the day when his dear son first came into the world, a toil in which she bore without any help from his husband or in-laws. The bondage with Brati began when he was still in the womb as he was born as a fear stricken toddler who was often regarded as mama’s boy and the same bondage was noted twenty years after his birth when she learnt of his death. She believed that his son was innocent unlike the rest of her family who had ousted him and that Brati’s only mistake was his refusal to accept the status quo of the state of things in the community (27). In real sense, Sujata is seen returning to her inner secluded life of personal turmoil, solitude, and betrayal, a feeling that led to her awareness of how she was not just a fellow sufferer to his son Brati but also a soul mate.
Later, Sujata finds her way to Somu’s mother whose son was a close ally to Brati and was killed in a similar manner, and the two eventually find a commonality through their sufferings. It is with Somu’s mother that Sujata begins her healing process as she learns of her son’s innocence, a realization that helps her to recover from self-pity, but she is only fully healed after meeting Nandini. Nandini was Brati’s beloved and was aware of the events that led to his death; hence, she carefully reconstructed them to her mother and even initiates her to their underground movement, activities that left Sijata’s mother bewildered on how she really did not know her son (Ghosh, 8).
The short story is a depiction of Sujata’s many sufferings within a stifling, domestic, male-controlled and primitive era as she is left to cater for his family alone without the help of his husband who was even nowhere to be seen during the birth of her children. The story can also be pictured as the depiction of how Sujata finds her way out of the cocoon of social obligation and civilised disguise only to face the unknown, primeval, underground organisation of the Naxalites or that of Brati. Additionally, Devi also presents a story regarding a political woman who ended up being shoved over the threshold, and who is eventually forced to realise the basic human need to chant her political and moral ideology in a gross egotistical world.
In conclusion, Mother of 1084 is a story that shows the social injustices of a middle aged woman names Sujata who lost his dear son because of his political ideologies, but only becomes aware of his son’s innocence after his death. The suffering that she had to go through during her marriage pushed her to the edge and she had no choice than to rethink her political and moral ideologies. The story at the end can be described as a narrative of healing where the aspect of time is vital, which shifts back and forth, the same way the two pivotal lives of Sujata and her son, and as fate would have it, death brought them together.
Works Cited
Ghosh, Siddhartha Sankar. "Mahasweta Devi’s Mother of 1084: A Witness to the Macabre Incidents of State Violence on the Vibrant Youths of Bengal." Global Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies 4.8 (2015). Print.
