Being a wanderer, I keep wandering, looking around, I see these broken people! I keep watching the lives of such people. I keep recording their efforts to survive. I talk to them in their language, I try to understand them, I try to convey their existence to you, I keep living their life. Sometimes I write about them!
While going to Kashi, an incident took place near the premises of Visveshwar Mandir. A rope tied to the upper ends of two twenty-twenty-five foot high bamboos. The height of the ropes tied to those bamboos was higher than the first floor of a nearby building! Electric poles and DP nearby. Danger (Dangers) clearly written on the DP! A seven-eight-year-old boy on a rope, barefoot, holding a seven-eight-foot bamboo, a woman, probably a mother, looking at the child walking on the rope with a worried black face, a middle-aged man, probably a father, loosening and tightening the rope, a speaker playing in the middle, on a speaker The song was playing“ Garibonki Suno”. He will listen to you. You give one money, he will give ten lakhs.”
The place was packed! But most of the crowd went towards Vishweshwar temple. No one is targeting this happening. To say no, some middle-class people were taking pictures of the incident and moving on. We tried to talk to those men. The man was in no mood to talk as it was business time! But he finally recognized our persistence and spoke! What was said was disturbing.
“ We belong to the Nat tribe, our main occupation is playing games. We have taught girls from childhood to play games of danger, risking their lives. But I am sad that I don't have a daughter. What to do? A boy is born, he is taught to walk on a tightrope from the second or third year. Small children learn it as a form of play. Often they have to strain themselves, have to stop eating. These children are terrified, they have to show fear to kill, keep them hungry. We also suffer from it. It happens, but what to do? We fill our stomachs... To fill our stomachs, we have to kill our stomachs, we have to hang the lives of our stomach pills, sir! There is a community of thousands of people who play this kind of game. There is a crowd here in the area of Visveshwarayya, we get one hundred to two hundred rupees for watching the game. We do four or five games for an hour or two hours, as many generations have been doing. Let's go, Sir Dhandeka !'
Looked at the lady, she was looking at if she had got any money. She had no time to talk to us, her stomach was struggling with life. Looked at the boy, he was balancing with one eye on the money alley, walking the tightrope with concentration! Life was running out. We will have five-fifty rupees first! Why does this life come to the share of some in society? Who steals their bread? Who makes them walk the tightrope? Who forces them to stick their whole body in a barely one-foot iron fence? How will they be released? Have you ever had such questions? Lakhs of crores were accumulating in the temple of Vishweshwar, lakhs of crores were being collected in the hands of Pandey, but what was getting in the hands of this nut tribe?
The dombar history of society is not available much… how can it be? Which government needs to write and teach the history of a fractured community? The history of this tribe dates back to around the Sultanate-Mughal period. There is some written evidence that the Dombari were with Maharana Pratap in his last battle, while there are mentions of the Dombari community in the chronicles of the time of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. In Maharashti, the Dombari tribe, recorded as a subtribe of the tribe, is said to have migrated from Rajasthan.
Various types of adventurous and brave games are shown by this nomadic tribe, such as torturing the body by showing different types of exercise, pulling the body out of a one-foot ring, walking with bamboo on a wire, jumping, holding a needle in the eye, lifting a ten-twenty kg stone with hair. All these types have far-reaching effects on their health. These people become malnourished due to hunger, some women who pick up needles with their eyelids lose their eyes, because they have to put their whole body through a one-foot rope, later they get back ailments. Many people have to be immobilized while walking on a rope...
The Nats or Dombaris are a nomadic tribe scattered all over India. We can also take the word 'nut' to mean a dancer. This tribe leads in dancing and singing, but this art of theirs has not turned into a profession, some of them may have got work in the circus by exercising, some people play sleight of hand, but they are not magicians... Entertaining people by performing various kinds of arts is a nut-dombari. It is a traditional occupation of tribes. Although the origin of these tribes, known by different names according to the division, is not certain, it is believed to be an extension of the caste 'cathedral'. But “Dom” is a different caste, associated with cremation.
The group engaged in this business is known at different places as Domar, Dombar, Dombari, Bajigar, Brijvasi Nut, Bajania Nut, Bhammati Nut (Mati Gung), Raj Nut, Bhatnut, Kabutrinat, Purwanat, Pernanut, Gulgulia, Dankchigha, Kholkari, etc. known by name. They communicate with people only through regional languages. But who communicates with them? From the movie' Kela Ishre Jatajata 'by Jagdish KhebudkarYou must have heard his song“ Nachto Dombari ”in 1965. It describes the life of this tribe in a very romantic way. But do you know that their life is more terrible than this?
