Mamta Nainy: “Children everywhere are ready to care”

The award feels like a nod of encouragement from young readers, and makes me want to write better. It is also a welcome affirmation for me, the book’s illustrator Saumya Oberoi, and my publisher. It has come at a time when I feel deeply disillusioned by the state of the world. Watching the horrors of ethnic violence unfold, especially when children are at the heart of such suffering, leaves one shaken and questioning. Knowing that children connected with our book in the way they have becomes a way of keeping hope alive.

If you could write a letter to Palwankar Baloo, what would you say?

I would tell him that the world has indeed changed in many ways since his time (1875-1955), but, heartbreakingly, so much remains the same. Prejudice still runs deep and many children continue to face barriers simply for being who they are. But I would also tell him that bright, questioning and brave children are reading his story and finding courage in it. I place a lot of faith in them. If change is to come, it will be led by their hearts and voices.

The experience of caste-based discrimination is so widespread in India but books on this subject, written especially for children, are so few. Why is this so?

History provides one with a sense of identity and belongingness. By making it possible to revisit elements preserved from the past, it allows one to make sense of the present. But, sadly, gaps in history and the space between the stars are far bigger and more telling than they appear. One such gap is the near-absence of Dalit history in mainstream discourse and our collective memory as a nation. Even though it is filled with powerful stories of individuals who stood up against deeply entrenched systems of inequality, Dalit history continues to be sidelined. When I came across Palwankar Baloo’s story, I felt it was one of those remarkable lives that deserves to be known, especially by young readers. He was not only a brilliant cricketer but also someone who challenged the rigid boundaries of caste in colonial India.

As a storyteller, I constantly grapple with two questions: What are the stories that are mine to tell? And how best can I tell them? While writing this story for children, these questions were louder than ever. I was acutely aware that I was writing from a place of privilege, writing about a Dalit experience without having borne the burden of that experience myself. But I realized that what is also perhaps important is how one spends this privilege. Does one seek comfort in it or sharpen it and wield it against the hierarchy that grants one a part of this privilege? This story is an attempt to do the latter. It is an open-ended inquiry that invites questions of social equality and justice to be shared and collectively owned. The idea is not to speak ‘for’ the Dalit people. I genuinely believe they have their own strong voice, but to speak ‘about’ the gaping hole in our social consciousness, with a belief in the eternal power of conversation and a resolve to encourage self-criticism. I believe that the experience of caste, and the need to critique it, is not a burden on Dalits alone and to say that the battle to annihilate caste is to be fought by the Dalits is to deliberately keep the larger movement from reaching its full magnitude.

I also believe that one of the most important purposes of storytelling is to imagine and empathize with people who are not ourselves and to write truthfully and with compassion across a range of characters. For me, what matters most is how we approach these stories. Are we engaging critically and thoughtfully? What is our relationship to the people we are writing about? And, most importantly, does the work do something meaningful and compelling? While I completely understand and deeply respect the concerns around ‘who tells whose stories’, and the desire to support underrepresented authors, this approach can sometimes become a double-edged sword, because it risks pigeonholing writers into telling only certain kinds of stories. That can inadvertently become another form of gatekeeping.

Apart from historian Ramachandra Guha’s research, very little information about Palwankar Baloo is available in English in the public domain. What sort of research went into your book? What specific details from his life helped you empathize with him, and tell his story in a way that came across as empathetic and not patronizing?

I first came across Baloo’s story on a television show about cricket and I was immediately fascinated. Later, I read about him in Ramachandra Guha’s work and also in Boria Majumdar’s research. There is even a film being made on him by Tigmanshu Dhulia, I believe. Since the book is fictionalized non-fiction, I chose to focus largely on the incidents of discrimination that Baloo faced on the field. That was actually one of the trickiest parts — figuring out how to stay true to Baloo’s life while also creating a story that would really speak to children. I didn’t want to write a cradle-to-grave biography. I wanted to zoom in on a moment that felt alive with meaning, something that carried the emotional weight of his journey, especially as someone who challenged the boundaries of caste. The research wasn’t just about Baloo himself but also about understanding the time period he lived in. I needed to get a sense of the cricketing world of colonial India, the social hierarchies and even the everyday details that would make the story feel true and alive for young readers. That context was essential in helping me imagine the world in which Baloo’s courage shone through.

I think there is both inherent responsibility and challenge in presenting someone’s life, for even within the life of one person, there are many stories to be told. I kept asking myself: What’s the heart of this story? What’s the one thing that I want young readers to carry with them after they turn the last page? For me, it was the idea that courage doesn’t always look loud. Sometimes it’s quiet and steady, like showing up, again and again, in a world that tells you that you don’t belong. I allowed myself some room to imagine the details between the known facts, not to change the truth but to bring warmth, depth, dignity and humanity to it. I wanted readers to feel Baloo’s frustration, his grit, his moments of joy. I hope this book does a bit of that by giving children not just a glimpse of who Baloo was but also a sense of what’s possible when you dare to dream, even in the face of injustice.

