Phoolan Devi (A frame from the documentary ‘Phoolan’)
Being a journalist I have led a tangential life. It is in the nature of the profession that one forms many tangents. ‘A Tangential Life’ is in fact the title of my upcoming memoirs whenever they come up; if at all they do.
Speaking of tangents, I chanced upon the trailer of a documentary about Phoolan Devi, one of India’s most written about and in some quarters even celebrated bandits. Subjected to the grotesque cruelties of India’s notorious caste system, including repeated rape, Devi rebelled against the social order with spectacular violence as a bandit leader before renouncing that life and becoming a Member of Parliament, only to be assassinated in July 25, 2001.
My tangent with Devi occurred sometime in 1995 at her home in New Delhi when I interviewed her for India Abroad, the New York-based weekly, and India Abroad News Service. Watching the trailer, memories of my encounter with her came back. Two things had struck me immediately—her petit body and piercing eyes. Hers were the eyes of someone who had been watchful for a very long time. Her gaze was that of someone who sensed an impending danger and hence measured anyone who came into contact with her.
Although she had long renounced the life of banditry and violence by the time I met her, she told me she sensed everyday that she would be killed. Some six years after that meeting she was assassinated.
Directed by documentary filmmaker Hossein Martin Fazeli, ‘Phoolan’ is in the process of raising funds via a Kikctstarter campaign.
“What excites me most about Phoolan is the opportunity to explore the resilience of human spirit in the face of incredible odds. This is an issue that is close to my heart. What makes people rise above their circumstances? What message can such as act give to tens of millions of people around the world who are denied dignity on daily basis? How empowering can such an act be?” Fazeli says in director’s statement.
“Despite being born to an environment of extreme poverty and abuse, Phoolan Devi refused to be silenced into a life of subordination. She fought back and demanded to be counted. As a result of her sense of justice and uncompromising demand for respect, she eventually prevailed against forces far more powerful than she was,” he says.
In her conversation with me, Devi spoke of her gang rape with both seething rage as well as detachment. She told me she asked her attackers to kill her but they did not. Throughout the interview she appeared to size me up but looked at my wife Kesumi, who had accompanied me out of curiosity,with amiability. I suspect the presence of another woman helped put Devi at ease somewhat.
I vividly remember thinking how razor sharp she was despite her ordeal and subsequent life of extraordinary violence. She also said she was conscious that while she may have renounced violence her antagonists had not. “Kabhi na kabhi mar denge (They will kill me some day),” was how she had described it.
Her killing came nearly 18 years after she surrendered in 1983. When you consider that she had led a life of extraordinary brutality and violence by the time she was just 19 (She was born in 1963), you begin to get a measure of her life.
I look forward to watching the documentary.