The short stories compiled by Durva Bhumanna, a Raj Gond intellectual, in his recently-released book Kotkapitte Kathang , are bone-chilling just like the account of the life and times of the aboriginal people in the erstwhile Adilabad district given by Austrian anthropologist Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf in his 1945 tour diary titled Tribal Hyderabad .
The researcher had toured extensively the tribal heartland of the then Adilabad district under the Nizams to bring to light the pitiable conditions of the ethnic people, but Bhumanna, who works as an announcer in All India Radio, Adilabad station, drives home the point through poignant contemporary real life stories.
Kotkapitte means sparrow in Gondi and the title translates as ‘sparrow stories’, but the collection of 20 short stories is all but that. The O. Henryesque stories relate to the harsh lives of innocent Adivasis, often sad and sometimes comic.
Take for instance the story of Mesram Jangu of Dedra village in Bazarhatnoor mandal. His father wanted him to study and so hired a teacher, but he became a naxalite who surrendered himself eventually to the then Adilabad Superintendent of Police Mahesh M. Bhagwat (now Rachakonda Commissioner of Police) and decided to settle as a farmer.
To his consternation, the former naxalite found that the papers related to his five acres of land were burnt when his dalam had set fire to the Tahsildar office. He died about a year ago, but not before receiving ₹20,000 under the Rythu Bandhu scheme for his five acres of land.
Then there is the tragic story of tribal activist Kumram Bheembai of Dongregaon in Indervelli mandal, who was killed by the extremists. On the comic side is the story of Madavi Lachu of Chinthapalli in Tiryani mandal, now in Kumram Bheem Asifabad district, who was acquitted in a case over confusion of his identity.
Tumultuous events
“I heard these stories while visiting villages as part of my recording assignments over the years. The stories appealed to me as they depicted the typical tumultuous events that an Adivasi in these parts goes through during his/her lifetime,” Mr. Bhumanna told The Hindu .
The book, the foreword for which is written by Collector D. Divya, is in Gondi, but is written in Telugu script, and is priced at ₹50. The Adivasis have received it well so far.
