White as Milk and Rice Stories of India's Isolated Tribes

The Maria girls from Bastar practise sex as an institution before marriage but with rules-one may not sleep with a partner more than three times the Hallaki women from the Konkan coast sing throughout the day-in forests fields the market and at protests the Kanjars have plundered looted and killed generation after generation and will show you how to roast a lizard when hungry. The original inhabitants of India these Adivasis still live in forests and hills with religious beliefs traditions and rituals so far removed from the rest of the country that they represent an anthropological wealth of our heritage. This book weaves together prose oral narratives and Adivasi history to tell the stories of six remarkable tribes of India-reckoning with radical changes over the last century-as they were pulled apart and thrown together in ways none of them fathomed. Review 'The hamlets of India are the bedrock of fantastic untold stories that make us wonder. In this book Nidhi goes to remote villages with the courage of an adventurous journalist and tells us life stories we have not heard. The beautiful and poetic language makes the book heartwarming the stories linger long after reading them. I suggest this book as one of the must-haves on your reading shelf and in our libraries' -- Benyamin author of Goat DaysNidhi Dugar Kundalia does justice to the arduous task of chronicling the lives of six tribal communities from India's heartland as she writes about their intimate moments and interactions with the outside world their pains and celebrations beliefs and wisdom. She tempers her surprise and curiosity with empathy and fine writing producing a book that does not intrude like a voyeur but places the reader in the midst of these people like a benign eyewitness. -- Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar author of The Adivasi Will Not Dance'White asMilk and Rice has engrossing tales that are told with genuine feeling and beautiful details of constantly evolving human emotions. There are books that change the way you look at people and this is one of them' -- Shyam Benegal film-maker and screenwriter About the Author Nidhi Dugar is a journalist. Her stories have appeared in various national newspapers and magazines. She mostly writes on socio-cultural issues documenting human lives and their journeys through various settings. Her first bookThe Lost Generation Chronicling India's Dying Professions was released in 2016 to a warm reception. She is a graduate of the School of Arts City University London and lives in Kolkata with her husband and children.