Play Reading | Draupadi by Mahasweta Devi | By The Green Room

The Green Room presents a reading of Mahasweta Devi’s Draupadi on November 26, 2025 (5 pm–7 pm) at NAB 101.

Draupadi (originally Dopdi, translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak) is among her most iconic works. Reimagining the mythic figure of Draupadi within the harsh landscape of counterinsurgency operations in contemporary India, the story turns the epic heroine into a revolutionary tribal woman at war with state power.

Author and the Text:

Mahasweta Devi (1926-2016) was one of India’s most powerful and influential literary voices — a writer whose work (foundational in subaltern and feminist literature) consistently cut through layers of state violence, gendered oppression, and the lived realities of marginalised communities, especially Adivasi groups. Her stories are unsparing, political, deeply humane, and often unsettling in the questions they force us to confront.

Since this text is not a script, we’ll be gathering for an open discussion on its narrative, themes, and questions. Everyone is welcome to attend, even if you don’t get a chance to read the story beforehand.