A touch of caste

Memoirs written by Dalit writers are often memoirs of their community.

- AKANKSHA ABISMRUTA

Whether it is Baluta by Daya Pawar, translated by Jerry Pinto or The Prisons We Broke by Baby Kamble, translated by Maya Pandit, these memoirs are written by adults with social awareness and a Dalit con- consciousness. What happens when a childhood memoir of a lower-caste person is written in the voice of a child but with the craft of an adult?

Set in the 1960s, Adhir Biswas's The Last Bench, translated by V Ramaswamy, returns to the author's childhood in a village, Magura, in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

Born to a barber family, he helps his father get customers to their shop in the market. When called for, he visits the families of people during shraadh or during the birth of a new baby to cut the nails, collect old clothes worn by people during the last rites and so on. Those acquainted with the Hindu caste system will recognize these as casteist roles set aside for barbers, as their "right" or "purpose". As a child, Mr Biswas doesn't call out such practices; instead, he sees them as opportunities to help his father.