For 17 years, Madhu Ramnath has lived and worked as a botanist and anthropologist in Bastar, south-eastern Madhya Pradesh, the most remote and tribal area of central India. He speaks the Durva language: he has listened and learned from the people. The stories, poems and anecdotes that follow allow us, too, to listen to adivasi voices for the first time. They illustrate the state apathy that is common in the district and the level to which state-adivasi relations have sunk. They also show the resourcefulness of the adivasi in dealing with the unexpected - while the concept of a postmortem was a familiar one, suicide by hanging was new to the village
