BANGKOK POST

Among the Adivasi

My eyes struggle to capture everything around me as quickly as I possibly can. I register the lush green rice fields and small brown huts scattered over a small expanse of land as I get out of the car. It's unusually quiet, but not in a bad way. I whip out my camera, almost on impulse. I feel as if I have stepped into another world.

I am in a small part of Tamkhind, a village in Palghar district of Maharashtra state in India. I am here to document the Adivasis who live here ­­ most are from the Varli tribal group ­­ and learn more about how they survive and thrive.

Adivasi is a name collectively used to describe the indigenous people in India. A modern Sanskrit term coined in the 1930s, it consists of two words: adi, meaning from the beginning, and vasi meaning inhabitant. At the last Indian census in 2011, the country was home to 104 million Adivasis, accounting for 8.6% of the country's population.

The Adivasi consist of 200 indigenous, tribal groups in all, with communities located in various states, including Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Bihar. The particular village I am visiting has a population of around 4,500 people, according to Sunil Parhad, an Adivasi medical officer in a government hospital in Palghar, who is my tour guide.

As we walk around the hamlet, Mr Parhad tells me about the Adivasi way of living. According to him, every village has an open place of worship.

"The Adivasis only worship what they can see," he says. For this reason, they draw a sun, moon and tiger in a designated place, all symbols of nature. "How long can we go on with our faith? Our land is God for us, it is how we survive," he points out.

Beyond the Green Desert

An arrangement of carefully framed photographs featuring famous places from around the world is the first thing I see as I walk through the gate into Jagannath Vartak's home. A light drizzle is falling outside but the trees surrounding the sturdy house create a protective canopy of leaves, sheltering everything below it. Mr Vartak sits outside on his porch. "I've been waiting for you," he says in Marathi with a smile.

I have come to speak with Mr Vartak about his recently published memoir, Hirwe Valwant or Green Desert, which chronicles his 24 years working in the Arabian Gulf. Originally written in the author's native Marathi, the book has won seven literary awards in Maharashtra state, including the prestigious Sahitya Ratna Puraskar or Literary Gem. Since then, Green Desert has been translated into English and Hindi, and there are plans for editions in Urdu, Gujarati, German, Spanish and French.

Mr Vartak is from Mahim, a small village in Maharashtra. Now 72, he spends much of his time at home, where he writes stories for newspapers and occasionally travels with his wife. In other words, he lives a life that isn't as fast­paced as it was a few years ago.

In the early 1970s, after growing up in perpetual poverty and getting married in the process, Mr Vartak decided to fulfill a life­long dream in the hopes of providing a better life for his family and giving his two sons a quality education. He pursued work outside of India because, although he would be separated from his loved ones, his financial prospects would improve dramatically.

Finding a job overseas was not easy. Back then, many workers from India and other parts of Asia were recruited by big companies in the Arabian Gulf, primarily for infrastructure work. They hired people through agents, who would organise travel and legal matters. However, some workers encountered major problems while preparing for life abroad. As Mr Vartak writes in Green Desert, some of his initial struggles included losing a great deal of money to a fraudulent agent and getting jailed for a crime he didn't commit, barely making ends meet through it all.