Boom Boom Mattukarars: 'We are still in the dark’

My photo exhibition in 2017 led me to start working for PARI. But the exhibition that introduced me as a visual artist would not have happened without Vanavil Revathi and artist Natarajan. After the tsunami of 2004, Revathi began the Vanavil school for children coming from the Narikkuravar and Boom Boom Mattukarar communities. I met the children and people of Thuravikkadu and Ottankadu settlements through her, and I instantly felt I had to write and photograph their lives.

Boom Boom Mattukarar are a Scheduled Tribe, also known and listed as Adiyans (also spelt Athiyans). The words ‘‘boom boom’ comes from the sound made by the mattukarar or cattle-handler on his urumi, a double-headed hourglass-shaped drum. That name has its origins in the fortune-telling occupation they adopted using decorated oxen as an aid or prop.

Once the sun sets, the community of Boom Boom Mattukarars live in darkness. Another kind darkness pervades through their days in this settlement at the edge of Thuravikkadu village in Thanjavur district. I have seen this for myself as I have been following their lives for the last seven years, visiting the Vanavil schools in Tamil Nadu where their children study.

“The night is the hardest struggle for us,” says Murali. “There is electricity 500 metres from here, on the other side of the bank, but not on this side,” he adds. Not just electricity, but drinking water is also abundantly available there. “We live by the side of the canal. Behind our settlement is a pond. This place used to be a dense wilderness,” adds Murali.

The lack of electricity not only impacts daily activities but also the safety and well-being of the roughly 50 families of this nomadic tribe who settled here about 25 years ago, struggling to survive on the income they get from sorting and selling waste.

Their village is officially named MGR Nagar, but they say higher caste people refer to it with the derogatory name: “Raaraakkoottai.” which means outsider or outcast.

Like the others in his community, the 21-year-old Murali also lives in a kuccha hut with minimal shelter and comfort. Families of 8–10 people live together in cramped spaces – newly married couples and other adults along with children of all ages.

Muthukumari is a young woman who struggles to run her home and kitchen without electricity. “We have to buy food. We cannot soak lentils for idli or dosai as that needs a mixie [grinder] and a fridge,” points out Muthukumari, the 22-year-old mother of three small children.

Her neighbour Selvi grew up here when her parents came three decades ago. “We don’t know how to flip a switch!” she says to explain their complete disconnect from basic electricity. The government has given them TVs, mixies and other electronics, “but what to do with them without electricity? asks Selvi. “We sold those off.”

A mother of adult daughters that were born in the settlement, Neelammal recalls a time when as a young girl she wanted to study but couldn’t as her parents moved around. Her face lights up though when she mentions the movie showings during the months of Panguni (March-April) and Chithirai (April-May) when there were temple festivals.

“Fifteen days, 15 movies! The village would gather at these showings. We would bring a generator to keep the lights on. We would collect money from each house to light up the streets for two days from the fifth day of Pongal and children would be very happy,” she tells us.

The children were thrilled when residents in the community received televisions. “Our children were so excited,” she says. “But without electricity, the TVs sat at home. Rats bit the wires and it all went to waste. We sold them for 600 rupees,” she adds.

The lack of electricity is felt by everyone, but it particularly impacts the lives of women. Young girls are married off early as a means to getting out. For women who marry and come here, the darkness is particularly challenging at the most crucial time of childbirth and most child births here are at home.

I recall my own childhood in Madurai where my family was always searching for a permanent place to live. We needed to build a pucca house, but it was not easy. I spent my early school years studying under a street lamp. It was only in Class 9 that we first got electricity in our home. Sometimes I would go and stay at my paternal uncle [periappa’s] house nearby which had electricity so that I could study. Read: Life of my mother – in the light of a lamppost

All the people from the Narikkuravar and Boom Boom Mattukarar communities that I met said proper housing was still a concern. Neelammal doesn’t recall having a proper house for very long. “We would lie in bus stops when it rained; we had no tents.”

The Narikuravars – originally hunter-gatherers – were for long listed as a Most Backward Community and gained recognition as a Scheduled Tribe only as late as 2016.

After a long struggle, the community was finally promised housing on 2.25 cents of land (roughly 1,000 square feet). Funds have been allocated and construction was to begin after the 2024 general elections.

After cyclone Gaja in 2018 hit the coast of Tamil Nadu causing widespread damage, the community pressed harder for their demands. “They [state] have finally given us our patta [land rights document]. But we still cannot build houses on this land,” points out the 52-year-old Murugesan. Not just a house, but his community wants a temple, temple festivals and more, he says.

When they visit nearby temples, they are not allowed to do any rituals nor are they allowed inside the temple. Permitted to watch temple events from far, they spoke about the caste-based discrimination they face from upper caste groups during their visits.

In state schools, Boom Boom Mattukarar children face social exclusion. Others would refuse to sit near them, often judging them as “unclean”. Bathing is a luxury given that they struggle for water even for basic needs. Residents must walk nearly half a kilometer to fetch water for bathing, washing, and drinking. Water access often leads to conflict, as 60 families must collect water in just two hours. Often, they only get half a pot and must sustain cooking and drinking for an entire household with that.

