Review of 'Joothan- A Dalit's Life' in Written Opinion

Joothan literally means: food left on an eater's plate. This left over food meant more than this. This Joothan was a lifeline to author's family and community during rainy season and sweet for savouring during happy moments.

Omprakash Valmiki's life woven in these words and sentences, speaks truth and nothing more than this. The words pierce forcefully in heart and mind of readers, jolts readers conscience and asks does humanity exist? What equality means? Author's account of his Dalit community through his life is heart-rending and put our heads under shame and demands self-introspection from us.

Read full review at http://apnaharf.blogspot.in/2011/02/joothan-dalits-life-by-omprakash.html

Review of 'Joothan- A Dalit's Life' at Shunya

It’s possible that I first reflected on the idea of untouchability only in college, through art house cinema. Even so, upper caste Indian liberals made these films and it was their viewpoint I saw. It is hardly a stretch to say that the way even the most sensitive white liberals in the US knew and described the black experience of America is partly why one had to read Frederick Douglass, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and other black authors. A similar parallel holds for Native Americans, immigrants, and women, as well as the ‘untouchables,’ now called Dalits (‘the oppressed’), numbering one out of six Indians. In recent years, they have begun to tell their own stories, bearing witness to their slice of life in India. Theirs is not only a powerful new currentof Indian literature, it is also a major site of resistance and revolt. Joothan by Omprakash Valmiki is one such work of Dalit literature, first published in Hindi in 1997 and translated into English by Arun Prabha Mukherjee in 2003. It is a memoir of growing up ‘untouchable’ starting in the 1950s outside a typical village in Uttar Pradesh. Told as a series of piercing vignettes, Joothan is also a remarkable record of a rare Indian journey, one that took a boy from extremely wretched socioeconomic conditions to prominence as an author and social critic.

Read full review at http://www.shunya.net/Text/Blog/Joothan.htm

Another Review: Sketches by Hootum the Owl

Review in The Hindu

A new translation of the iconic piece of Bengali literature by Kaliprasanna Sinha is as much a revelation as the original. Nidhi Dugar Kundalia.

Move back the clock to the time when Calcutta was a city like no other. On its fringes were miles and miles of hamlets and rivulets. A massive vitalised city of endless possibilities. Brimming with people, offering new scopes and opportunities; where risks could be taken and not be mistaken for brazenness.Those were the times that seemed on most occasions, a chaotic merger of too many eras; old and new, ever-changing, yet custom bound. Calcutta, in those times, cradled a world of its own and it needed to be understood.The decadent babu -like characters, the moral infection that plagued the society and the Indigo revolt of 1860 mentioned in the book find an eerie resonance in today’s times. In the Government buildings being painted white and blue, in freedom of speech being abused, and in the common man becoming an easy stepping stone for vote bank politics. Just that it was Calcutta then. It is Kolkata now.

Read full review at http://www.thehindu.com/books/the-night-owls-view-of-calcutta/article4273048.ece

Review: Sketches by Hootum the Owl

Review by Souvik Mukherjee in Biblio

Chitralekha Basu’s translation of Hootum Pecha’r Naksha brings a classic of Bengali satire to international audiences. The original written in 1860 by Kaliprasanna Sinha in the persona of Hootum is a series of sketches (Bengali: naksha) about Calcutta’s festivals and fairs; its people; random rumours and significant events in Indian history. Sinha spares no one and British colonial masters and Bengali peers are treated alike. The prodigal Bengali babu, typifying the rising educated middle classes and their degenerate tastes is seen as the epitome of the forces of cultural decline. Bathing the Goddess Durga in hot water instead of the holy water from the Ganges, indulging in frequent bouts of drinking, spending exorbitant amounts on trinkets and an insincere but fashionable association with the Young Bengal movement or the Brahmo Samaj seemed to be the chief traits of the Calcutta babudom. Similarly, Hootum attacks the colonial British indigo planters and their racist corruption. In the course of this commentary, the reader is taken to different parts of 19th-century Calcutta, jostling the festival crowd on foot and steering clear of the litter or racing through the streets in elegant broughams and britzkas.

Read full review at http://biblio-india.org/showart.asp?inv=17&mp=JF13