To Blossom, Yet Again

Sundar Sarukkai: It is a great pleasure to have Parvati Tirkey with us. Delighted that you have been able to come from Ranchi to Bangalore to share some thoughts on your writing, on your culture, and on the ideas of language and its relationship to culture.

Parvati Tirkey has a Ph.D. from the Department of Hindi, Banaras Hindu University. Her book of poems called Phir Ugna was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in 2025. Thank you for coming.

Parvati Tirkey: Thank you for having me.

SS: You are a well-known poet, teacher and researcher. In the larger context of understanding and imagining the Adivasi worldview in today’s India, can you speak about the idea of writing? It is a pressing question when we think about Adivasi literary culture, because these are largely oral cultures, while writing is a very specific act. As an Adivasi writer, how do you understand the relationship between oral tradition and writing? You have also brought your language, Kurukh, into your Hindi poems.

PT: Our Adivasi heritage is rooted in oral tradition and oral literature, which are fundamentally different from written literature. Tribal writing began only recently. I have often tried to understand what happens…