Periyanayaki is a tuition teacher at Vanavil Trust. A non-governmental organisation, the trust works with this nomadic community in different locations across the state. Read: Vanavil: rainbow in the storms of lockdown life

“Most children here [Thuravikkadu and Onnankadu settlements] study till Class 8 and then go to work because parents are not around, and the eldest child alone cannot manage. They pick bottles, ask for alms, sell little dolls to ward off the evil eye, or start playing the drums.”

From Manamelkudi, Periyanayaki has studied till Class 12. The young teacher found that without electricity the children were not interested in studying; only three of them were able to pass the Class 10 exam.

“The kerosene lamp is everything to us,” she says. “We light the lamp around seven, and everyone has dinner by 8 [p.m.]. After that, we would just put out the lamp and go to sleep. No studying.”

However, Murali was lucky as his father understood the importance of education. He was strict about his son studying, but Murali had no community certificate stating that he is from an Adivasi community and therefore eligible for Scheduled Tribe quotas in education.

“Without the certificate, I could not get a scholarship that was due to me. Appa and I went to many offices to plead our case,” says Murali. But officials looked at them with disgust and contempt, he adds. They would say, “‘oh you are wearing pants and shirt’, ‘Oh you have showered, I see’.”

The fact that the father and son spoke Tamil was also used against them: “You speak Tamil so well. How do I believe you are of this caste/community? How can I trust you? You are not a caste in the first place.” They were denied a certificate.

Murali goes on to say that their reality is no different from what is shown in the film Jai Bhim (a film about police bias and state violence against a marginalised community).

“They call us snake-catchers and rat-catchers and refuse to give us the certificate because it gives us many concessions and we would rise up to their level,” he adds.

Finally, a good officer showed up and began clearing their requests for certificates. People waited for days in front of the district collector’s office. Many families say they have finally got ration cards, Aadhaar cards and voter IDs.

But Murali still doesn’t have a transfer certificate (TC) without which moving to the next educational institution is impossible. He says he is told that he will get a certificate with some other community’s name, not Athiyan – another name for the Boom Boom Mattukarar community.

The young student has his eyes set on a post graduate degree and will not give up till he gets his rightful certificate.

“This is my identity, I need it. I need the identity not to control or dominate people, but just to say that this is a group of people called ‘Athiyan’. Many such tribes have perished. We are also tribes. We have our own culture and customs that we need to preserve,” he points out.

When I meet Murali, I remember the young people in my own village Jawaharlalpuram, Madurai who are also struggling to finish their education and change their lives.

Kuppamma has been living here since she was born, and is keen to move out. She picks plastics for a living and earns around Rs. 150-200 a day. “Recently, a vehicle got stolen. No action has been taken. If this is the fate of vehicles, then imagine what would happen if we go missing?” The 35-year-old mother of two girls is determined to move out to her own place. “We have to live freely. We have to fight for our rights. We should not depend on others. So, we need to move to our own houses.”

In the absence of proper houses, the monsoons rain brings new troubles. “Bugs float in the water we fetch, the water we drink, on the sleeping mats, on our clothes, they fill the place, everywhere,” says Selvi.

As the water rises in the monsoon, their homes get flooded and young children are at risk. “Mosquitoes and poisonous insects come along with the rain; we cannot stop them. There are water snakes. We spend the monsoon beating snakes, even in the darkness of the night,” adds Selvi. “It is only God that is protecting us.”

While speaking to people here, there is always laughter in the air. But I know firsthand how hard it is to live with no ventilation and no proper beds, day after day, night after night, in such surroundings. A proper home is a basic necessity, but the state ignores them.

In the damp weather, cooking food on wood fires in their cramped homes is difficult, adds Periyanayaki. Neelammal says the torches in cell phones today help, but charging the phone is another challenge.

“The village president [sarpanch] promised us power when he came asking for votes. We are still in the dark. This struggle for electricity began 20 years back,” says Murali who is studying hard for the civil services exams.

Most of the people living in Thuravikkadu and Onnankadu pick waste for a living.

Anju was a child when her father passed away, leaving her mother to manage the eight children with the money she earned from picking waste. “Mother falls sick often. She stays in the sea sometimes, buys and sells fish to get us milk and food. We don’t cook at home. Our food comes from other houses,” says the 16-year-old Anju whose one younger brother herds goats, one sister begs, and others help pick waste.

“Playing drum sets is a recent occupation here,” says Murugesan. “Before that, we used to load push carts with the glass bottles, plastic and old footwear,” says the 52-year-old. Those who had cattle, would take their boom boom cow along, from village to village, and live on that.

“We cannot find other jobs because we are not educated. Our parents begged for a living. We are picking bottles. But we want our children to study and find jobs, to live happily,” says Neelammal.

A few girls have started working – one young woman earns Rs. 4,000 a month working in a lab, learning how to draw blood. Selvi is in college now and looks to a future where things will change for her community. “We need to be equal. Ambedkar tells us, ‘I have opened all doors for you, you go ahead and change what you want to.’ If we study well, we can dress well, live well, we will command respect.”

“It is only education that doesn’t see these differences,” she tells PARI. She dreams of a time when, “nobody from my house will go asking for alms anymore. My house would look just like my friend’s house.

Cramming hard for the competitive exams, Murali wants to change things for his people, light up the place and usher in a new and better phase of their life.

I get hope when I speak to him.

Postscript: After 20 years, the Boom Boom Mattukarar received their ST certificates in 2024. The state is also readying their homes in Onnankadu and the community hope to move in this year.

This story is originally reported in Tamil.