In this frank and intimate memoir, she not only shares her tireless effort to surmount hideous personal tragedy but also conveys the excitement of an awakening consciousness during a time of profound political and social change. Though she writes in Marathi, Pawar has found fame in all of India. But by the time I wrote this book, I felt I had taken her place. I was a rebellious child and had numerous fights with my mother while growing up. She eventually left Konkan for Mumbai, where she fought for Dalit rights and became a major figure in the Dalit literary movement. Pawar, who grew up watching her widowed mother weave aaydans as she strove to make ends meet, equates the act with her writing as she weaves the stories from her life. Pawar grew up on the rugged Konkan coast, near Mumbai, where the Mahar Dalits were housed in the center of the village so the upper castes could summon them at any time. Forbidden from performing anything but the most undesirable and unsanitary duties, for years Dalits were believed to be racially inferior and polluted by nature and were therefore forced to live in isolated communities. Dalits, or untouchables, make up India's poorest class. Activist and award-winning writer Urmila Pawar recounts three generations of Dalit women who struggled to overcome the burden of their caste.
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