Tragic Tale of Suffering Humanity : Douloti the Bountiful

Abstract

Mahasweta Devi is a literary stalwart who has written vehemently for a social cause. As an activist writer, she has explored, studied and presented an authentic portrait of the tumults of the lives of tribal community in India. Her texts present a rare critique of our socio-political-economic structure that is blind towards its own discrepancies. Douloti, the bountiful is yet another piece of work by the writer that seems to explain ‘all about tribal life’− the cycle of exploitation, chronic poverty, hunger, deprivation, bonded slavery, prostitution, marginalisation, the pernicious nexus amongst the rich, powerful and power-mongering elites and so on. The present paper is an attempt to make a deep study of the work and to trace the modus operandi of exploitation, as shown by the writer, with special emphasis on how women are made to suffer differently.