Chipko before Chipko

This is apropos the cover story, "On the move" (1-15 January, 2017). In the 1730s, the Bishnois of Khejarli village of Jodhpur, hugged khejritrees in a protest against the felling of the trees by a royal family. During the protest, about 363 Bishnois died. This was the precursor to the Chipko movement. Everyone seems to have conveniently forgotten the Khejarli martyrs. The story on the food safari in Rajasthan took me down memory lane. In the winter of 1973, when my husband was transferred from Chittorgarh to Barmer, the first difference we saw between the two cites was that while the staple food in Chittorgarh was maize, in Burner, it was pearl millet. In the absence of seasonal vegetables, women made huge amounts of barisor mangoris from ground green gram and split black gram to sustain themselves. LAKSHMI BHARGAVA VIA EMAIL