Five Dalit stories that changed how I read

I am still reading to learn. But this year, I am learning to heal. Healing is not always soft. Sometimes, it comes with a lot of pain. Sometimes, it burns before it soothes. Through these books I’m not just gathering my scattered pieces of history, I am also sharpening them.

Siddhesh Gautam

Illustration: Siddhesh Gautam

The Hunger That Moved a Goddess and Other Stories (Hyderabad Book Trust) by Endapalli Bharathi, trs. V.B. Sowmya

Bharathi’s stories are demographically rooted in rural Andhra Pradesh, but ideologically they travel far beyond geography. They centre women’s lives from Dalit communities with an honesty that refuses pity. There is hunger, yes, but also defiance, humour, and small, everyday rebellions. The “goddess” in the title doesn’t sit in temples; she walks in bodies that endure and resist. What struck me most is how quietly radical these short stories are. And in between these lives, almost gently, the book teaches you how to eat, how to cook, how to remember through food. Recipes and eating habits appear not as instructions but as stories — of survival, of scarcity, of community.

Exquisite Cadavers (Context/Westland) by Meena Kandasamy

This is not a conventional novel. It is not biographical or fictional. It is fragmented, self-aware, almost impatient with storytelling itself. Kandasamy weaves together multiple narratives: a love story, a political landscape, a writer’s struggle with form. The title itself suggests bodies — broken, rearranged, reimagined. It feels like a response to violence, not by narrating it cleanly, but by refusing coherence. The book asks: how do you write when language itself has been wounded?

Untouchable Goa (Panther’s Paw Publication) by Dadu Mandrekar, trs. Nikhil Baisane

Mandrekar disrupts the postcard image of Goa. Through essays and reflections, he exposes the deep entrenchment of caste in Goan society — within Catholic communities, within everyday social structures, within spaces that claim modernity. The writing is sharp, almost journalistic at times, but never distant from storytelling. It forces you to confront how caste adapts, survives, and hides behind narratives of progress, liberalism, and tourism.

Pulayathara (OUP India) by Paul Chirakkarode, trs. Catherine Thankamma

Set in Kerala, Pulayathara documents the life of the Pulaya community with a depth that feels archival and intimate at once. It engages with landlessness, bonded labour, and generational trauma, but also with community, memory, and continuity. The novel doesn’t rush; it lingers. It allows you to sit with the weight of history. What stays is not just the suffering, but the persistence of life despite it.

My Father’s Garden (Speaking Tiger) by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar

This collection of stories is deeply tied to Santhal Adivasi life. Shekhar writes about land, family, migration, and loss with a quiet, observational style. There is no spectacle here — just layered, lived realities. The “garden” becomes a metaphor for belonging and rupture. Development, displacement, and memory intersect in ways that feel both personal and political. It made me think about how landscapes hold histories we are often taught to ignore.

Special mention:

Ek Dalit Banker Ki Atmakatha by Nimesh Gautam

For Hindi readers, this autobiography brings us into a very different terrain — the formal, bureaucratic world of banking. Gautam traces his journey as an employee of the State Bank of India, navigating the institution that claims meritocracy but is structured by caste. He reveals how discrimination operates subtly: in postings, promotions, everyday behaviour, and silence. It’s a rare account that connects caste to white-collar spaces, showing that oppression doesn’t disappear with education or employment.

These books didn’t just meet me where I am. They pushed me further. To learn more. To heal more.

The writer is an artist, thinker, and Ambedkarite.