Devi Chaudhurani: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1

Book excerpt: Based on the famous novel 'Devi Choudhurani' by eminent Bengali author Bankim Chandra Chattyopadhyay (who wrote the song Vande Mataram). 1795, The age of Matsyanyaya in Colonial India, a state of lawlessness similar to the sea where the Big fish eats the small. The East India Company like a hungry great white shark devours the wealth of the nation. The smaller Native Kings and Landlords despotize the farmers and common folk for the mounting taxes imposed by the Raj. The common folk suffer relentlessly under this vicious cycle, but perhaps the ones who suffered most were the women of the country, abused by a corrupt and stringent patriarchal rule which encouraged malpractices like Polygamy, Child Marriage the loss of all social status of the widows and the heinous ritual of Sati, where a woman has to burn in the pyre of her dead husband.