The second Santal Creation Story, Earth rests on a tortoise, will be available soon at a bookstore near you …
New book for children is almost here!
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Tag Archives: Ruby Hembrom
adivaani in The Telegraph: Adivasi imprints get into print
To create Adivaani, a publishing house launched by a group of three amateurs to lend a voice to the nation’s indigenous population, months of human planning and perseverance were required.
adivaani at The Times of India – Chennai
Although we aren’t really the first or only adivasi publishing house in the country, we are thrilled to receive this kind attention from the media. Thank you, Saju Madhavankutty, from The Times of India – Chennai, for this feature:
Giving a voice, platform to tribals of south
The Indian Express visits adivaani
Why don’t we have an Adivasi voice?”, “Why don’t we have a ‘for and by’ Adivasi publishing house?”, “Where is the authentic Adivasi narrative?”
Tehelka feature on adivaani!
In their own words
by Ajachi Chakrabarty
Time machine. That’s how Hembrom looks at her nascent attempt at creating a publishing house for India’s indigenous population: a time machine that documents Adivasi history and culture, fundamentally an oral tradition, before they are forgotten in the wake of modernity.
Read the rest in this week’s Tehelka and in their website as well…
Our Indiegogo campaign: The adivaani time machine needs your help
Dear All,
So the adivaani ideator is in trouble. The idea behind making books for and by Adivasis was to challenge every misconstrued notion about us. Also, and more importantly, adivaani is a response to the indigenous peoples of India’s identity being threatened, ignored, misrepresented and supressed. The problem is we can’t do it alone.
We’re 3 books old now and we’ve got a lot of attention, expectations and responsibility. Along with the accolades, came requests and suggestions for our books. ‘We love your books.’ ‘We haven’t seen this quality in Santali publishing before.’ ‘Your books are priced well.’ ‘Your books are telling our story.’ ‘Can you do our creation stories too?’ ‘Can we have the Santal Creation story in Hindi?’
I’m elated with the response and thrilled with the promise of what we can do. With the first sale and surge in book sales and the first bookstores willing to source our books in Ranchi and Kolkata, the excitement just grew.
The second book of the Santal Creation Stories for children is ready for print and the third is in the pipeline, the Santali folklore book is also ready, and Gladson is finishing his second book in English. That is certainly to be celebrated. However they are all on hold now–waiting to be printed and I can’t actually take them to the press. What a pity!
And with that come sleepless nights, worries and utter helplessness. It’s not easy to build a time machine, which does more than time travel. It actually documents and tools adivasi history. Not only will we go back in time to rescue what we forgot to bring into the present, we’ll ensure everything preserved move with every generation of adivasis into the future.
So the idea churner is churning out idea after idea after idea–quite exhilarating but I’m beginning to think, have I bitten off more than I can chew? I’m just a regular working-class Adivasi girl, trying to make ends meet, with a treasure of an idea.
Sometimes I think of giving up. But the enormity of what adivaani and its time machine could do keeps the passion alive. I not only realize what we can and must do, but that it has to be done now. We are in a hurry. We refuse to be a forgotten peoples.
I really want our books to go from being on hold to being available for your reading pleasure and our time machine to take off. So I really am in trouble and want you to bail us out.
Will you?
Please donate at:
A time machine for Adivasis
Indiegogo (Click)
It’s a simple 3 step process. You can use your debit, credit or paypal account to donate from wherever you are. It doesn’t matter how much you contribute, we will be grateful for it.
Please spread the word of our online fundraising campaign by forwarding this message, liking our campaign on Facebook and Tweeting about it.
We need to get 5,000 USD in 60 days … we only have 30 days before the campaign closes and we’re only at 25 USD. That’s disheartening! The countdown has begun.
In hope,
Ruby Hembrom
adivaani goes to Delhi 2
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Ruby Hembrom
I believe not everyone is meant to do just one thing in life, I certainly am not. My 8 years of work experience in the Legal field, the Service Industry, the Social Development Sector and the Learning, Research, Development and Instructional Designing field bears testimony to this fact.
My education, training, skills and career define only part of who I am; my identity as a tribal, a Santal, is fundamental to my being and that completes who I am.
But is that enough? Life for me is about fulfilling one’s potential. In the many ways I’ve redefined who I am; the adivaani dream has made me come alive all over again. So what is the adivaani story?
2nd of April, 2012 found me trading four months of my life to learning a new skill. I attended a course on publishing to explore the possibilities of what I could do with my love for Language, the written word and stories. The course would just be an extension of what I was already doing.
In the first month there I met many fascinating storytellers in batch mates and resource persons from the publishing world and heard lots of stories firsthand. And two stories I heard planted an idea in my head that finally made me see why I was at the course.
Listening to Urvashi Butalia and S. Anand’s stories of what their publishing houses embodied got me thinking. While their story unfolded bit by bit I was bothered by a thought: both of them were sharing specific issue related stories through books that were important to be told, but there were some stories that still needed to be told–the Adivasi stories. Even the list of publishing experts we were to meet; had no Adivasi representation and that got me more concerned. Were we not important enough to be included or were we non-existent in the publishing world (this was not true as we do publish in our native regional languages).
I was consumed by the burning desire for ‘our’ stories to be out there. Who would tell them? Soon enough I saw I wanted to tell them. But I didn’t know how. I didn’t write and I had no plan, but all I knew was that the tribal voice had to be heard; the authentic Adivasi story had to be told.
