Self-respect is not a gift or an object that can be bought or given to us by anybody else, but a routine that must be practised in order for it to become something that we end up giving and gifting ourselves.
I live in a locality where Macha, Maga, Maams are used instead of dude, pal, bro. And because I am always at home now, Amma’s “Yelle idhya, Yavagle barthiya?” seems to have disappeared.
In Manjule-rashtra, you don’t ever get to hear an organizing kind of word like Dalit, or indeed Avarna. The films seem to choose a kind of equidistance from government and activist taxonomies. What you get instead is a species of mute irony.
