ABSTRACT
In this extract from her memoir, Mahasweta Devi recalls her schooldays in Santiniketan in the 1930s, when Rabindranath Tagore was alive. In this anecdote, she recalls a lesson in natural science, where the teacher responds to a young girl’s innocent queries with a lesson about the food chain and the law of survival in the animal world. Reflecting on that episode, in the voice of the older Mahasweta Devi recounting her past, the narrator makes a telling comment on the impact of Tagore’s philosophy of education, and how it has influenced her own outlook. She also makes a bitter remark about the human violence and callousness towards the natural world, which have destroyed the balance of nature.