That idea and the possibilities of what could happen through it filled my waking and sleeping hours. The more I thought and talked about it, it became clear how I had been living a half-life until then.
Next to come is the christening story. We need a name I thought; I don’t want to keep calling it an idea anymore.
In a mock exercise at the school we were to draw up publishing house ideas and I absolutely loved the name ‘Inkdia’ and the logo that one team came up with. So I walk up to the leader of the team, Shyamal, and ask him if the name is copy right, ‘yes’, he says. Shyamal directs me to Luis, who coined ‘Inkdia’ and designed the logo, with whom until then I had not had a real conversation. I shared my idea with him and won over a collaborator. He said he’d help with the logo, and that was just the start of his additions to my big idea. Soon we has Boski on board to work with the logo and our first few illustrated books. I was fortunate to have found my best collaborators in the course.
But I still didn’t have a name.
A little dejected I sit through the session, toying with ideas for names. I try playing around with letters around the word tribal and Adivasi and Voilá! the name as if by magic appears: adivaani, the Adivasi voice.
That’s how an idea became adivaani and adivaani became the fuel that keeps the dreamer and storyteller in me alive.
Who is adivaani
Ruby Hembrom
I believe not everyone is meant to do just one thing in life, I certainly am not. My 8 years of work experience in the Legal field, the Service Industry, the Social Development Sector and the Learning, Research, Development and Instructional Designing field bears testimony to this fact.
My education, training, skills and career define only part of who I am; my identity as a tribal, a Santal, is fundamental to my being and that completes who I am.
But is that enough? Life for me is about fulfilling one’s potential. In the many ways I’ve redefined who I am; the adivaani dream has made me come alive all over again. So what is the adivaani story?
2nd of April, 2012 found me trading four months of my life to learning a new skill. I attended a course on publishing to explore the possibilities of what I could do with my love for Language, the written word and stories. The course would just be an extension of what I was already doing.
In the first month there I met many fascinating storytellers in batch mates, school officials and resource persons from the publishing world and heard lots of stories firsthand. And two stories I heard planted an idea in my head that finally made me see why I was at the school.
Listening to Urvashi Butalia and S. Anand’s stories of what their publishing houses embodied got me thinking. While their story unfolded bit by bit I was bothered by a thought: both of them were sharing specific issue related stories through books that were important to be told, but there were some stories that still needed to be told–the Adivasi stories–and nobody was telling them. I was consumed by the burning desire for ‘our’ stories to be out there. Who would tell them? Soon enough I saw I wanted to tell them. But I didn’t know how. I didn’t write and I had no plan, but all I knew was that the tribal voice had to be heard; the authentic Adivasi story had to be told.
Two days of living with that idea, and going over the possibilities of what could happen all alone drove me crazy; I couldn’t contain the excitement any longer. 5th April, 2012, Good Friday, while getting dressed for Church, I make a phone call to Joy, my sounding board; and started the conversation in a way he was all too familiar with, “I have an idea”. That was it. No ‘not again’ reactions from him.
The more I thought about it and Joy and I talked about it, it became clear how we had been living halve-lives until then.
Next to come is the christening story. We need a name I thought; I don’t want to keep calling it an idea anymore.
In a mock exercise at the school we were to draw up publishing house ideas and I absolutely loved the name ‘Inkdia’ and the logo that one team came up with. So I walk up to the leader of the team, Shyamal, and ask him if the name is copy right, ‘yes’, he says. Shyamal directs me to Luis, who coined ‘Inkdia’ and designed the logo, with whom until then I had not had a real conversation. I shared my idea with him and won over a collaborator. He said he’d help with the logo, and that was just the start of his additions to my big idea.
But I still didn’t have a name.
A little dejected I sit through the session, toying with ideas for names. I try playing around with letters around the word tribal and Adivasi and Voilá! the name as if by magic appears: adivaani, the Adivasi voice.
That’s how an idea became adivaani and adivaani became the fuel that keeps the dreamer and storyteller in me alive.
Luis A. Gómez
I write, I design and sometimes I publish books. I’ve been a journalist for the last 25 years, and during my career I’ve had the privilege to work for/by/within the peoples in Latin America; particularly in Mexico–my motherland–and Bolivia, where I lived for 13 years. There, adopted by the Aymara people, I wrote a book about their community traditions and how they deployed them in warfare to win an insurrection in October 2003: It’s been the joy of my life to love hope, emancipation, and some other tender words, like solidarity and reciprocity.
Some day in March, 2012, I landed in Kolkata. Here, when Ruby asked me to help her in developing this idea she had and had shared with her friend Joy, my heart throbbed again. And I jumped into it: how electrifying was the prospect of using my hands and voice to create an independent press 100 percent Santali (yes, I would be grateful if along the way you call me one of you as well.) You know, I write and make books, mostly, because I love to chase dreams…
Come join us…
Boski Jain
A graphic designer by education—but that’s just one way of pegging her creative talent which is extraordinary and limitless; never ceasing to amaze. Her contribution to adivaani goes beyond the beautiful logo, the very artistic illustrated Santal Creation Stories series and every special project she undertakes for us. She’s adivaani’s pillar of innovation and ingenuity.
(A note by Ruby Hembrom from March, 2014)
adivaani 