• ISBN13: 9780199479290
• Binding: Paperback
• Subject: Writing/Research Methods
• Publisher: Oxford UP
• Publisher Imprint: Oxford UP
• Publication Date: September 16, 2017
• Pages: 276
• Original Price: 595.0 INR
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 290 grams

You hardly look like a Chamar! All dressed up like a Nawab, did you hope to gain entry into our courtyard? Out you go!' I left immediately. It was then that I felt the first stirrings of my sense of self-respect.

Born into a family of tanners in Uttar Pradesh, Sheoraj Singh Bechain struggled against social disabilities imposed on him by virtue of being an ‘outcaste’. Traded by his stepfather to serve as a bonded labourer at a brick kiln; kicked, punched, slapped, whipped for nurturing a love for education; earning his living by polishing shoes and serving in hotels—Sheoraj suffered hardships all through his childhood. In all of this, however, his quest for an education remained unperturbed, and eventually succeeded in getting enrolled in formal schooling.

This is the life story of a Dalit that gives a look into the unknown and unfamiliar world of the ‘lower’ castes who suffer unseen, in silence, in all its terrible dignity. Rendered in the folk idiom of western Uttar Pradesh, My Childhood on My Shoulders highlights the dismal lot of those who grow up shackled in free India.

Sheoraj Singh Bechain teaches in the Department of Hindi at the University of Delhi, India. Translators: Deeba Zafir teaches in the Department of English at Lakshmibai College, University of Delhi, India. Tapan Basu teaches in the Department of English, University of Delhi, India.