| Movements and revolutions have been integral to the history of human civilization. Some of them have passed into oblivion, but others have left a trailing influence on the people of later generations. While their official versions reveal less and conceal more, fictional works based on them i.e. their narrative versions throw light upon them from an altogether different angle and thus become important social documents. Again, two narrative versions of a single epoch also vary from each other significantly. Factors like globalization, modernization, consumerism and marketability shape the mindset and approach of the writers. One such movement was the Naxalite movement of Bengal in the 1970s.This write-up tries to see through the eyes of two writers—separated from each other by place, time and culture—how the death of the revolutionaries of that movement deeply affects the lives of their loved ones and direct their future course of action. The two novels considered, compared and contrasted here are Hajaar Churashir Maa (also mentioned as HCM) by Mahasweta Devi, one of the eminent literary figures of Bengal, and the US-based Pulitzer winning novelist Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland. These two novels, even while dealing with the same Naxalite movement with certain other things in common, are unique by virtue of their ingenious presentation. |