Even so, upper-caste Indian liberals made these films and it was their viewpoint I saw. It’s possible that I first reflected on the idea of untouchability only in college, through art house cinema. I, and the kids in my circle, even used ‘untouchable’ caste names as playful epithets, calling each other chamaar and bhangi. I neither gave them much thought during my school years, nor recognized my prejudices as such. They worked all around us, yet were ‘invisible’ to me, as if part of the stage props. These were the mehtars, among the lowest of the so-called ‘untouchables’. To my young eyes this seemed like the natural order of things. When my mother turned away, they quietly picked up the food and left. They brought their own utensils and placed them on the floor my mother served them while they stood apart. But unlike other domestic helpers, they were not served in our utensils, nor did the latrine cleaners expect to be. My mother often gave them dinner leftovers, and sometimes tea. She also brought along a couple of scrawny kids, who waited by the vegetable patch while their mother worked. As in most traditional homes, our squat toilet was near the rear door, across an open courtyard. This was the latrine cleaning woman, or her husband at times. Domestic helpers, such as a washerwoman and a dishwashing woman, entered our house via the front door-all except one, who came in via the rear door.

Our 3-BR house had a small front lawn and a vegetable patch behind. My father worked as a textile engineer in a company town owned by the Birla Group, where we lived in a middle class residential quarter for the professional staff and their families. I grew up in the central Indian city of Gwalior until I left home for college. (This review won the top award in the 3 Quarks Daily 2011 Arts & Literature Contest. A review of a memoir by an ‘untouchable’ starting in the 1950s in rural Uttar Pradesh.

Joothan by omprakash valmiki