The land

Maati means soil. It also means the place you are from.

The soil here is red, full of iron. That is why our turmeric comes out the colour it does. Under the red there is clay, and the clay holds monsoon water long enough for paddy to grow.

The village sits exactly where it sits because of that soil. Three kilometres east and the floods would reach it.

Katha means story. The soil has one. You have to stay a while to hear it.

Sarangada is not a tribal village. It is not a non-tribal village either. It is mixed, the way most villages in Kandhamal actually are.

Kondh families, who were here first. Brahmin and Kshatriya families who came later. Christian families whose churches stand near the older shrines.

Kandhamal has had hard years. We will not pretend otherwise. But the well is the same well, the road is the same road, and the monsoon arrives on everyone at once.

A mud wall holding up a metal roof. A wooden plough next to an electric borewell. Food cooked on a chulha, served on a leaf plate, photographed on a phone.

That is not a contradiction. That is what a working village looks like in 2026. Both roofs kept the rain out. One cost less.

So when you come, do not photograph only the old parts. The power lines over the field at sunset are in the picture too.

You will wake up before you are ready. Roosters, voices, someone lighting a chulha down the road.

You will step outside before you have had tea. The air smells of woodsmoke and wet earth, and in the right season, drying turmeric.

Then someone hands you tea. It is too sweet. You drink it anyway.