A pioneering voice of Gujarati Dalit literature, Chandu Maheria has written and edited dozens of books, published thousands of op-eds and organized political movements in a lifelong campaign against caste discrimination. His work moves between thought and action, tracing a life shaped as much by books as by the streets. In this autobiographical account, he charts his journey from grinding poverty in the working-class chawls of east Ahmedabad to a life of reading, writing and political struggle.

Translated into English for the first time, Maheria s writings lay bare the everyday violence of caste prejudice in India, while also capturing a turbulent historical moment in 1980s Gujarat, marked by mass migration, communal tensions and anti-reservation riots. At the same time, his memoir is grounded in intimate detail and lived reality: the daily humiliation of public toilets, children growing up without footwear, chronic hunger, a father s late-life militant atheism, a mother s austere resolve and the author s recurring encounters with illness and mortality.

Alongside this personal history runs the story of Maheria s intellectual formation, from his unsparing engagement with Gandhi s complex legacy to his arguments with fellow Dalit thinkers. The result is a book that is at once a record of deprivation, a political education and a sustained reckoning with the power structures that continue to divide contemporary India.