Raboti: Inching closer to starvation

75-year-old Raboti is inching closer to starvation each day. She is a widow and had depended on the work provided by the villagers. Since the flowering of bamboo resources are low and this has taken away the community support that had kept her alive.

“I use to manage with odd jobs in the village itself. I used to eat what I used to get at the house of my employer. But for over a month now, I have been living on roots foraged from the forest,” she says.

Raboti lives the village of Chamdur Project II in Bungtlang Block. She is from the Bawm community and has been living alone ever since her only son got married and moved to another village 10 years ago. Unable to farm on her own she has been living on the occasional domestic work that she gets with families in the village.

When she has work, Raboti earns 20-30 rupees a day and eats with her employer. Since the Mautam, families in the village are straining to support themselves and so are unable to employ her anymore. She is down to foraging for one meal a day but even this is becoming scare due to dwindling supply of roots and her inability to move deeper into the forest.

April 2008