India, Sept. 13 -- The story of Avinash's father, Dagadoo, being beaten for asking for leftover puranpoli, a festive delicacy he rarely got to eat, was one that stayed with the boy. While discrimination was a shared generational pain, Dagadoo, a Dalit man and a foot soldier in BR Ambedkar's movement, believed that education, hard work and honesty would allow his son to enter the world of high-rises and gleaming city lights. This set the tone for a life shaped by a relentless fight against poverty, caste and greed. Growing up in a one-room shanty in a Mumbai slum, Avinash knew early on that he would have to claw his way out. He slogged through Mumbai's underbelly before breaking into its gleaming newsrooms, but survival came with its share of humiliations and breaking points. Scum of the Earth traces one man's journey from the margins to the mainstream, and tells the story of Mumbai's underclass, its brutal churn and its fragile hopes....