His father, Chotan Lal, always stood by Valmiki and told him that he should always do what he desired.

One of the most powerful moments in the text is when his mother overturned a basketful of joothan at a wedding after a high-caste Tyagi humiliated her. They desired something better for their child and fought for his safety and growth. Both his parents have been portrayed as heroic figures in the text. He describes the trauma he went through when he was asked to spent three days sweeping the school courtyard instead of accompanying his classmates belonging to the higher castes, in the study class.ĭespite the barriers of caste which proved to be a hindrance at every step throughout his years in school and college, Valmiki persevered to get better education and evolved. He writes about the ill treatment meted out to him when he was at school because he was an untouchable. Valmiki describes his childhood in the village in Barla district of Uttar Pradesh. Instead of following a linear pattern, the author moves from memory to memory, demonstrating how his present is deeply scarred y his past in spite of the distance he has traversed to become one of the prominent authors in Dalit literature. The treatment meted out to them was worse than that to animals.

The untouchables or Dalits who were social outcasts not only had to rely on the joothan of others but also had to relish it. The title of this autobiographical account, Joothan, encapsulates the pain, the humiliation and the poverty of the “untouchable” Chuhra community of Uttar Pradesh, to which the author belongs. In the book, Joothan – A Dalit’s Life, Omprakash Valmiki writes, “ One can somehow get past poverty and deprivation but it is impossible to get past caste.” With this statement, Valmiki highlights the rigidity of the caste system in India that has resulted in the socio-economic oppression of thousands across India over centuries merely because of the “lesser caste” to which they belong.

Joothan by Omprakash Valmiki