My eyes struggle to capture everything around me as quickly as I possibly can. I register the lush green rice fields and small brown huts scattered over a small expanse of land as I get out of the car. It's unusually quiet, but not in a bad way. I whip out my camera, almost on impulse. I feel as if I have stepped into another world.
I am in a small part of Tamkhind, a village in Palghar district of Maharashtra state in India. I am here to document the Adivasis who live here -- most are from the Varli tribal group -- and learn more about how they survive and thrive.
Adivasi is a name collectively used to describe the indigenous people in India. A modern Sanskrit term coined in the 1930s, it consists of two words: adi, meaning from the beginning, and vasi meaning inhabitant. At the last Indian census in 2011, the country was home to 104 million Adivasis, accounting for 8.6% of the country's population.
The Adivasi consist of 200 indigenous, tribal groups in all, with communities located in various states, including Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Bihar. The particular village I am visiting has a population of around 4,500 people, according to Sunil Parhad, an Adivasi medical officer in a government hospital in Palghar, who is my tour guide.
As we walk around the hamlet, Mr Parhad tells me about the Adivasi way of living. According to him, every village has an open place of worship.
"The Adivasis only worship what they can see," he says. For this reason, they draw a sun, moon and tiger in a designated place, all symbols of nature. "How long can we go on with our faith? Our land is God for us, it is how we survive," he points out.
Prior to visiting Tamkhind, I spoke with Kirti Vartha, a social worker with Adivasi Shramik Mahila Mandal and Adivasi Ekta Parishad, two groups that work closely with indigenous communities on the local and national levels.
Each Adivasi tribe has its own set of rules and regulations for everything, including prices for goods and services, Ms Vartha explains to me during an interview at her house.
Adivasis are not part of the Hindu caste system, although some have attached themselves to caste groups based on occupation or other factors. Caste Hindus tend not to regard Adivasis as unclean, in contrast to prevailing attitudes toward Dalits (untouchables), but Adivasis do continue to face prejudice.
One other noteworthy attribute that tends to set Adivasis apart from caste-based Indians is gender equality, Ms Vartha says.
"In other communities [in India], Brahmins usually have a lot of authority, especially when it comes to marriage. But Adivasis believe women have more authority," she explains.
Brahmins -- normally teachers, doctors, scholars or religious persons in the past -- were the highest and powerful of the four varnas, or social classes, in Hinduism.
But Adivasi women, according to Ms Vartha, can officiate marriages, seek divorces, and do not have to follow a monetary dowry system, just an exchange of rice, vegetables and other edible goods.
Her thoughts are echoed by Mr Parhad, who lists honesty and tolerance as factors that set the Adivasis apart from other communities. This is especially notable in how village councils deal with criminals. If a man commits murder, he isn't hanged or jailed. Instead, he has to take responsibility for the family of the person whose life he took, Mr Parhad says.
As we continue walking around, I take a series of photographs. A few women carry large pots of water on their heads, and some look away shyly when I aim my lens at them. There do not appear to be any men around. Mr Parhad tells me most of them are at work, either in the fields or at manual labour.
One woman, who has just returned from the water hole with her two children, disappears into her hut when she sees me. Her children stay outside and watch me intently. I point my lens at them. They stay still, making direct eye contact. They are unafraid.
Two Adivasi children mug for the camera. Saniya More
CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
As I walk along further, I strike up a conversation with an older woman who is tending a rice field. Her name is Anusaya Padavale. She spends most of her day outdoors, collecting wood and taking care of the house.
I follow her to a larger hut where a group of women are sitting. Some of them eye the camera in my hand warily, and I put it back into my bag. I speak with them in Marathi and discover that they lead difficult and busy lives just to make ends meet.
"Who will feed us if we don't work? If we don't work, we will go hungry," Pramila Padavale, one of the women, tells me. "But we are happy."
Like many minority communities, the Adivasis are no strangers to a slowly fading culture.
"I teach my own two girls the basic skills every Adivasi person should know, like speaking their Varli language. They should know how to climb trees and mountains, they should treat men and women equally without any assumptions," Ms Vartha says as she shows me a picture of her family.
Not all traditions and perspectives survive into the next generation of some families. According to Ms Vartha, she is one of the few who still tries to instill her community's values in her children. More Adivasis have integrated into Indian mainstream society, losing themselves in the process, she says.
Mr Parhad has a similar viewpoint, and says that although many Adivasis prioritise fitting into society, they face challenges in doing so, primarily because of how others view them.
"People don't focus on who the Adivasi are as a people. They only see them as farmers who have no culture, who resort to alcohol to survive," he says. There should be a specialised form of education that connects the Adivasis with their heritage and teaches them basic survival skills beyond the textbook, he adds.
Our conversation is cut short as we hear loud construction machines in the distance. Palghar, where Tamkhind is located, has seen a lot of development since 2014 when the district was officially formed.
Because of this, it has been harder for the Adivasi community to preserve their land. People in Tamkhind have felt mounting pressure to relocate or change their lifestyle, according to Sanjana Mankar, the head of the village council.
"Destruction is happening in the name of development," she says. "New construction and developments are destroying nature, which in turn disrupts the Adivasi community."
As we talk, it begins to rain and the women gather their children quickly, bringing them into the little huts scattered around the hamlet. A political sign is tacked against a wall in the office we are sitting in. "We are the government in our village. The forest, land and water belong to our people," it reads in Marathi.
The Adivasis do indeed share a close bond and live in harmony with the nature around them. They embody a rich and unique culture, but are often looked down upon because they are seen as a backward, low-income and uneducated fragment of Indian society.
Despite their isolated place in society, they spend each day to the best of their abilities. They may not have it all, but that doesn't stop them from living.
