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8 reviews for:
Untouchables: My Family's Triumphant Escape from India's Caste System
Narendra Jadhav
3.64 AVERAGE
8 reviews for:
Untouchables: My Family's Triumphant Escape from India's Caste System
Narendra Jadhav
3.64 AVERAGE
I loved how Jadhav brought the reader right into the daily lives of those in the untouchables caste, but I had a really hard time staying with this book. I appreciated the perspectives and light that was given to the struggles of the lower caste people in India, and it was very well described, but it was hard to stay interested when so much of it was just recounting various childhood memories.
This book is an interesting biography, especially due to the sense of humour of author.. But at some points author sounds exaggerating, and the book is not as deep into caste system as it should've been.. Still, worth reading once..
Untouchables is actually a revised version of a book published in 1993, which I have not read and can therefore make no comparison. However, the story of the Jahdavs’ journey out of the caste system in India is intriguing. The book itself is more of a collective memoir, with alternating pieces by Narendra Jahdav’s parents. This gives a very unique voice to their situations and shows several perspectives on the events that occur in their lives.
In the United States, we tend to think that the battle for civil rights is long over. In India, this is not the case at all. Seeing one family’s struggle with and triumph over their status as untouchables is powerful, and its translation into several of the languages spoken in India shows that it resonates with those for whom it is written.
In the United States, we tend to think that the battle for civil rights is long over. In India, this is not the case at all. Seeing one family’s struggle with and triumph over their status as untouchables is powerful, and its translation into several of the languages spoken in India shows that it resonates with those for whom it is written.
What I learned from this book... all about the life in the lowest Indian caste. It's a compelling family story about rising from the life society dictates into a life of your own creation. Without education... this family never would have made it out.
It is a fact that 1 out of every 6th person on the face of the earth is an Indian. What is staggering and often unknown is the fact that 1 out of every 6th Indian, which ultimately translates to 165 million people is an untouchable or a Dalit, the lowest caste position in Hinduism. Over many, many years these people have been subjected to inhuman cruelties, subsequently having been made lower than animals.
Untouchables is a history of one such family of the Dalit caste and their journey to free themselves from it. With all the severe hardships and excruciating trials, the author's father rebelled against the atrocities that almost killed him and the ones who mercilessly rendered such upon these innocent and docile people.
This amazing and intense story will make you laugh a little, cry a lot and assess your life in great detail. A heart-wrenching account told from Narendra's parents, Damu and Sonu's point of view; each chapter ending with one's narrative and picking up with the other's on the same event and continuing forward.
It takes place during a crucial time in India's history, when Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi were touring the nation with their speeches, rallying people for the great cause - Freedom.
The love, courage and determination Damu and Sonu have for each other, their children and their freedom eventually proves victorious, thus affording their children a better life than their own.
As you read this story, allow yourself to be drawn in and forever changed, while entering a world where unimaginable events happen to a people with no way out of the predicament into which they were born. Your senses will be awakened, as you will almost taste the grilled bhakris and hot chai, smell the stench of cow dung, which hangs heavily in the air, hear the hunger cries of both children and adults, feel the stings of the whip as it cracks against raw flesh, experience the fervor of the protesters and in the end rejoice with the victors after seeing the mighty determination they possess.
Narendra Jadhav breaths life into his father's diaries and endless family stories and shares them so that we may come to understand a world much different from our own. . . Or is it?
Untouchables is a history of one such family of the Dalit caste and their journey to free themselves from it. With all the severe hardships and excruciating trials, the author's father rebelled against the atrocities that almost killed him and the ones who mercilessly rendered such upon these innocent and docile people.
This amazing and intense story will make you laugh a little, cry a lot and assess your life in great detail. A heart-wrenching account told from Narendra's parents, Damu and Sonu's point of view; each chapter ending with one's narrative and picking up with the other's on the same event and continuing forward.
It takes place during a crucial time in India's history, when Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi were touring the nation with their speeches, rallying people for the great cause - Freedom.
The love, courage and determination Damu and Sonu have for each other, their children and their freedom eventually proves victorious, thus affording their children a better life than their own.
As you read this story, allow yourself to be drawn in and forever changed, while entering a world where unimaginable events happen to a people with no way out of the predicament into which they were born. Your senses will be awakened, as you will almost taste the grilled bhakris and hot chai, smell the stench of cow dung, which hangs heavily in the air, hear the hunger cries of both children and adults, feel the stings of the whip as it cracks against raw flesh, experience the fervor of the protesters and in the end rejoice with the victors after seeing the mighty determination they possess.
Narendra Jadhav breaths life into his father's diaries and endless family stories and shares them so that we may come to understand a world much different from our own. . . Or is it?
To think that this account took place a mere hundred years ago. In retrospect, understanding the value of the courage these people demonstrated in taking a stand for themselves.
This book is nice for reasons apart from casteim discussed for it shows the effect of historic events on the lives of protagonists, and there are two protagonists telling their stories one after another.
But on a negative the book is quite verbose, it could have been shortened to less than 200 pages for good.
But on a negative the book is quite verbose, it could have been shortened to less than 200 pages for good.
hopeful
informative
medium-paced