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A review by richa087
Baluta by Daya Pawar, Jerry Pinto
4.0
Baluta is one of the first Dalit autobiographies that follows the life journey of Dagdu (Daya) Pawar, who is a Mahar, from Dhamangaon to Mumbai. Pawar traces the realities of the obnoxious caste system which is deeply entrenched in the Indian society and describes the repercussions it has on the lives of the people forced to live on the fringes of society/community. He describes the 'tasks' that were allotted to his community, the punishment and penance they had to bear, the things they were 'not allowed' to do, the insults they had to endure, the way they learnt to endure those insults without speaking back, the rise of Ambedkar movement, the fault lines in Dalit movement, how politics took a centre stage and led to corruption of the movement, his own shortcomings, his own criticism and his love for reading, which probably saved him.
It is so strange listening to someone's terrible ordeals and not feel it hitting your bones. But maybe he intended it to be like that. Maybe he did not intend it to be documentation of oppressive structures of our society, maybe he did not want this book to be a testament against the evils of caste system. Maybe he just wanted to write about his life, his childhood, his reading, his family, his growing up in village and Taluka schools, his first job, his activism, his life in Mumbai and his heartbreaks. I read one of the other reviews which said the book did not affect the reader in a way it should have or one expected it to hit, maybe because we are so used to reading such atrocities on a daily basis that it will take an earth-shattering event to wake us up from our reverie and take notice. This is a heartbreaking and unsettling feeling for me.
I also noticed that DP does not explicitly condemn any other caste, any other religion, any other community (he does mention which caste was doing what) by targeting his statements at them. He just wonders to himself and in the process, leaves us with questions at what could have happened if things were different and what could not happen because of status quo. This book also feels like a dialogue which he was having with himself, asking himself those questions, coaxing him to confront his meekness and cowardness (in his own words) and also figuring out how he could have acted or behaved at a particular time.
The translation by Jerry Pinto is flawless. He has tried to capture the flavour of the original text with a sprinkling of Marathi words, phrases, idioms, songs and book names. He also has annotated the text wherever necessary to give us more information on the mentioned event/individual.
It is so strange listening to someone's terrible ordeals and not feel it hitting your bones. But maybe he intended it to be like that. Maybe he did not intend it to be documentation of oppressive structures of our society, maybe he did not want this book to be a testament against the evils of caste system. Maybe he just wanted to write about his life, his childhood, his reading, his family, his growing up in village and Taluka schools, his first job, his activism, his life in Mumbai and his heartbreaks. I read one of the other reviews which said the book did not affect the reader in a way it should have or one expected it to hit, maybe because we are so used to reading such atrocities on a daily basis that it will take an earth-shattering event to wake us up from our reverie and take notice. This is a heartbreaking and unsettling feeling for me.
I also noticed that DP does not explicitly condemn any other caste, any other religion, any other community (he does mention which caste was doing what) by targeting his statements at them. He just wonders to himself and in the process, leaves us with questions at what could have happened if things were different and what could not happen because of status quo. This book also feels like a dialogue which he was having with himself, asking himself those questions, coaxing him to confront his meekness and cowardness (in his own words) and also figuring out how he could have acted or behaved at a particular time.
The translation by Jerry Pinto is flawless. He has tried to capture the flavour of the original text with a sprinkling of Marathi words, phrases, idioms, songs and book names. He also has annotated the text wherever necessary to give us more information on the mentioned event/individual.