“It was a foggy morning that day. I still remember how a
group of forest officers came rushing towards our tribal land along with the
police convoy. We were all getting ready for our day’s work in the coffee farms
of Araku valley. That’s when we heard about the most horrifying news of our
lives. The forest department officers had ordered us to evacuate the forest
land within 20 days. It was an earth shattering moment for all of us as we had
no other place to live apart from forest land. We had been in the forests for
ages and suddenly we were asked to leave. But that’s the moment I realized the
harsh reality of human civilization. We were all forced to migrate to local
towns and villages. We weren’t prepared for that change but the situations do
not always favour our choices. I now stay at Padmapuram town along with my
family and we are still dependent on agriculture for our livelihood. We always
fight with the extremities of nature for our survival but what about the
extremities caused by us to the nature? The nature has its own way of throwing
up surprises. Let’s face the Karma! We are harsh to the nature and it comes
back haunting us, we don’t know where to go.”

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