Volume V Special Issue IV October 2025

Name of Author : Mr. Jitendra Charles Tribhuvan

Title of the paper : Memoir of the Margins Caste, Cinema, and the Dalit Self in Yogesh Maitreyas Memoir in Water in a Broken Pot

Abstract: This research paper critically examines Yogesh Maitreyas memoir Water in a Broken Pot through the theoretical framework of marginalisation, particularly within the socio political and cultural contexts of Dalit identity in India. Maitreyas narrative is not a linear story of liberation, but a searing account of its impossibility a memoir of brokenness, silence, and inherited trauma. Using the lens of marginalisation, the paper explores how caste operates as a continuous process of erasure and alienation, rendering Dalit lives invisible in the dominant socio-cultural imagination. Maitreyas reflections on memory, absence, education, cinema, and substance abuse become key sites where the psychological and material consequences of untouchability are laid bare. The memoir positions the Dalit self as always in transition, fractured by the contradiction between internal dignity and external denial. This study argues that Water in a Broken Pot is a powerful testament to how the caste system not only marginalises but metabolises Dalit subjectivity turning identity into a burden, anger into sedation, and resistance into risk. Furthermore, the memoir underscores how marginalisation is perpetuated through cultural industries like Bollywood, which appropriate Dalit anger while divorcing it from its political roots. The paper contends that Maitreyas work challenges the normative narratives of Dalit upliftment by centering the voices of those who survive rather than succeed those whose stories are marked not by triumph, but by trauma and tenacity. Ultimately, this research situates Maitreyas memoir as a crucial intervention that exposes the systemic conditions that make Dalit liberation not only difficult but often unreachable, thus expanding our understanding of marginalisation as a lived, embodied, and generational experience.

Keywords : Dalit Identity, Marginalisation, Caste System, Resistance, Testimony and Inherited Trauma

DOI :

Page Number : 39-42