Translating the In-Scribed Body: Cultural Alterity and a Draupadi’s Counter Narrative

The subject of this paper is the translation of a short story by late Mahasweta Devi titled “Draupadi” by Gayatri Chakravarti Spivak. The paper seeks to explore the journey of the narrative from the contextual subset of 20th century Bengali literature, to the pan-national and indeed the international literary field as a representative text of subaltern consciousness in the subcontinent. The paper seeks to explore the textual inscription of the (un)making of a tribal ‘Draupadi’ from the moment of her accidental christening, through complex cultural parallels, to the inevitable moment of her disrobing and after. The figure of Mahasweta’s Draupadi strides across from beyond the pale of the mainstream cultural imaginary and forces a realignment of customary readings of the narrative of the legendary Draupadi and her infamous humiliation.