A manuscript with the working title of Teen Dagdanchya Chulila Teen Taareche Kumpan (translates to Three Stones for a Hearth, Three Strands for a Fence), lies before me. Its 130 pages are a distilled form of a growing archive focused on Maharashtra’s nomadic and denotified tribes. The title — elemental — stays with me; evocative of survival and “homes” shaped from lack. Inside the pages, I find ideas shaped by unique vocabularies and lived realities. 

Instead of going chapter by chapter, I dive straight into the section on Vaidus as, for me, the name carries an aura of healing and mystery. It also reminds me of ayurvedic healers seen on the fringes of Mumbai — in remote villages as well as highways — often sitting with glass jars of powdered herbs and oils marketed for sexual potency, a kind of presence that has come to define Vaidus in the popular mind. It brought back the memory of a lady in Bir Billing selling an oil she claimed could summon new hair follicles after menopause. With the Vaidu identity rooted in traditional herbal knowledge, I expect somewhere between folklore and a field kit — terms for balms, bone-settings, brews, lotions and potions. Especially in a post-pandemic moment, I feel a lexicon would leap off the page. But the lexicon is missing. 

A Wadar Household At Work: The Wadars move from site to site, carving idols from black basalt and build temples that they will never be allowed to enter