This book is part of the Magic Makers series of biographies. Beneath the biographical particulars of the stories, the larger idea was to focus on the early childhoods of public figures and highlight aspects of their lives before they became widely recognized. This approach allows young readers to see themselves in these stories and grasp that success is not about conforming to common standards of excellence but about finding one’s own element. The series also aims to address imbalances in historical representation. By bringing attention to previously overlooked individuals, it can offer a fresh paradigm for teaching history.

Ashutosh Gowariker’s cricket film Lagaan had Aditya Lakhia playing a Dalit character called Kachra, literally meaning garbage. Filmmaker Neeraj Ghaywan, who belongs to the Dalit community described it as “one of the most dehumanised voiceless depictions of Dalits ever in cinema”. How did you, as an author, ensure that your depiction of Palwankar Baloo emphasized his dignity and agency?

I believe that to understand India one has to understand caste, the intricacies of which are undeniably complex. It is not just one of the most prominent social features of India but is at the heart of many of the past and present fissures of the country. And even today, the prejudices and hierarchical divisions highlighted by the play of power affect our daily lives. Systemic oppression exists but it’s not something that we need to accept as normal. And even if there are laws in place to combat it, it is something we may still have to fight because laws alone cannot change our collective mindsets. It requires awareness, empathy and reflection.

My intent behind writing this story was to raise awareness of the injustices of the caste system and reposition caste in childhood to bring the experience of caste to younger readers for whom it might be invisible. Their families might even be practising it — in the guise of traditions or culture — but they are unlikely to have understood that this is what it is. I want to show how we all contribute to the caste hierarchy. I want young readers to know that the world is bigger than they know it to be. One has to show them someone — anyone — who isn’t them. And one has to make them care about that someone. I firmly believe that children everywhere are ready to care. I just want to strengthen that openness — the openness to see other people, to hear their stories, to take a stand for what’s important for them.

What was it like to work with Saumya Oberoi on this book? How did her illustrations enrich your storytelling?

The visual language of a book is often the first thing young readers ‘read’, sometimes even before they engage with the written word. For children, the emotional and sensory pull of a story begins with its visuals. Colours, textures and stylistic choices all combine to create a world that either welcomes them in or keeps them at a distance. That’s why, especially in picture books, illustrations aren’t just decorative, they are essential to storytelling. They carry tone, emotion, subtext and cultural cues.

We wanted the illustrations to serve two important functions. The first was to make the books visually delightful and captivating, so children would be drawn into Baloo’s world and want to linger there. That sense of aesthetic joy — the pleasure of looking — is often what keeps children turning the pages. The second role was more layered: we wanted the illustrations to expand the meaning of the text, to create subtext and nuance and to gently challenge or reshape certain perceptions. As Maria Popova beautifully puts it, picture books can be ‘miniature cartographies of meaning.’ They can take complex, abstract ideas such as identity, belonging, difference, resilience and render them visible and relatable through visuals.

Saumya’s illustrations allow young readers to explore the emotional terrain of the story non-verbally. The swirls that she has explored, and the different perspectives and vantage points that she has used, communicate feelings that children instinctively understand. They foster empathy not through explanation but atmosphere and visual storytelling. Her illustrations model emotional intelligence, while speaking the intuitive language of children.

How have children, parents and teachers responded to your book?

One of the most impactful moments for me came during a session at the Neev Literature Festival. We conducted a cricket quiz, but with a twist. I handed out coloured chits to the children, and only those with certain colours were allowed to answer the questions. This interactive demonstration mirrored the injustice that cricketer Palwankar Baloo faced because of untouchability. After the activity, when I asked the children if they thought the rules of the quiz were fair, they all shouted a resounding ‘No!’ One of them explained that it was unfair because the rules were based on something they couldn’t choose — the colour of their chits. A child who had been excluded said, “I felt bad. Everyone should get a fair chance to answer.” Moments like this show me that children can understand complex social issues and feel empathy, even when they experience, if only briefly, the unfairness others face.

Looking back at your own childhood, what kind of space or opportunity did you have at home or at school to ask questions about caste as a social reality? How did your understanding of the caste system grow in the process of getting to know what Palwankar Baloo had to fight?

Growing up, my Nani, who was a school principal, often taught marginalized children from the community alongside other children during tuitions. Sometimes, there was resistance from other parents and I noticed the tensions this caused. As a child, I became aware of the subtle ways prejudice shaped daily life at relatives’ homes, friends’ houses, and in small everyday interactions — who could use which utensils, which spaces were off-limits for certain people, or who could sit where. These silent rules and exclusions stayed with me.

The book attempts to challenge the normative grids through which we view ‘childhood’. It depicts how children negotiate and cope with the material conditions of their marginality, drawing upon resources and relationships within and outside their community. There are multiple forms of discrimination based on notions of ‘purity’ and ‘pollution’, such as social and economic exclusion, segregation in housing, denial of access to public and private services as well as employment, and the compulsion to pursue traditionally prescribed occupations of the most demeaning kind. Though the story doesn’t offer any direct, easy solution to the deep-seated caste-based discrimination in our society, it encourages children to think about social identities, justice and power relations using strong visual and verbal cues.

Chintan Girish Modi is a journalist, educator and literary critic. He can be reached @chintanwriting on Instagram and X.