Prakash Bhoir's voice cuts through the silence of the forest. "Dham-dhum pani pade/ nadi aala launda re," he sings, "Warliachi porgeli panyala re/ bhijela reshmi lal gonda." This adivasi song, traditionally sung during
Gauri Ganpati
, describes a heavy monsoon shower. It's pouring, the river is flooded, and
Warli
girls, their hair braided with soggy red ribbons, have gone to fill water.
In Bhoir's hamlet, it's easy to imagine this scene. A stream runs past his porch and girls scurry by with pots on their hips. What's hard to wrap one's head around is that this forest idyll is just a seven-minute walk from the busy Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road.
Bhoir lives in one of 26 padas, or hamlets, in and around the forests of Aarey Milk Colony. Together they host some 1,027 households, most of them tribal families, according to a 2003 survey by Sramik Mukti Sanghatan. Some trace their roots back many generations--to the time before Mumbai expanded north, engulfing everything in its way. Residents have been engaged in a constant struggle for survival since the 1970s when the government began handing over parcels of land to various entities including the State Reserve Police Force, Film City and, most recently, to the Metro 3 project.
As the city has surrounded the forest, families here have learnt to navigate both the concrete and the real jungle. Their toddlers can as easily sidestep a snake as they can scroll on a smartphone. Some tribal men work as gardeners in
Jogeshwari
's office buildings, using their traditional knowledge to maintain manicured lawns. Others have taken up government or private jobs. Yet despite the challenges of pada life - leopard attacks, water scarcity and, in some places, lack of toilets and erratic power supply - most tribals love their forest home and continue to reject offers of rehabilitation from the government. Once, a journalist called Bhoir to ask why the tribals don't want to move out. "I asked her to come down here," recalls Bhoir. "The minute she saw my house, she advised me not to leave."
Aarey (also known as Ara and A'reyn) was once a little-known village on Salsette Island 5km east of Goregaon railway station. According to taluka records, eight villages including A'reyn were given to Adesar Dadi Sett in 1806 in exchange for a plot he owned in Fort. Then in the 1940s the government acquired nearly 1600 hectares of forest land to set up
Aarey Milk Cooperative
which revolutionized dairy supply in the city. The adivasis "helped clear the forest where the cattle were housed and the dairy was built," recalls Nawshir Dara Khurody, whose father served as Bombay's Milk Commissioner from 1946 to 1952.
While some adivasis are original inhabitants, others moved to Aarey to work in the cattle sheds. Aarey gave tribals permission to grow fruits and vegetables. A 1956 letter from the Chief Officer of Aarey Milk Colony shows that tribals were asked to pay Rs 1 per guntha cultivated (40 gunthas makes an acre).This payment was discontinued without explanation in 2000.
Bhoir, a 49-year-old Malhar Koli who has lived in
Kelti Pada
all his life, works for the BMC's water department. Like others, he supplements his income by growing fruits and vegetables. In his spare time, he makes Warli art - his wife is Warli - and runs a tribal advocacy organization. His three children are grown; all went to college.
Bhoir envies his children's higher education-he left school in class IX-but pities them because they didn't grow up in a pristine jungle. The lakes he swam in as a child have now been cordoned off or turned into dumping grounds. Tree felling for development has reduced biodiversity. As a boy Bhoir hunted rabbits and pigs, fished in a nearby lake and played games like 'aatya-patya' and 'lagori' with his five brothers. His parents eked out a living by selling dry grass and cultivating vegetables on their 60 gunthas of land. Today, all six brothers are married and live in separate houses on the family plot, each tilling his own bit of land. But when there's a large task at hand the family tackles it together-like the rebuilding of a home.
To an outsider, these mud huts seem scant protection against leopards, though they are framed with mud bricks these days rather than by karvi plants. Bhoir's niece, eight-year-old Sayli, lost her first puppy to a leopard and his family often wakes up to the sound of a leopard atop their roof. But the tribals have learned to live in harmony with the big cats, learning their routines, recognizing their smell, and chasing them off with loud sounds. And most residents blame leopard deaths on humans for depleting the jungle.
Despite lack of amenities, many adivasi women say they were happy to have moved here from city chawls after marriage. "Our children are hardier," says Sheetal Sathe, a resident of Khadak Pada and mother of two. Sathe wants her son to be a software engineer but also continue tribal customs. When the boy's family goes to see a prospective bride, for instance, they say they've come to see a baby chick or 'talag'. If both sides agree to the marriage, three bottles of alcohol - two from the boy's side and one from the girl's - are mixed. Everyone drinks to seal the deal.
Preserving this way of life may not be easy. Tribals here claim protection under the 2006 Forest Rights Act. But since 2010, Kelti Pada, Damu Pada and Chafyacha Pada have been fighting eviction and rehabilitation attempts by anti-terror squad Force One, which was given 100 acres here for their headquarters. A few years ago, the squad enclosed a lake cutting off Kelti Pada's water supply. Recently, Bhoir led a protest on behalf of residents of Navshacha Pada, which falls on land given to the
Bombay Veterinary College
. A few weeks ago, college authorities blocked four donated eco-friendly toilets from reaching the hamlet. The pada alerted the media and had children march with placards reading, "Is Swachh Bharat Abhiyan not for us?" The college soon gave in.
Despite these small victories, Bhoir worries that this habitat will be eventually destroyed-and with it his culture. That's made him a campaigner for trees not just adivasi rights. In recent times, the tribals have allied with residents of the nearby high-rises for the 'Save Aarey' campaign, a movement that gained steam after the government proposed uprooting thousands of trees to build a metro car-shed.
The campaign made Bhoir realize that his forest has well-wishers in the city. And that his way of life enriches not only his family and pada but the world beyond.
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