The tiny rattle drum is his inheritance. It is what gives 50-year-old Shankarappa his identity and livelihood. It has earned him the epithet Budubudike Dasaiah as he saunters down city lanes offering to tell people’s fortunes in exchange for a bowl of rice or loose change.
Bundled in layers of colourful cloth, the portly man walks with the drum held firmly between his thumb and index finger. But in the mad morning rush of office and school-goers, few pay him any attention. Most town-folks scorn these soothsayers of the Budubudike tribe, treating them with suspicion and shooing them away in disdain. But in the outskirts of cities, in villages, in hamlets and along countryside roads, the nomadic tribe is still revered for its apparent clairvoyance.
The Budubudike tribe, identified by the sound of their rattle drums, used to be nomadic. However, most tribe members today hover between rootedness in a village and a semi-nomadic state. Shankarappa is among the older ones who used to be completely nomadic once, but is now one of the few in his tribe to own a pucca house. He lives on the outskirts of the town of Pavagada, which is on the border of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. It gained infamy a few years ago over a case of sale of widows.
The seers also double up as hunters when needed. When wild pigs become a menace in fields, farmers invite Budubudike tribesmen to kill the beasts. They get to keep the meat.
The smell of wild pigs being roasted wafts in the Budubudike dwelling. Today is a good day. Two miscreants were caught from the fields last night. One is being roasted right now; the other is tied to a tree and looks forlorn.
Shankarappa is seated on a rickety chair outside his hut. The huts in the colony have been erected with thin bamboo sticks bent into domes and covered with old, torn sarees.
It is afternoon and Shankarappa sits surrounded by women, children and several young men. He begins to talk about his old nomadic life. He holds tightly on to the glory of the past to squeeze some colour into a bleak present. “My parents were nomads. I settled down in Pavagada about 10 years ago.” He earlier lived in Chalkere, at a distance of “Rs 15 for a ticket in the bus,” he says. That is how Budubudikes measure distance.
Largely ignored by the state and in the absence of education or any social welfare schemes, the Budubudike tribe ekes out a living by seeking alms. They share the food gathered. Their little drum is always about their person, in case some faithful want their fortunes read. Some more enterprising have taken to other professions such as making brooms. Some like Ramu, sell sarees in villages.
Ramu lives at the foothills of a rocky hill on the outskirts of Pavagada, along with 20 other families. His dome-shaped hut is covered in an assortment of bright, colourful sarees, some embroidered in parts by his wife. His idea of the community is entirely devoid of romanticism; he focuses instead on the hardships. “I settled down in Pavagada about 16 years ago for my children. They go to school. If we live as nomads, how will our children study? I don’t beg for a living,” he says.
Ramu’s working method shows ingenuity and resourcefulness. Ramu buys sarees that are offered to goddesses in temples and auctioned off later. Each costs about Rs 30. He then repairs, cleans and packs them anew, which costs another Rs 5-10. He then boards a bus and sells these refurbished sarees in villages for a profit of Rs 10-15. That apart, once in a while he tells fortunes at village fairs. “It is my family profession, I can’t completely abandon it,” he admits.
The tribe worships Adi Shakti in varied forms, as Gowdachandramma, Muthyalamma, Soudamma, Kollapuramma, Maramma. Two families in the colony, however, have converted to Christianity. The head of the family fell ill and only Jesus was able to cure him, he says, refusing to give his name or any other details. He wears a plastic cross around his neck and listens to the radio all day long. There is a big red cross painted above his door; the family no longer mingles with the rest of the tribe.
As in the case of most tribals, very few here pursue education. The government classifies them as Marathi, thus depriving them of all beneficial schemes. Rifts are resolved in a panchayat tradition; Budubudikes and the government largely ignore each other.
Shankarappa plays his little drum and mutters for a minute. These are chants perhaps, or incantations intended to mystify and intimidate listeners. The fortune teller then imagines a future for his people. He wants the government to recognize them. He wants them to have proper houses, education, jobs and respectability. He wants his people to wander no more, but plant their roots firmly into the land.