India, Nov. 19 -- What led you to writing Konda Polam or Tiger Lessons, focusing on a community of shepherds in the Nallamala hills in Andhra Pradesh?

I hail from a village amid the dry lands near the Nallamala foothills, where shepherds and farmers live together.

Being a seed himself, sprouting from the bosom of the soil and looking up at the sky, is what it means to be a farmer. Similarly, a shepherd is one who personifies hunger, just like his sheep, and spends his entire life craving for fodder and water.

My life is a mix of being a farmer and a shepherd, in equal measures. It is a rural life - where half the body is a ripe stalk beaten down for corn, and the other half is an udder giving out milk.

The earth beneath my feet, and t...