The name for India’s lowest caste, Dalit, comes from the Hindi word for “broken” or “oppressed”. Dalits are considered “untouchable”, their presence and touch thought by many of India’s other castes to be poisonous. Despite caste-based discrimination being illegal, Dalits are frequently victims of sexual violence, harassment and murder.
Gogu Shyamala was born in 1969 into a Dalit family of agricultural labourers. The stories in this collection look back to her childhood. Writing in Telugu – which has been translated into English by multiple translators – she recalls games, food, music, as well as discrimination. In one tale, children play a drumming game after attending a funeral; in another, teachers from a higher caste are impressed watching Dalit boys swim and ask the boys to teach them; in another, an upper-caste boy is considered polluted after his life is saved by a Dalit girl.
