Tribal people are our spiritual teachers

 

While travelling with my friend Jagannath to the tribal villages around Muniguda in Rayagada district of Orissa, I meet this young boy. He is sitting quietly on the outside partition wall of his small house, not too far from me, but oblivious to my presence. I am surprised… he is not grilling me with those annoying questions which every stranger usually bothers me with… what is your country, what do you do… Such a relief to be spared from that!!

So this boy… I forget to ask his name and he is not bothered about mine either (good because my name is an embarrassment as it is unpronounceable!!)... isn’t the least curious about me but honestly I AM curious about him… his innocent features and calmness puzzle me. So in the hope of an interaction with him I ask Jagannath to translate a few questions. The boy answers but in very few words! He has no urge to impress or pull attention and so his reply is to the point. He tells me he cultivates a plot of land when the agriculture season comes and he daily journeys to the forest…

Another thing about him is...

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The bearded farmers

Article first published in Hindi by Eklavya for Chakmak magazine.

http://www.eklavya.in/chakmak/magazine/2014/July/#/36

As I was going through Eklavya’s recently published Rukhi-Sukhi, a very interesting collection of facts on famine compiled by the students of Adharshila, a residential school for Adivasi children in Badhwani district in MP, I got reminded of Jagannath, a young Kondh Adivasi grassroots activist whom I had recently met in Muniguda, Rayagada district of Odisha…

As we walked through the forest, on our way to a remote village inaccessible by road, Jagannath narrates his experience of famine… “I remember one summer…  I would have been 5-6 years old… nothing was left to eat in the village… every grain of the last harvest had been consumed… the grain stores were empty…  I remember then accompanying my parents to the forest… For a full season, we subsisted solely on forest produce… jungle fruits, tubers, greens, seeds, jungle millets, mushrooms…"

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