Parvati Tirkey, a tribal poet, who is the recipient of this year’s Sahitya Akademi Youth Puruskar, remembers her childhood that she is a storytelling session with her grandfather. Every year during the tribal festival of Sarhul Mahotsav, she used to sit on her grandfather’s feet as she sang the old songs.
The songs taught her everything necessary to hear about her Kuraukh culture, the traditional way of her life and even legends and myths – everything that she could never learn in textbooks. It is through these that he learned the importance of his surname, Tirkey.
“Tirkey, which means a wild bird found in the forests. Similarly, the tiger (Lakora) is a totem animal for people with Lakora surname. Totem is a tribal for us, which means that the patronage with a particular species and a deep sense of relationship with a special species,” she says.
For years, Tirkey has been trying to explain his learning through the tradition of ‘oral libraries’ in his poem. Earlier this week, his commitment to this important cultural recurrence was officially recognized: he was nominated for the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puruskar 2025 (Hindi) prestigious poem collection ‘Phir Bhumna’. Translated as ‘Two Spring Again’ is a collection of Kuraukh poetry.
“These poems are contained in the Kuraukh lifestyle and their ancestral knowledge systems such as the para-governance para-system, the totem culture, and more,” she says.
From a remote village in Gumla district of Jharkhand, Tirkey completed his schooling in Gumla and earned a graduate, post graduation and PhD in Hindi literature from Banaras Hindu University (BHU). Despite her literary achievements, Tirkey admitted that she never prefers to study as a child. She says, “I still remember my grandmother’s advice: ‘If we go to school, who will go to the Jatra (procession)?”, She says.
During her research at BHU, Parvati took a conscious decision to bring these ‘oral libraries’ into Hindi literature. “Our elders also had a library, hidden, oral. Tirkey, who taught Hindi literature at Ram Lakhan College, Ranchi, asked.
The story continues below this advertisement
His choice of language-Hindi-an idea was a careful idea, which was chosen to bridge the gap between indigenous and non-foreigners. Through this, she wanted to better explain the systemic neglect of knowledge within the Kuraukh language and educational and cultural institutions.
“Hindi literature has been dominating non-foreigners for a long time. Since our voices have been missing from generations, this is the time when we share and share our cultural values, which were passed orally and never written. We give it to future generations. Let it be a part of the current curriculum,” she says.
His collection has ‘Lakora Kavita’ – or tiger poetry in the poems. She describes it as a conversation with a tiger and the Kuraukh tribal surname ‘Lakhra’.
“The tiger stops this man on his way and the man reminds the tiger that they are families, that they share the same origin and emotions. The poem portrays the emotional bond between the two, and eventually, the tiger allows the man to pass,” she says.
The story continues below this advertisement
For Tirkey, writing poetry and entering the world of literature is his reaction to cultural displacement-an issue that he feels that it is less discussion. He believes that any attempt to preserve tribal culture and language is a small but important step towards revival and inclusion in mainstream consciousness. Parvati says, “These cultural systems need to be preserved now.
Inclusion (T) Tribal Knowledge Systems (T) Totem Culture Representation (T) Jharkhand Literary Achievement (T) Indian Express
