Such portrayals of Dalits (as untouchables are now called) as mute and ix This poem, entitled “Achut ki Aah” (The Sigh of an Untouchable), narrates the sad story of an untouchable denied entry into a temple and how it broke his heart. My Hindi literature textbook included a poem by Siaramsharan Gupt. My textbooks did inform me about the evil of untouchability and what Mahatma Gandhi had done to eliminate it, but they did so in a detached, abstracted manner, couched in a language that seemed to have no connection with my lived reality. No untouchables studied with me in my school or later at college. When they asked for water, it was poured into their cupped hands, from a distance. It brought to the surface, as a scalpel penetrating deep into the flesh, the details of my childhood and adolescence in a small town in northern India where casteism and untouchability were accepted, where untouchables cleaned our latrines and carried the excrement away on their heads. Omprakash Valmiki’s Joothan is among the few books that have had a profound effect on my consciousness. Map of India: Places of Significance in Joothan
Introduction by Arun Prabha Mukherjee xvii Printed in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 DS422.C3V275 2003 305.51220954-dc21 2002041710 designed by lisa chovnick Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. © 2003 Omprakash Valmiki English translation copyright © 2003 Arun Prabha Mukherjee All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Valmiki, Omprakasa 1950– Joothan/Omprakash Valmiki translated by Arun Prabha Mukherjee. This edition is not for sale in South Asia. Omprakash Valmiki Translated by Arun Prabha MukherjeeĬolumbia university press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex Joothan: A Dalit’s Life was first published by Samya, an imprint of Bhatkal and Sen, 16 Southern Avenue, Kolkata 700 026, India, in 2003.
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