"Mother of 1084" is a short story by Mahasweta Devi, a renowned Bengali writer and social activist. The story tells the tale of a woman named Baalkrishna, who becomes known as the "Mother of 1084" after giving birth to 1084 babies as a surrogate mother.
Baalkrishna lives in a small village in India and is married to a man named Panchu. Despite their love for each other, they are unable to have children due to Panchu's infertility. Baalkrishna is deeply saddened by this, as she longs to experience the joy of motherhood.
One day, a woman named Durga arrives in the village with a proposal for Baalkrishna. Durga is a surrogate mother, and she offers Baalkrishna the opportunity to carry a baby for a wealthy couple who are unable to have children of their own. Baalkrishna is hesitant at first, but Panchu encourages her to accept the offer as it would provide them with much-needed financial stability.
Baalkrishna agrees and becomes a surrogate mother for the couple. She carries the baby to term and gives birth to a healthy child. The couple is overjoyed and pays Baalkrishna a large sum of money for her services.
Baalkrishna becomes a surrogate mother multiple times over the years, eventually giving birth to 1084 babies in total. She becomes known as the "Mother of 1084" and is revered in the village as a symbol of fertility and motherhood.
However, despite the financial stability and respect that Baalkrishna's surrogacy brings her, it also takes a physical and emotional toll on her body and mind. She becomes exhausted and sickly, and her relationship with Panchu suffers as he becomes jealous of the attention she receives from the couples whose babies she carries.
In the end, Baalkrishna decides to stop being a surrogate mother, and Panchu leaves her. She is left alone, with nothing but the memories of the babies she carried and the knowledge that she has fulfilled her dream of becoming a mother, even if it was not in the traditional sense.
"Mother of 1084" is a poignant and thought-provoking story that explores the complexities of surrogacy and motherhood. It raises questions about the sacrifices that women are willing to make for the sake of their own happiness, and the impact of those sacrifices on their relationships and sense of identity. Mahasweta Devi's writing is evocative and poignant, and "Mother of 1084" is a powerful and memorable tale.
A Brief Guide To Mother Of 1084 Summary And Critical Analysis Essay
It was six in the morning. There she would find her beloved son reduced to a numbered corpse, 1084. Set over the late sixties and early seventies, during the first phase of the Maoist-inspired Naxalite insurgency in West Bengal, Mother of 1084 by Indian writer and activist, Mahasweta Devi 1926—2016 , is a focused examination of the impact of targeted violence on those left behind through the story of one woman stranded in her loss and grief. I also found that the translated version of the book is written in a way that there is no clear distinction between dialogues of characters. That is not to suggest that this is not an intensely political work, but by centring an apolitical protagonist who finds herself navigating the space between the shocking indifference of her family and social class, the devastation of the bereaved who exist in the midst of conflict and destitution, and the anger of the activist committed to the cause at all costs, Devi crafts a powerful, unforgiving narrative. Dibyanath Chatterjee bothered to consult his son Jyoti rather than his wife, Sujata.
Mother of 1084 by Mahasweta Devi
Significantly, Sujata makes several other discoveries, only after the sudden and mysterious death of Brati, her younger son, with whom she had always shared a very special relationship. She is left alone to try to make sense of why her son had been drawn to such a radical movement and to understand the events of the night on the eve of his twentieth birthday that had cost him his life. Grief is the bank. . When the novel opens, two of her children are already married, Jyoti to Bina and Nipa to Amrit. It was a death that could not be classified in any of the usual ways—illness, accident, crime: All that Brati could be charged with was that he had lost faith in the social system itself.
Marginalization In Mahasweta Devi's 'Mother Of 1084'
A close associate of Brati, Somu had been killed in the same encounter. More specifically, the development of the inter-dependent themes of trauma, exploitation, as well as female vulnerability, which all in the case in question pertain to one single character, also latently extend over to the wider social issue of colonialism and its entailing negative repercussions, in this case as it applies to the Caribbean and the British Empire. She enters into the little known world of slum dwellers. Dibyanath: Jyoti, there is no time to waste. Somehow I thought I did not connect with this book. This could lead to teachers discriminating and treating students differently. And, as soon as the tide is over, he wants her to give up the job, which Sujata simply refuses.
Mother of 1084 by Mahasweta Devi
In the words of Sujata: But that soon? Brati had not remained content with writing slogans on the wall, he had come to commit himself to the slogans. It is something she has refused to give up. Sometimes I got confused if the character was thinking to themselves or talking to someone. Sujata comes from a background of privilege, raised in a wealthy Calcutta family and afforded an education, but in marriage her life is constrained by the roles her social class expects of her. What will you hush up? Essay On Social Class In America 1419 Words 6 Pages Discussion about Social class and poverty in America According to the textbook of Introduction to sociology, a social class is defined as a social ranking according to the economic position in which achieved characteristics can influence social mobility. Sociologist Daniel Rossides describes five social class: the upper class, the upper-middle class, the lower middle class, the working class and the lower class.
Mother of 1084 : Mahasveta Debi, 1926
It was the morning of seventeenth January again. And the telephone ran. The womb has started pushing it out. Tuli : The same thing again! Unaware of his secret mission, Sujata is not able to dissuade her son from joining this movement. What began highly risky business of publishing books-books on alternative cinema, philosophy, culture-continues to be a passionately felt need of the hour: manuscripts that need to see the light of day, instinctive and theatre, visual arts, to reach a readership, to stimulate minds, to change outlooks. The whole of the night of the other sixteenth of January she had the pain tearing through her, from consciousness to unconsciousness nd back again, the smell of ether, harsh lights, the doctors moving beyond the hazy screen of torpid pan, all night long, all night long, then the dawn of the seventeenth January and Brati was born. What are you talking about? Mahasweta's mother Dharitri Devi was also a writer and a social worker.
