DEGENERATION VERSUS REGENERATION IN MAHASWETHA DEVI'S AFTER KURUKSHETRA

War, is the evilest of all the endeavours of man. War paves the cruellest way for destruction, death, decay and inexplicable suffering – both physical and psychological, leaving indelible shock marks on the affected. This article analyses the aftermath of war among the nonparticipants of war, namely the women folks. Women, during the kurukshetra war times were passive lookers on and not active soldiers. The writer Mahaswetha Devi, in her own characteristic way, makes her readers contemplate on the repercussions of war from a different perspective. How does war ruin the life of the innocent family members of the innocent warriors is so authentically substantiated by this great social activist in an inimitable manner. War does not discriminate or spare people of any walk of life. How life in total is pulled into a whirlpool like chaos and what is the possibility of regeneration in this pitiable condition of degeneration are the points studied through analysing Devi’s three stories in this text After Kurukshetra. This article makes use of Margret Atwood’s theory on basic victim positions and the theory of existentialism with its four pillars of existential therapy namely freedom, responsibility, meaning, and isolation to address the ultimate concerns and conditions of human existence in general and that of the characters in the stories in particular, encouraging individuals to take self-directed choices and explore their own existence with openness and curiosity.