At a recent workshop for south Indian Adivasi writers, Werner Soors (of Les Petit Roberts fame) wrote this poem rather spontaneously based on a brainstorm of potential themes of interest for writing. He set it to a blues rhythm on his Ukulele and even sang it but meanwhile the English text of the song of which a crude Kannada translation is ongoing.
Continue readingSociologist and activist Abhay Xaxa has written this poem that I found deeply illuminating for many privileged folks like myself who work with Adivasi communities. Since the poem in English is not accessible to many of my Kannada-speaking colleagues & collaborators, with help from Latha Chilgod, we produced a crude Kannada translation of the poem. A dream to set it to tune in Kannada one day, perhaps with help from some of the amazing Adivasi musicians here in Chamarajanagar…one day….meanwhile, below is our Kannada translation and further down is the original in English that I believe was first published in Roundtable India.
Continue readingAt the 2021 edition of the Karnataka Bird Festival held at BR Hills somewhere neatly between the damp squib of a first wave (in Chamarajanagar) and the severe second wave, a small F2F gathering with online streaming of talks was organised. I did a broad sweep of birds of br hills overlaid on how the hills’ unique geographical location and social history.
I have been wanting to upload this book written by Somasundaram and Jade Gowda about various aspects of the day-to-day life of the Soliga people (ಜನಜೀವನ), their folk-songs (ಜಾನಪದ), some extracts of their cultural heritage (ಪರಂಪರೆ) and reflections on the theme of world peace based on the Adivasi culture. The first author has literally built (along with Dr. Sudarshan and various other people) the Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra in BR Hills, an organisation that has been working with the Soliga people in the district on various issues.
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