>> One of the reasons this diarist loves Mumbai above all is because it is the home of poets like Namdeo Dhasal, the Dalit poet activist and writer.

Born in 1949, in a village near Pune, into crushing poverty, Dhasal the son of a butcher’s assistant grew up in one of Mumbai’s notorious red light districts Golpitha, which he immortalised in his first volume of poetry by the same name in 1973.