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OONGA

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About the book

This captivating novel tells the story of a clash between adivasis, naxalites, the CRPF, and a mining company. At the center of the story is a young boy named Oonga who is determined to watch a performance of ‘Sitaharan’. In pursuit of his dream, he embarks on an epic journey to the city and returns to his village as the blue adivasi prince of the forest, Rama himself! Along the way, he confronts the gun-wielding demons who have invaded his village. The book highlights the real-life incidents that inspired the story and exposes the negative consequences of so-called 'development'. It also delves into the conflict of ideologies and how language can create divisions between people. Ultimately, the book shows how peaceful people can become victims of violence and are forced into battles they don’t want to fight.

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About the Book

This captivating novel tells the story of a clash between adivasis, naxalites, the CRPF, and a mining company. At the center of the story is a young boy named Oonga who is determined to watch a performance of ‘Sitaharan’. In pursuit of his dream, he embarks on an epic journey to the city and returns to his village as the blue adivasi prince of the forest, Rama himself! Along the way, he confronts the gun-wielding demons who have invaded his village. The book highlights the real-life incidents that inspired the story and exposes the negative consequences of so-called 'development'. It also delves into the conflict of ideologies and how language can create divisions between people. Ultimately, the book shows how peaceful people can become victims of violence and are forced into battles they don’t want to fight.

Book details

Fast dispatchShips within 48 hours
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100% OriginalGenuine copy from Tulika Publishers
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Tulika Publishers
Weight
100 grams
ISBN-13
9788194838128
Pages
295
Reading time
~10 hrs
Age
11-18
Country of origin
India
Dimensions
21 × 22 cm
Language
English

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OONGA, the winner of the Neev Book Award for Young Adult in 2021, transforms a boy's innocent dream into an unflinching reckoning with displacement and survival. Devashish Makhija—filmmaker, graphic artist, and author of the bestselling When Ali Became Bajrangbali—anchors this novel in the Dongria Kondh tribal belt of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, where wastelands of bleeding red earth mark the advance of India Aluminium Inc. At the heart of the four-way clash between adivasis, naxalites, the CRPF, and mining interests stands Oonga, a boy desperate to see a performance of Sitaharan who journeys to the city and returns as the blue forest prince, Rama himself.

Makhija's cinematic language—rooted in his 2013 film of the same name—moves between lyrical innocence and brutal oppression, mythology and contemporary violence. The novel follows Oonga and his teacher, Hemla Didi, as peaceful people are forced into battles they never chose, exposing what 'development' costs those who stand in its path. With echoes of real incidents and a cast of unforgettable characters, OONGA interrogates the dystopia of progress through the eyes of a child who must become a warrior.

What kind of reading experience will OONGA give me?

OONGA delivers a visceral, cinematic experience that oscillates between the lyrical innocence of childhood and the brutal realities of displacement. The narrative pace builds steadily, moving from a boy's simple dream to a multi-layered conflict involving adivasis, naxalites, the CRPF, and mining corporations. Makhija's background as a filmmaker shapes the visual language throughout—readers consistently note the book's powerful imagery and how scenes unfold with cinematic clarity. The emotional register is unflinching: expect moments of tenderness alongside depictions of violence, oppression, and loss. This is not escapist fiction; it leaves you unsettled, forcing you to contemplate what 'progress' demands of India's most vulnerable communities.

Who is OONGA best suited for, and what does it expect of its reader?

  • Readers are drawn to socially conscious fiction that interrogates development, displacement, and the human cost of resource extraction in India.
  • Those interested in adivasi life, particularly Dongria Kondh culture, and the complexities of Naxalite movements beyond media stereotypes.
  • Young adults and mature readers who can engage with difficult content—the novel includes depictions of violence, rape, and brutality that demand emotional resilience.
  • Readers who appreciate mythological retellings woven into contemporary narratives, specifically, how the Ramayana functions as both a cultural anchor and a revolutionary metaphor.
  • Anyone seeking Indian literature that refuses easy answers, presenting ideological conflicts without simplifying the fault lines of language, class, and resistance.

What is the cultural significance of OONGA's subject to Indian readers today?

OONGA confronts one of contemporary India's most urgent and underreported crises: the displacement of adivasi communities by mining and infrastructure projects. The novel's setting in the Dongria Kondh tribal belt mirrors real conflicts over bauxite mining in Odisha's Niyamgiri hills, where indigenous groups have resisted corporate encroachment for decades. As India accelerates its industrial ambitions, millions of adivasis find themselves caught between state violence, corporate interests, and armed resistance movements. Makhija refuses to romanticise any side—portraying the CRPF, naxalites, and mining companies as forces that collectively trap peaceful communities in battles they never chose, forcing readers to reckon with the human cost of the minerals powering modern India.

What makes Devashish Makhija's treatment of this subject distinctive in OONGA?

Makhija grounds political violence in the consciousness of a child, filtering the adivasi-naxalite-state conflict through Oonga's mythological imagination rather than ideological rhetoric. The novel's origin in Makhija's 2013 film gives it a distinctive visual architecture—readers describe scenes unfolding with cinematic precision, employing metaphor and imagery over exposition. His choice to make the Ramayana central transforms a religious epic into an Adivasi boy's framework for understanding invasion and resistance: Oonga becomes Rama not through indoctrination but through a child's need to make sense of gun-wielding demons destroying his forest. This fusion of folklore, contemporary conflict, and a filmmaker's eye creates a narrative that operates simultaneously as myth, political testimony, and coming-of-age story.

What does OONGA leave the reader with emotionally, intellectually, and culturally long after finishing it?

OONGA refuses the consolation of resolution, leaving readers with profound discomfort about their complicity in systems of extraction and displacement. Emotionally, the novel's power lies in its refusal to sentimentalise suffering—Oonga's transformation from innocent boy to mythological warrior is both transcendent and tragic, forcing recognition that children should never have to become heroes in adults' wars. Intellectually, it complicates simplistic narratives about development, progress, and resistance, presenting the adivasi predicament as a clash with no clean solutions. Culturally, the book challenges urban Indian readers to see adivasi communities not as abstractions or obstacles to growth, but as people whose forests, myths, and ways of life are being systematically erased beneath the machinery of modern India.

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