Find adivaani titles at LeftWord Books
Hall no-1, Stall no-15. (Closest entrance gate no: 3)
Central Park Mela Ground, Salt Lake, Karunamoyee crossing, Kolkata
Wed, 29 Jan, 2020 – Sun, 9 Feb, 2020 / 12 – 8 PM
Two out of print titles: We come from the Geese and Angor are back in stock as well.
You can find our catalogue at LeftWord’s famous bookstore in Delhi :
2254/2A Ground Floor Shadi Khampur New Ranjit Nagar Shadipur
110008 Delhi
Ph. 011 2570 9456
When in Goa, you can buy adivaani’s books here:
Villa No. 6, Saunta Vaddo, Bardez,
Assagao, Goa 403507
Open | Monday to Sunday | 10am-11pm
A few months ago Manchi Pustakam, Secunderabad acquired the Telugu rights to our illustrated books on the Santal creation stories.
We are pleased to share that the books are out and can be bought at Kinige. Click on the images to have a look:
More options now for our dear readers to purchase our books online.
Happy book shopping!
adivaani has in the last two and a half years travelled far and wide; covering more ground than planned, connecting with more people than anticipated and have had associations and networks open unexpected doors. At the end of the year as we pause to catch some breath we realise we have to consolidate all that we have worked for and towards and make every experience count.
We’ve been fortunate to have the commitment of three individuals to contribute to this journey— Impsupenla Ozükum and Judith Herenz.
So we continue to urge you to support us as you’ve been doing—write, phone or drop in and keep your involvement with us going. So feel free to contact me.
Executive DIRECTOR
Ram Dayal Munda’s Adi-dharam is an important text highlighting and questioning the religious identity of the Adivasis, contributing to the effort of reconstruction of the religious aspect of that heritage, a process that he started during his lifetime.
In it’s third edition now, co-published with BIRSA and sarini, Adi-dharam is available for your reading and consideration.
We hope for you to engage through this book with the vision elucidated by an Adivasi figure as significant as Ram Dayal Munda.
Read the Preface of this new edition written by Samar Bosu Mullick
adivaani has been invited to the most prestigious book fair in the world. We are really excited about this. Ruby will be representing us there and we hope she brings more good news from Germany in October.
In the meantime, suggestions and proposals of what to do at the International Frankfurt Book Fair 2014 are more than welcome.
Thanks to the Consul General Reiner Schmiedchen, Vice Consul Lena Schwarm Dantas and everyone at the German Consulate in Kolkata.
It’s that time of the year again—to come together as a community of Indigenous peoples and join the world in celebrating one day in our honor—9th August.
adivaani wants to commemorate this occasion by serving the second portion of Adivasi Pickle.
Pickle is the perfect accompaniment to spice up any spread and the one key element common to every Indian kitchen and palate.
How about some Adivasi pickle? A pickle made of indigenous ways and thinking—the perfect accompaniment to our present—with ingredients that help us understand how our ancestral ways have preserved and sustained the earth, until newer ways dismissed them as primitive and we became a resource to be extracted, exploited and ignored. Ingredients that help refurbish traditions and knowledge webs, and ensure our future.
adivaani is therefore calling Adivasis to share more about ourselves. We’ve instituted a small prize of a book, out of love, on the International Day for the World’s Indigenous Peoples, August 9th, 2014. We’re short on what we can give, but we’re long on good wishes, hope and solidarity: you write, we publish. That’s the deal!
We believe the time for us to do things our own way is now. We want this event to be a celebration of a communion of, by and for Adivasis—right from our sisters and brothers sharing and chronicling their personal narratives, to the publisher, not forgetting the jury formed of Adivasi intellectuals, scholars and artisans.
Join us, spread the word and…
Femina’s July 24–August 6, 2014 issue carries Ruby’s profile. Click on the image to read it.
On 30th June, 1855, a large assembly of Santals was held at Bhognadih, a village in the Rajmahal hills. There were tens of thousands of people equipped with bows, arrows, swords, battle axes and drums. It was there that the Santal Rebellion started almost 160 years ago, when Santals rose to overthrow the oppressors and start a raj of their own.
The Hul, as it is called, left a deep impression upon the social imaginary of the Santal people. It was a last ditch effort to defend our way of life which was being undermined by the influx of outsiders.
At adivaani, we believe is our duty to keep our stories of injustice, persecution and hope alive in public spaces.
This book is an expression of our resistance and resurgence as Adivasis. It was produced keeping our children in mind, so they can learn our history and preserve our memory as their heritage.
Please join us this Saturday, July 12th 2014 at 4 pm to release Disaibon Hul in the company of its creators, Saheb Ram Tudu and Ruby Hembrom.Phone: +91-33-22296551 / 22276190
Email: earthcarebooks@gmail.com
Website: http://www.earthcarebooks.com
Come June, along with the sweltering heat and keen anticipation of rains, Santals await the anniversary celebrations of the Santal Rebellion of 1855–57. This event is a tribute to the Santal men, women and children who stood up to the oppression and exploitation of Zamindars, Traders, the British crown and its agents.
