Coming Out As Dalit: A Memoir By Yashica Duttħ. The Country Without a Post Office By Agha Shahid Aliĥ. These Hills called Home: Stories from a War Zone By Temsula AoĤ. Voices of Dissent, An Essay By Romila Thaparģ. Off the Beaten Track: The Story of My Unconventional Life By Saeeda Bano, Translated By Shahana RazaĢ. And you won’t either, once you listen to those who are shouting to be heardġ. The only thing I don’t do is ask if casteism exists. Hearing a new story everyday of how someone in the family, around us, were abused because of the caste they belonged to, to faking a smile everytime someone talked about it all, I related to Yashica on so many levels.
Well, The Financial security and the privilege I grew up around sort of did, for most part of it, not question my truth: My caste, around which everything revolved. The endless moments came running to me: All the moments I tried to hide my caste, trying my very best not to shrug my face whenever someone talked about reservation system and used casteist slurs, and pretend like I could never be from one of the castes they think lowly of, I have been living the lie all my life. the moment I came face to face with reality. Everything that I had done so far or that had happened to me was somehow related to my caste. Everything about my life was connected to a larger narrative. This Winner of Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraaskar 2020 is to me what a sacred book is to most people: a Safe Haven.Īfter I came out as Dalit, I no longer had anything to hide. And Hey, if you are someone who usually skip the Forewords and Author’s Note, I suggest that you don’t it with this book, because, this one is sure to hook you from the very beginning. Prologue to Coming Out As Dalit, A MemoirĬoming Out As Dalit felt like home to me for a varied number of reasons.
We avoid talking about caste, hoping to somehow find a place in the world of upper-casteness that has been forbidden to us. And there are so many of us who are living this lie. Pretending to be from a caste that’s not Dalit is something like that. Eventually, the two blur together and you no longer remember who you were. You create masks to wear in each of your lives, and switch artfully between the two. Hiding One aspect of your identity is like leading a double life.
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