Living among the Tribals

Between 1980 to 85 Mumbiram was going into the ‘wilderness’ and living with different tribes of Maharashtra, the Warlis and Thakurs. With the Thakur family he had kept the first version of his Iconic Krishna painting, one of the first paintings he made after returning to India.

Mumbiram’s approach is thought provoking. He does not go to the Adivasis or to the bird-catchers or to the rag-pickers as a do-gooder. He sees his association with them as a learning and creative environment for his own aesthetic search. This is distinctly different from the attitude of the social worker who is insensitive to the grace and the ambiance of the natural people and who in the long run may only bring a cheerless ruin to their happy lives as a price of ‘civilization’.