This year adivaani wants to honour that remarkable Adivasi struggle for freedom with an illustrated book for children: Disaibon Hul (Let’s remember the Hul).
We wanted the book to be a ‘Santal production’. So while I scripted the book, we were fortunate to find a supremely talented Santal artist in Saheb Ram Tudu. He immediately engaged with our ideas and the first thing he did was to travel to the significant sites where the rebellion played out.
We researched together and compared notes about what should go on which page. I’d often get a call; with him being disturbed by the readings of the oppression meted out to Santals. We re-wrote the text, often reducing it as his illustrations elicited the scenes so clearly.
At one point while illustrating a page, he was inspired to write a song in Santali about it. The next day he sang it for us and we decided to include it in the book. We translated it into English and it adorns one of the pages of the book. The process of making the book has been both overwhelming and cathartic for us.
I’ve had the good fortune of working with such a dedicated artist who through his unique style has given nothing but the best to this book. We’re proud to be Santals, we hope Santal children will be too. But then, we want to share our pride with indigenous children and people all over the world: Stand for your rights, fight for your land… Disaibon Hul!
PS. Please visit us tomorrow at the Hul Mela at Bhognadih… Saheb and I will be signing the book!
In the end of 2012, adivaani was following the emergence of the Idle no more movement of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada comprising the First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples and their non-Aboriginal supporters in Canada. This in their own words is a peaceful revolution to honour Indigenous sovereignty and to protect the land and water.
It was during this interface that we came across Canadian indigenous scholar and writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.
We started reading her and were so inspired by her words, vision and storytelling of the indigenous imagery that we wanted our Adivasi brothers and sisters to share in the joy and hope we found in her writings. We believe sharing thoughts, experiences, ideas and stories between indigenous peoples is one way of building solidarity in a world where despite geographical barriers our lives are intertwined.
We went ahead and bought the rights to her insightful book Dancing on our turtle’s back and now have the Indian edition ready for you to read. Get our books at our dedicated bookstores, People Tree, Foreign Publishers and Earthcare Books (you can order it online from them here: http://www.earthcarebooks.com/).
We’ll have more to share on Leanne and her work soon. In the meantime here’s Leanne’s introduction to the Indian edition of Dancing on our turtle’s back especially for you.
Gladson and Sanjay Krishna have co-authored a collection of stories from the Red Corridor, highlighting voices of Adivasis who’ve been caught in the military conflict between the government and the maoists. Once a forest in peaceful existence, Saranda has become the stage of this continuous abuse of human rights.
Narrated in the honest and passionate style Gladson is known for,with the addition of Sanjay’s investigative journalistic experience, Crossfire is meant to be a new basic reference to understanding the lives and struggles of the indigenous peoples of India.
The book is already available at our dedicated bookstores, People Tree and Earthcare Books (you can order it online from them here: http://www.earthcarebooks.com/).
To get a feel of the book, download the introduction written by Swami Agnivesh here:
This is a story of three friends in Kolkata coming together and saving a culture and its heritage from extinction. Ruby Hembrom quit her job as an IT professional to take to promoting the folktales of Adivasis a place on the bookshelves. Here is the inspiring and heartening tale.
adivaani‘s language building through reading initiative in collaboration with the Tribal Cultural Heritage in India Foundation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Does language also have rhythm? from adivaani on Vimeo.
adivaani‘s language building through reading initiative in collaboration with the Tribal Cultural Heritage in India Foundation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The passion to give something back to her community drives this young tribal woman to venture into an unknown terrain. Ruby Hembrom gave up a well paid job in the IT sector in Delhi five years ago and returned to Kolkata to preserve the dying Santhal language.
Ruby Hembrom had already worked for big names like IBM when she quit the IT-BPO sector. She had eight years in Training, Learning and Development, and she went straight to the villages of Jharkhand. But now, she is known for her publishing concern for tribal literature, Adivaani, which she has put up with her friends, Joy, Boski and Luis. Ruby speaks on Adivaani, life and more.
Why does adivaani do books?
Books keep history, heritage and identity alive; books reinvent, reinterpret and make relevant voices, thoughts, ideas and dreams. In the words, language, imagery and pages that books are made of are the threads of ourselves that each one of us contributes to build the Tapestry of traditions for our children.
This bit of yarn from adivaani and the Tribal Cultural Heritage in India Foundation is to help strengthen skills of communication in English a principal link language today.
Most Adivasi children with the opportunity at education are learning English at some level and in some form or the other. But there’s still a gap between them and other children in India.
