A Lost 10 Rupee Note

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A weekend holiday to shoolpaneshwar wildlife sanctuary, I with my family drove to this place in the narmada district of Gujarat state. This sanctuary consists of many tribal villages. I stayed in 'sagai village'.

Holi is considered as an auspicious festival in our country. During this festival, the tribal people of this sanctuary, form groups and roam from one village to another. They sing, dance and have 'mahuda' (drink) while travelling. They believed in "tilak- holi" which was a great lesson for us, being so backward they valued natural resources more than the literate.

I believed that visiting this place during this festival might be dangerous. When we were going through, a troop of trove stopped our car and held their hand towards us. We didn't understand and gave blank reactions. Then a fellow traveler with us gave them a "10- rupee note", late he explained us the whole scenario stating that 'giving a 10- rupee note as a passkey was a tradition made by that tribal community and the tourists - a tradition of taking money by the means of singing and dancing.' And to my surprise they took the offerings and continued their celebration. They clash with us many times, and every time the number varied. Then we realised that the size of the troop didn't matter with the amount of money. The only thing that matter was the 10- rupee note.

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With every 10- rupees note lost by us, we gained their values, culture and tradition.

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Highlights 

Through my photographs I want to showcase the tradition and way of living of the tribal people, their dance moves, props, costume. I was even lucky to capture few rarely found birds. We went to ninai waterfall, while trekking there we got to know the richness of the forest and specially the significant beauty of the kusum tree, which left us speechless.