If Mallika hadn’t met Vishant Agarwal would she have married the talented Manoranjan Byapari?

"Maybe I would have," she says, unsure, but amused. I am in office, doing the same shit that another Agarwal, Sudhir Agarwal, the owner of DNA, pays me for doing. To kill a yawn, I go to the library and pick up the latest issue of EPW. It has an interesting story. One Manoranjan Byapari is fast emerging as a subaltern voice in Bangla literature. He is also drawing attention to Bangla Dalit literature from the past. There is an argument that unlike Marathi literature, Bangla doesn’t have any Dalit literary history to boast of. Byapari contests that thesis. But I am digressing. When I asked Mallika whether she would have married anyone who goes by the name of Manoranjan Byapri, she surprised me and said she could have. And that’s not all. She says if she could have married an Agarwal, a marwari businessman, she could have also married a Byapari. For non-bongs, Byapari means trader, which implies that even though Manoranjan is a Dalit, he comes from a trading caste. If only more Mallikas fell for more Byaparis, ours would have been a more inclusive society and Manorajan’s story would have come out in mainstram DNA and not EPW. Funny thought, I know, but then I am bored.