Sushama Deshpande, writer, journalist, actor and director on Pause with Nandini

NRI Affairs, Pause with Nandini

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This is more than a conversation.
This is a video essay of a purposeful life, well-lived. My guest on this episode is Sushama Deshpande, writer, journalist, actor, director and all round awe-inspiring human. She is playful and passionate, a serious feminist and a delightful trouble maker, who shows us things ‘polite’ society would much rather not face or acknowledge.
It has been over 30 years since she started performing her celebrated solo piece, ‘Vhay, Mi Savitribai’ (Yes, I’m Savitribai ), about the life of the social reformer Savitribai Phule, which has taken her to small hamlets in India as well as to international platforms.
The work of Savitribai, wife of Jyotiba Phule — both pioneers in women’s education in Maharashtra, influenced her so strongly that her subsequent work as writer, director and performer, focused on social issues — women’s lives in particular, whether it was working with Tamasha artists, sex workers from Sangli, LGBTQ activists in Pune or telling the stories of women Bhakti poets from Maharashtra, the struggles of Dalit women, or the rage of an elderly grandmother in the film, Ajji.
A woman perhaps far ahead of her times, Sushama Deshpande is a singular example of an artist with a deeply rooted understanding of her culture and history, coupled with an expansive, humanistic and universal sensibility, that is for all time.
In a world of insta reels and snappy feeds, i welcome you to truly pause, with me, as we discover the magic that is Sushama Deshpande.
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The poems she recites in Marathi and their English translations.

भ्रतार हो मजसी ओढितो एकांती

भोगावे मजसी म्हणोनिया

ओढोनिया बहुत मारितो मजसी

मध्यरात्री जाणा समयासी

Vitha

My husband abuses me

This your fate, he says

he pulls me and hits me

in the middle of the night,

I will leave his place.

तुझी सत्ता आहे देहावरी समज

माझेवरी तुझी किंचित नाही

Your ownership is just on this body

You have no right over me.

Context -

This is said by a woman who is passionately in love with Lord Vithhal and says this to her husband who on the pretext of matrimony tries to force himself on her physically.

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देहासी विटाळ म्हणती सकळ ।

आत्मा तो निर्मळ शुध्द्बुध्द ॥१॥

देहिंचा विटाळ देहीच जन्मला ।

सोवळा तो झाला कवण धर्म ॥२॥

विटाळावाचोनी उत्पत्तीचे स्थान ।

कोण देह निर्माण नाही जगीं ॥३॥

म्हणुनी पांडुरंगा वानितसे थोरी ।

विटाळ देहांतरी वसतसे ॥४॥

देहाचा विटाळ देहींच निर्धारी ।

म्हणतसे महारी चोखियाची ॥५॥

Soyrabai

A body is unclean, they say, only the soul is untainted.

But the impurity of the body is born with the body.

By which rule has a body become pure? Not a creature in this world has been born except in a gory womb.

This is the glory of Panduranga: defilement exists within.

The body is polluted from within.

Be sure of it, says the Mahari of Choka.

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