Kancheepuram:
For decades, the Irula tribes survived on pavements. But now tents and huts form their new homes.
Their children, who've been picking rags will soon start holding books in a Government school. The men who had been cutting wood and catching snakes have been trained as drivers. The women have been given ration cards with 35 kilos of subsidized food grains every month.
This is a transformation that's taken place after a young IAS Officer was haunted by a disturbing image on his way to work.
"I noticed two five-year-olds sitting on a heap of garbage, drinking something from a glass and with flies all over their faces. It was a pathetic sight," recalls Santosh K Misra, Collector, Kancheepuram.
So for almost a whole year, this Collector of Kancheepuram district had made it his mission to improve the lives of the Irula community.
"Earlier, we wouldn't get work often and would have to starve on those days," says a woman.
In his previous posting in Ooty, the young bureaucrat provided electricity to a remote tribal village -something that the Kurumbas and Todas here had been deprived of for 50 years. With power, came TVs. So the hands that clutched bows and arrows began to hold remotes! Now, she's charmed the snake charmers of Kancheepuram!