Bengaluru-based author Madhavi Gunasheela's new novel provides sneak peek into lives of Paliyan tribe

New Delhi: Bengaluru-based medical practitioner Madhavi N Gunasheela gives us a sneak peek into the lives of the Adivasi Dravidian tribe - the Paliyans - in her new novel 'If Only They Knew'.

It is a crime fiction story played out in the southern city of Madurai and neighbouring areas and a few characters are from the Paliyans tribe.

The novel's protagonist is Alagavel, a young entrepreneur who owns a travel company Trailblazers, leads his team into a lucrative business which works for and against them.

This is Gunasheela's second book, the first being a compilation of short stories 'A Brigand for a Night and Other Tales' in 2012.

In the book's introduction, she writes about the Paliyans, and how these nomads identified themselves with the forests. They inhabit the mountainous South Western Ghats called the Sholas in the regions of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

"Primarily into hunting small game, fishing, gathering honey, and foraging for yams and sago, they lived in small, scattered groups and lived off the forest produce, which they found in plenty," she writes.

Now, some have transformed into bee-keepers and sellers of forest yields, some have become daily wage labourers on plantations in the area, and few turned farmers, cultivating millets, ragi, and oranges in the high grounds.

Many from the tribe, with their intimate knowledge of medicinal plants, have earned a living by collecting and selling them to traders in the villages, who, in turn, sell them to herbal medicine practitioners.

Gunasheela says the future of the Paliyans looks bleak right now due to large-scale deforestation going on in the South Western Ghats.

Widespread illegal poaching and timber cutting from bandits have made the Paliyans feel they have been driven out of their natural habitat, she writes.