“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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