Byapari, Manoranjan. “Casteism.” Translated by Somdatta Mandal
Transnational Literature. Vol 13, Oct 2021
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It was a bright sunlit morning. The weather was neither warm nor cool. On such days, singers sing songs at ease, poets compose poems to their hearts’ content. But however nice the day might be, it was not the same for everyone. For some people it might be a good day, but for others it could be bad, or even worse. Just as the local saying goes – for some it is the beneficial month of Pous, but for others it is totally destructive.
It was probably eight or eight-thirty in the morning...
Somdatta Mandal, a critic, reviewer and translator, is a former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, India. A recipient of several prestigious international fellowships and awards, she has been published widely at home and abroad. Her areas of interest are American literature, contemporary fiction, film and culture studies, diaspora studies, and translation.
1 Translations editor’s note: Manoranjan Byapari is a Dalit writer based in West Bengal, India. The present work is a translation of his short story, “Barnabaad,” published in Robbar, the Sunday magazine supplement of the Bengali newspaper Sangbad Pratidin on 1 November, 2020, pp. 10-13.