To Blossom Yet Again

What happens when a language carries within it not only words but an entire way of relating to the world? My conversation with Dr. Parvati Tirkey began with literature but soon expanded into deeper questions about orality, ecology, collective memory and the forms of knowledge preserved within Adivasi languages and communities.

The conversation started with questions of orality and writing, a subject that has become central to discussions around Adivasi languages and literary traditions. Beneath this binary lie deeper philosophical and political questions. As Dr. Tirkey observed through the striking metaphor of “blackening the white,” the act of writing itself is never innocent. Writing can fix, classify and even control. Yet knowledge production in the modern world remains deeply dependent on written forms, making writing equally necessary for recording, preserving and protecting vulnerable languages.

Dr. Tirkey spoke about new initiatives in universities across her region to teach Adivasi languages. But she also suggested that the question is not merely whether these languages are taught but how they are taught, and how communities themselves might continue to engage with them meaningfully.

The question of writing becomes especially significant in relation to her own poetry collection, which received the Sahitya Akademi…