Ants Among Elephants by Sujatha Gilda.

In India, they will try to find your true caste some other way. 

"Did your brother ride a horse at his wedding?

Did his wife wear a red sari or a white sari?

How does she wear her sari?

Do you eat beef?

Who's your family deity?''

- 'Ants Among Elephants' by Sujatha Gidla. 

I chose 'Ants Among Elephants' by Sujatha Gidla for two reasons. Firstly, I wanted to explore the dark truths of caste discrimination and oppression in India from the perspective of a victim and I needed a breathtaking non fiction based on a true story for my #nonfictionnovember 

'Ants Among Elephants' is a breathtaking history of an untouchable family in India. 

The story is interwoven with the politics in post colonial peroid. Sujatha Gidla, the author of this book lives in America, this book is a documentation of her family history, significantly, her uncle Satyamurthy who is also known as SM, a communist, an active participant in the protests for separate telugu state in 1952. Satyamurthy's life revolves around the poems and politics eventually, he pens sensible poems and becomes a famous telugu poet.

The story revolves around Gidla's untouchable christian family. The plot elucidates the caste system in India and the sufferings of poor untouchables and educates the readers about the divisions in the religion based on the job people do, and how they were hypocritically oppressed by the politicians. When I was reading about manual scavengers and how they've been discriminated by the other castes, made me wonder how people would have been so inhumane?! The book also talks about the distinctions between christians based on their caste, some claimed themselves as Brahmin Christians and treated other christians as untouchables. Apparently, the upper caste discriminated lower caste and lower caste oppressed 'lowest' castes like the people who clean human shits. The author has weaved the story with gripping and horrific true incidents. 

I felt like reading Arundhati Roy's prose, even though, it is a story of Gidla's family, it covers the horrifying incidents that happened in post colonial India. 

Recommending this book to all fiction and non fiction readers! No exceptions!