After Elwin: Encounters with Tribal Life in Central India

This book is a travelogue with a difference. From the middle of 1970s to as recently as January 2006, the author has been travelling to remote tribal areas of Central India and recording his experiences, impressions and interactions with the people in these places. These experiences are juxtaposed with the writings of Verrier Elwin who lived and travelled in these areas and wrote a corpus of classic anthropological works. Das Gupta discovered Elwin’s writing by chance and was inspired to revisit and reconstruct the tribal world that the latter so loved. Starting as a hesitant traveller trying to verifying his readings, Das Gupta is gradually drawn into a separate reality of which he is witness, observer and reluctant participant. His quest concludes only after he is able to piece together the puzzle about Elwin, the man.