Ilina Sen on Mahasweta Devi

This is just to express my sincere appreciation of Ilina Sen’s article “Remembering Mahasweta Devi” (EPW, 10 June 2017).

The article had interesting and lesser-known information on Mahasweta Devi. I (and maybe many others) were not aware of the fact that she was so closely related to Ritwik Ghatak (the film-maker) and Sachin Chaudhury (EPW’s founder). Truly, Mahasweta Devi was a unique personality and a great writer. While reading her novel Titu Mir, I was fascinated at her detailed insight on life and politics in rural Bengal (particularly the 24 Parganas and Nadia districts), the exact nature of the colonial and zamindari tyranny and the culture and beliefs of Muslim villagers and the hollowness and fraud of fake superstitious saints and fakirs during Titu’s time. It is a significant work considering how Titu Mir remains ignored in our history and literature.