Imagine you are a research worker and are making a field trip. You could be a botanist, geologist, historian, geographer, sociologist, or belong to any other discipline of your wish. Write a brief but original report on this trip based on your experiences. Location of the trip — where you went and how you went — what equipments you carried — what you expected to achieve — what did you actually achieve. In your report give details about the weather, the landscape, the flora and fauna, the people, their custom, clothes, language; the way of life, their cooperation and friendliness or the lack of it.
I am an anthropologist (= one who studies about the origin, nature and behaviour of human beings), having obtained my Master-degree from the Ranchi University. I was drawn to this interesting and recent subject after I read a book “The Patterns of Culture’ of Ruth Benedict. I am working on a project on the tribes of the hills of Chotonagpur. For generations these people have lived in their forest darkness, almost like the aboriginal human species and without the light of civilization. My research proposes to bring to light their present state of living.
I made a trip to Torpa that is a bloc-level administrative unit. Going there was not a problem to me as my brother who is a BDO there, picked me up form the nearest point of general communication.
I equipped myself with a small Hot-Shot camera, a small tape-recorder, my notebook and other accessories. Through my brother’s help I spotted some families, and the Promukh (the chief among the Mukhiyas) promised to introduce me to some ethnic groups for my purpose.
My target was to elicit (= bring out) some of their deep- seated feelings and reactions, as also to probe into some of the secrets of their personal lives and problems. My guide conducted me to an Oraon family whose head was Shivu Dukka. At first the members put up a resistance when my guide disclosed my purpose to them. They took a protective posture when I tried to know their social and marriage customs. I, however, noticed that their walls were etched (= marked) with shapes of strange deities; they served tea in wooden bowls; in their parlour was kept bows and arrows and tangis.
In my second visit, however, I was able to make room for more information. I found that they were excited when I snapped then and in no time gave them copies of their portraits. I recorded their voice secretly and amazed them by giving it back to them on the tape-recorder. This event proved to me a random (= taken accidentally) sample showing how remote from civilisation and modern amenities these people live. The second family was Adivasi Christian. As soon as I entered their small apartment, I was charmed. The small sitting room displayed a small almirah stocked with books and revealed that it was an educated sort. The first one was purely of a native breed, illiterate and simple-souled. Their children and the elderly ladies did menial jobs at the residences of the urban gentry. Their contentment I categorized as a blemish on our independence as even several decades of freedom could not move them from the dead morass in which their ancestors were born. Their shyness to cooperate was inherent as their wonder at my camera and tape-recorder was an index of their primeval (= before the birth of civilization) darkness. But the protective instinct of the second family I found to be an index of another kind. The little light of knowledge that they received – and that, too, at the hands of the Christian Fathers – is enough to alert them against the political designs (= ulterior/motivated questions) of interrogators. Naturally, I was initially classed as one such. The parents received me well, talked about my project, the university and other sundry things. But, like the snail hiding its snout, artfully avoided any question about their ancestors; how and why they embraced Christianity; and their impressions about the country of their residence.
This represents only a small cross-section of my field work. But it and bits of information I got from the Mukhiya confirmed that the greatest obstacle in the growth of these original races of this locality is the mode of our political hobnobbing (= playing idle games).
The weather in September was fine. The rains were over and I could cover the hilly tracts invested (= dressed) with a sylvan (= wooded) setting delightfully. Mahua plants, sissam, teak and others which I failed to recognize; bushes, briars; algae on rocks lay scattered over far-flung regions. Men, in general, were clad in dhoti and kurta, some donning (= wearing) a pagri on their heads. Women wore ghaghra, parti-coloured choli and the young maidens loved to display sticks of mohua or other flowers on their hairs.
