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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2014
In Shishu (Children), a short story by Mahasweta Devi ([1978] 1993), a junior government officer, Singh, is sent to distribute relief to the underdeveloped areas along India's eastern border. Perplexed by the regular theft of government supplies from his camp, Singh keeps watch and one night comes upon a group of children running towards the forest with their loot. He sets after them, finally catching up at the boundary where the government camp ends and the forest begins. The children now turn around and start to close upon him in a circle. It is then, that he realizes — in stunned shock and disbelief — that they are not children but adults — old men and women with grey hair, weathered breasts and penises. Describing the encounter, Devi (250—51) writes:
They cackled with savage and revengeful glee. Cackling, they ran around him. They rubbed their organs against him and told him that they were adult citizens of India. […] They cackled in the vicious joy born out of desire for revenge.
[…] But revenge against what?
Singh's shadow covered their bodies. And that shadow brought the realization home to him. They hated his height of five feet and nine inches. They hated the normal growth of his body. His normalcy was the crime they could not forgive.
Singh's cerebral cells tried to register the logical explanation but he failed to utter a single word. Why, why this revenge? He did not have the stature of a healthy Russian, Canadian or an American.
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