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.