For Rajpipla, a former princely capital whose grandeur and current circumstances no longer match.
A capital that stopped being one
Rajpipla was the seat of a princely state, and the architecture still says so - palaces, planned avenues, the physical vocabulary of a place that used to matter administratively. It is now a district town in largely tribal Narmada country, near the Statue of Unity and the development that arrived with it.
The buildings and the current reality are describing different eras.
Living with a demoted history
This produces something you do not find in towns that were always modest. There is a memory of significance, and an awareness that the significance has gone. Families connected to the old order carry a status their circumstances no longer support; tribal families carry the opposite - long presence, long marginalisation.
Both are stories about position, and both quietly govern what people believe they are allowed to want.
What the work does
Separating inherited status from present capability, in both directions. A family name does not entitle you to an outcome, and its absence does not disqualify you from one. That sounds obvious stated plainly and is rarely felt that way.
Recent development has changed what is locally possible faster than beliefs about who gets to participate have updated. That gap is where most of the useful work sits.
Sessions
Online, in Gujarati or Hindi.
Frequently asked questions
- Do you work with tribal community members?
- Yes, and the work starts from your situation rather than an assumed background.
