From instrumentalism to embracing the other: An analysis of Mahasweta Devi’s ‘Rudali’ and Kalpana Lajmi’s Rudaali

Abstract

This article examines Mahasweta Devi’s literary work ‘Rudali’ alongside Kalpana Lajmi’s cinematic adaptation Rudaali from the perspective of Derek Attridge’s views on literary instrumentalism and literariness. It attempts to tease out the literary elements and explore the shifting dynamic of the instrumental and the literary. The article looks at how the focus on the literariness in the two works facilitates an opening out towards the ‘other’ and an inclusivity that an instrumental approach may negate. The article also analyses the representation of the stereotype of the sex worker as prostitute and whore in the story and the film vis-à-vis the dynamics of openness to otherness and alterity. As a comparative analysis of the text and its adaptation in film, the article studies the contrast and complementarity of these works in text and film and finally examines how the features particular to the specific medium bring to bear on the instrumental approach, literariness, stereotypes and inclusivity.