It was more than a hundred years ago that Jaidev Baghel's grandparents left Abuj Madh in search of a new home. After travelling for days through the jungle, they selected a place near Kondagaon, made a small clearing and built a house. It was here that a seven-year-old Jaidev began working with his father at the traditional craft of their family, casting metal sculptures by the delicate lost-wax method. Today, he is an internationally acclaimed practitioner of his craft and runs a workshop with members of his family and some apprentices.

The national award winning artist Dr Baghel, who is in his fifties now, is keen to share the stories of his people, their devis and devas, as also his worries, induced by the expansion of civilisation. So many things have changed,? he says. We are made to feel guilty or inferior in so many ways and our culture is mostly dictated to, not by our elders, but by the rulers. We no longer go to melas and sell and buy what we make ourselves. The mela today is flooded with commercial goods made in city factories. Our dancing too has been reduced to a mockery, with tourists plying some of us with drinks to make us pose and dance for their cameras! This is no longer our mela. Later, I am reminded of his concerns when, a little high on some palm-extracted sulphi (a sour, cooling locally brewed liquor), I watch a giggling group of colourful children dragging an equally colourful 25-ft dinosaur in a mela-cum-haat.

All that is no reason, however, to conclude that Bastar is a tribal hinterland spoilt by civilisation. Nor is it a romantic outing to some quaint world of adivasis. Go to Bastar to explore the complex relationships between tribes and con?temporary civilisation.

Base your journey on the infinite possibilities that Bastar offers, the manner in which it seamlessly combines the demands of work with the joys of life. A possibility I discovered one day when the driver of the taxi I had hired disappeared for the night - because he had heard about a wedding in a nearby village and was not capable of missing an opportunity to dance. It is indeed this synchronised rhythm of dances, the heady scent of the intoxicating local brews and people like my spirited cabby that give Bastar its unique charm.