Untouchable

'They think we are dirt because we clean their dirt' Bakha is a young man, proud and strong; even attractive. He is also an Untouchable in India's caste system. Sweeper and toilet-cleaner, the lowest of the low, he must warn others on the street so that he will not pollute them with his presence. As he seeks comfort in a wrapper of sweet jalebis, a violent encounter leads him to question his fate - and find an answer in the unlikeliest of places. Into this urgent 1935 re-creation of one day in the life of an Outcaste, Anglo-Indian author Mulk Raj Anand poured a vitality and fire that led him to be acclaimed as his country's Dickens. With a new Introduction by Ramachandra Guha 'It has gone straight to the heart of its subject and purified it.' E. M. Forster