Analysis Of Valmiki's 'Joothan'

In Dalit writing autobiography remains a favourite genre. As Dr. Jonson has opined that, “no one was better qualified to write his life than himself”. An autobiography generally arouses from the lived experiences and it is an account of firsthand experience of a person’s life by him or herself. The present paper is an attempt to explore the representation of social reality of casteism through Valmiki’s autobiography Joothan. Joothan directly records in first person narrative technique, the painful experience which charred his life and which also records his act of resistance and his will to survive. Despite the focus on poverty, suffering and untouchability there is zest for life, deep optimism and intense human sympathy which shows his writing has emerged as powerful weapon to explore Dalit’s identity.

“ I returned home with a sad heart. There was something bubbling inside me. The majestic building of the Inter college was constantly before my eyes. As soon as I returned home. I said to my mother ‘ Ma I want to go to school’ There were tears in my eyes. Seeing my tears my mother also started to cry” (14). Thus we see how author describes his childhood days full of humiliation, degradation and deprivation. “ These incidents attacks the basic of this caste-discrimination in a variety of ways, but especially through a stable focus on the ‘factual’ recounting of experience of discrimination” (Beth Web). On the other hand Valmiki mirrors Hindu society and finds there is no space for woman’s own identity as we also find the character of Omprakash Valmiki’s mother in his autobiography Joothan. She is not called by her own name people of the village called her ‘khajooriwali’. Because she came from khajur after her marriage. “Everybody called my mother Khajoorwali. Perhaps she too had forgotton her real name”