We’d like our two illustrated books on the Santal Creation stories series to be the instrument to achieve this mastery of English and on another level accomplish something more critical– re-initiating the children to these wonderful stories of Adivasi origin–stories families or communities may have forgotten themselves or may not have had the time to re-tell.
Supplementing the books are two special simple animations to help the children practise English grammar and pronunciation.
The partnership with the Tribal Cultural Heritage in India Foundation has enabled us to circulate copies of the books and animations for free to schools, hostels, libraries, NGO’s and other agencies preserving and promoting Adivasi cultural heritage in Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar and Assam.
But we now need you to add to the yarn. To facilitate the actualisation of the ‘language building through reading’ exercise we’re conducting a workshop on the 30th of November, 2013 and the 1st of December 2013 at Johar, HRD Centre, Dumka.
We need Adivasis to come forward to assist us with spreading the ethos of the project.
We can only accommodate 10 people at the workshop from where adivaani will host one of you to travel with the project to the centres identified to disseminate the learning.
The 2 day workshop on Language, Publishing, Books and Communication skills is sponsored, so if you’re willing to attend and commit to seeing the project through, just send in your names and contact information to info@adivaani.org by the 20th of November, 2013 and we’ll take care of the rest.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
***
Tapestry of traditions for our children:
A language building through reading initiative in collaboration with the Tribal Cultural Heritage in India Foundation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The Santal and the Biblical Creation Traditions: Anthropological & Theological Reflections
Language: English
Pages: 304
Rs. 200
In this book Timotheas Hembrom offers a brief and lucid introduction to the lifestyle and belief system of the Santals, showing that though they are a people of no scripture, they have as much knowledge about God the creator as the people of Scriptures. Hembrom also conducts an exegetical study and compares the Biblical and the Santal’s creation narratives. His findings and conclusions prove to be relevant for any reader interested in faith and the origin of religion.
Rev. Dr. Timotheas Hembrom has over 40 years of Theological teaching experience and is an ordained Priest of the Church of North India. He has taught at Chera Theological College, Cherrapunji, Bishop’s College, Kolkata, Gossner Theological College, Ranchi and The Santal Theological College, Benagaria.
A writer, editor, singer-musician, and songwriter, he wears many hats.
This book is a reflection of his love for words and language, and what he is at the core–a Santal, an Adivasi and a Theologian.
We’ve been receiving enquiries from people who are intimidated by the requirements of the participation for the prize. It appears that we are requesting for the new masterpiece or the most innovative way to view ourselves and our ways of life–we are. But that’s not all.
We know who we are. It continues to be a long struggle, living in the margins, getting accustomed to unfamiliar ways, cultures, languages, in a world where we aren’t really welcome. English might not be the language you are most comfortable with but we want everybody around (the world) to know us. So come as you are–we’re here to help your narrative take shape.
There is no small idea, no small dream, no insignificant voice and no trivial story!
Share your bit of yarn to complete the tapestry of Adivasi writing by partaking of some Adivasi PICKLE: a prize for Indigenous Ideology, Thought and Knowledge.
Be the story, the narrative, the legend, the chronicle!
3 steps and you are part of this beautiful loom.
1) Send in a proposal with a working title for a book in English within 5000 words, by the 30th of September 2013 at pickle@adivaani.org
2) Attach proof of your being Adivasi/Scheduled Tribe.
3) Fill in the cover form and send it along with the above two.
For further details view the information on the following links:
What is Adivasi PICKLE?
Application Details
https://adivaani.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/picklepickle.pdf
On August 8 this year, the eve of International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Ruby Hembrom decided to institute Adivasi Pickle, a “prize for indigenous ideology, thought and knowledge”. In the announcement, she called on Adivasis to share unpublished stories of their lives, struggles and triumphs. From the submissions, a jury will select “the most relevant entry”. This will be published in August, 2014, by Adivaani, a publishing house “by and for” Adivasis, started last year by Ruby.
Pickle is the perfect accompaniment to spice up any spread and the one key element common to every Indian kitchen and palate.
How about some Adivasi pickle? A pickle made of indigenous ways and thinking—the perfect accompaniment to our present—with ingredients that help us understand how our ancestral ways have preserved and sustained the earth, until newer ways dismissed them as primitive and we became a resource to be extracted, exploited and ignored. Ingredients that help refurbish traditions and knowledge webs, and ensure our future.
adivaani is therefore calling Adivasis to share more about ourselves. We’ve instituted a small prize of a book, out of love, on the International Day for the World’s Indigenous Peoples, August 9th, 2013. We’re short on what we can give, but we’re long on good wishes, hope and solidarity: you write, we publish. That’s the deal!
We believe the time for us to do things our own way is now. We want this event to be a celebration of a communion of by and for Adivasis—right from our sisters and brothers sharing and chronicling their personal narratives, to the publisher, not forgetting the jury formed of Adivasi intellectuals, scholars and artisans.
Join us, spread the word and…
adivaani 