Aneesh* read Kunju Kaaryangalude Odeythampuran, the Malayalam translation of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, when he was in college. He picked up the book prompted by a casual remark from a classmate.

“He told me that there’s a character called Velutha in the novel who reminded him of me,” Aneesh recalled.

“Velutha was a Dalit Christian like me, who was in love with a Syrian Christian woman,” he said, a faint, painful smile crossing his face.

In the novel, Velutha is brutally tortured and killed for his ‘forbidden’ love. Though Aneesh, who belongs to the Pulaya community, has never faced physical violence like Velutha, he has encountered caste abuse, public humiliation, and social exclusion.

“It was 2010. Ours was a hilly village in Kannur district. A girl from my parish and I were in a relationship. We went to the same school and attended catechism classes together. Our families were........

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