jalandhar as writer des raj kali rubs shoulders with top authors of the country at jaipur literature festival not many even in his hometown of jalandhar know of the tough times he braved while growing up long before he began to pen characters and much before they became famous he had to lift dead animals to aid his studies kali comes from a dalit family and is known for his works around children of a lesser god we would live in abject poverty and i would lift dead animals when in high school and college to make things a little easier for my family kali says while speaking to toi the writer has to his credit five novels four short story books and four more on history of ghadar movement dalit characters mainly from doaba and their issues figure prominently in his novels in fact bhag mall pagal one of the three heroes in his novel shanti parv was a real life character pagal who passed away a few of years back was a member of valmiki community and was secretary of scheduled caste federation formed by dr b r ambedkar he says what dalits confront in real life influence his works in the current edition of jaipur lit fest he would be on the panel with shashi tharoor nitish kapoor sanchaita raju and prasoon joshi to discuss swachh bharat the indian story it focusses on the idea that the need is to build a sense of hygiene in a culture through its basic narrative as an intrinsic and transformative part of attitudes and responses on january 21 he was in the panel that discussed ballad of bant singh which revolved around the tragic and inspiring story of bant singhs resistance to atrocities suffered as a dalit indian is a story of empowerment as well as a mirror to the fault lines in a still feudal society on july 25 he would be sharing stage with amish devgan sanchaita raju uday prakash anu singh choudhary in conversation with suman sahai on mera gaon mera desh however this is not the first time that he is participating in the lit fest in 2010 his book parneshvari was discussed at the fest he has also been a regular at chandigarh lit fest those were tough days but i have neither ever tried to shake off my past nor tried to conceal it he said i did not feel depressed in those days and now also as recognition comes my way i dont let it go into my head but i do celebrate it added kali