Best Seller

I was sitting in my friend's bookshop in Ambedkarnagar. The shop was overflowing with books by Ambedkar, Baba Phule and other dalit writers.

Pointing to these books, I asked my friend conversationally, "Which of these sells the most?"

"Manusmriti", he replied most unexpectedly.

I was mystified. "That's a strange preference for the people of Ambedkarnagar," I said.

"You see," he explained, "this is a politically active colony. Every other day some dalit meeting or the other is going on here. Making a bonfire of Manusmriti is a mandatory item in the agenda of each of these meetings. For this purpose people come here and buy this book in bulk."