A Day With Tribals

I love traveling and generally, I go to remote places of different states and enjoy the village life there. This winter I along with my family made a trip to Gir forest in Gujrat and we planned to stay for a day in among the tribals in the forest.

After seeing an Asian lion in the morning our guide made all arrangements for the stay in a tent. In tribal areas. A bonfire was lit and local snacks were served.

A middle-aged person was there from the tribe with a local instrument called ektara and he started reciting some folk poem in the form of song. The melody was very good and his voice was also very sweet. I could not make the meaning of the poem as it was in some local language, but our guide was translating every line for us. The poem goes like this,

''when there is ample rain

The farms have crops and are al

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l green

We eat to our stomach full

How beautiful life, it has been.

When drought is there

We skip some meals

No water, no food

Like death, it feels

When there is heavy rain

The peacock's dance to its tune

I tell my lovely fiance

You look like a full moon.

When the water level goes down

And we don't see a single dark cloud

Everyone is hungry and thirsty

We pray to god loud and loud.

We always pray to the gods above

Please give us happiness, not the fear

We pray and pray to almighty

Please give us good rain every year''.

After enjoying such a lovely folk song we had dinner with locals and enjoyed new local dishes. I liked the tune of the song so much that the whole night I kept on murmuring the melody.