Geeta was no rebel; she’d never be one to bring the world to its knees. Phoolan Devi hadn’t either, but she’d brought some men to theirs, and her story had resonated with countless other women, including Geeta. She’d always regarded Phoolan’s life as delineated by gender: one woman against scores of men who constantly used her womanhood to dehumanize her, to grind her, literally, into the dirt. But Geeta now saw that caste had marked Phoolan’s story as much as, if not more than, gender had. She’d been born Phoolan Mallah, a Dalit and a woman, therefore twice-trodden. Even in a gang with no
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