Dhrubo Jyoti picks their favourite read of 2023

A brutal memoir that chronicles the author’s struggle to get himself educated and pull his family out of poverty

The first wave of Dalit writing that breached the conspicuous boundaries of caste in Indian literature came in the form of autobiographies – searing portraits of life and social experiences in the first few decades of independence that was unlike anything that had been written before. Yet, even in this veritable list, Yogesh Maitreya’s Water in a Broken Pot, stands out as unique, not only because it breaks the mould of millennial writing but also in its refusal to coddle the reader. Maitreya – who also runs a groundbreaking publishing house – writes a brutal memoir of longing, loneliness and learning, chronicling his struggle to get himself educated and pull his family out of poverty.

Of longing, loneliness and learning (Penguin)

Dhrubo Jyoti (HT Photo)

He describes his experience of feeling unmoored in caste-marked classrooms, of desolation and destitution while walking to the factory every day to make minimum wage even as he struggled to remain in school. He writes too of the wrenching heartbreaks that caste inflicts every day on Dalit lives and the anti-caste literature and philosophy of Dr BR Ambedkar, which helped him survive. In a milieu where millennial writers often slip into caste-privileged indulgence, Maitreya’s stark prose refuses to take intergenerational mobility for granted. It is extraordinary.