Recently, The Shared Mirror Publishing House released its second book named What Babasaheb Ambedkar Means To Me, which was received well by the community and as per the claims by the publisher ebook has been downloaded by more than 1000 times in just 2 days, which is a notable feat! The book includes essays from various authors which Round Table India had asked readers to submit on 125^th birth anniversary of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.

I read the book in almost one sitting and took me around 5 hours to finish the reading. The book is so engrossing that one cannot stop reading it – unputdownable! Here are a few thoughts on the book, wait for the another article in which I will bring top quotes from the book.

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The Good

Bringing together the work of around 30 authors is a challenging but The Shared Mirror team has done a remarkable job. I can say with 110% certainty that the essays in the book are the best essays I have read so far and believe me I read lots of essays/articles every day!

The pain and struggle of these authors from the book is what connects me to Dalit history, and it’s the promise and hope embodied in Dalit history that makes me read it. The lessons of leadership, community and love are as relevant today as they were then, and with a growing Dalit population in India, now is the time to reclaim and rewrite our history. We have a long way to go, but if we continue sharing and learning from our history, progress will surely be made.

Reading the stories of sacrifice and emotional and even physical upheavals Dalit-Bahujan communities go through and through these collections of articles I could connect myself to the pain and struggle every Dalit goes through. Stories of pain and struggle of each author clearly reflect that Dalits’ have come thus far through their hard work only and not because of any help from the casteist society.

I particularly also loved the cover design of the book and “did you know” facts mentioned along with the articles.

The Bad

While almost all essays are the personal experience of the authors, some are more personal than the others. I was expecting more personal stories when I picked the book to read but only a few of the articles were personal and others were though relevant but not as personal as were some others and I was hoping for. Maybe it’s only I felt this way but other readers might not feel that way. (Let me know in the comments below!)

Another thing, as all the authors were writing on Babasaheb Ambedkar so at some places one could see the repetition such as the mention of important dates/events related to Babasaheb Ambedkar. I don’t think it would have been possible for the editors or publisher to omit those and still make the same sense out of the articles so I won’t deduct any mark for that but just to mention that at some places I felt there is the repetition in the work.

Final Words

I would highly recommend reading the book and get inspired reading the articles. If you are feeling down with the lack of inspiration to do things, go read the book and you will be pumped up with the inspiration to change your situation.

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