“Joothan” is a Hindu book that details the life of a Dalit citizen. The book was first published in 1997 and then translated into the English language in 2003. Joothan is a Hindu word meaning food that is left on someone’s plate. The author of this book is Omprakash Valmiki who experienced the Dalit lifestyle when he was growing up. The author offers the truth about his life in this book. His closeness to the issue of discrimination is well reflected in the book. This paper will offer my response to the author’s heart-rending story.
The book offers incredible insight into the Hindu’s caste system. The author notes that not many books in the Hindu literature catalog can present the real truth about the caste system. Most of the authors who have written books on the caste system belong to the higher castes and their opinion is mostly biased (Valmiki 8).
After reading this book, I was amazed by the author’s authority on the caste issue. The author’s heritage gives him a formidable advantage over authors who were brought up in a higher caste. The author is able to use his personal experiences to cement his arguments against the caste system. For instance, the author writes about the time he questioned a teacher about Hindu literature.
In the book, the author admits to being irked by the teacher’s insistence on Dronacharys’s poverty and that is why he questioned why no one was concerned with the Dalits. The Dalits were poorer than the Dronachary but no one seemed interested in their pain. This is one example why this book is a solid testimony of the Dalit’s way of life.
“Joothan” is a book that affected my emotions in a major way. When I was reading the book, I sometimes found myself overwhelmed by emotions. The author’s tone and prose are able to transport the reader back to the Hindu’s way of life in the 1960s. The book has achieved the right balance between emotional narratives and commentaries on inequality.
Right from the beginning, the author gets through to the reader by printing his most vivid childhood memories. For instance, he lists all the jobs he and his family were expected to do. These jobs included heart-breaking tasks such as sweeping the roads and cleaning toilets (Valmiki 23).
This book is supposed to be both a personal story and a tool of protest against the caste system. The author dwelt too much on his personal story and made the book look like a sympathy-seeking attempt. The author chose to dwell only on the negative aspects of his life.
The positive aspects of the story, like the story about the boys from the higher castes who befriended him, are not given much airtime. Instead, the author focuses on those who bullied and mistreated him (Valmiki 78). This is a sign of a bias opinion in the story and the author could have left a little room for counter opinions.
The book opened my eyes to how things can degenerate in silence. During the author’s time, castes were a way of life. This scenario had me thinking that indeed today’s way of life is part of tomorrow’s despicable evils. This is why it is important for citizens to evaluate the aspects of their life that may become tomorrow’s evils.
Right now, some of us may be propagating an evil that might shock literature readers in future. There are still traces of the caste system in today’s Hindu society, but the battle has been long and weapons like “Joothan” have been very helpful.
Works Cited
Valmiki, Omprakash. Joothan, New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2003. Print.