Why did the kanikonna blossom? It shouldn't have, knowing that no one would pay it heed anyway.' This anthology answers the question raised by a voice within it.Selected from seven decades of dalit writing in Malayalam and presented in new translations by AbhiramiGirijaSriram and N. Ravi Shanker, these twenty-three stories, farcical and magical,terse and baroque, domestic and picaresque, reveal thatthe disregarded laburnum in the forest has blazed with beauty all these years, and we should be the poorer for neglecting it. 'There is no other way to understand, denounce and disapprove of caste than through these stories'-Ambai 'Often, as I read this wonderful collection of dalit stories, I saw the resurrection of birds. Some that we know, and some we have forgotten'.