M lived in a community of Banjara, or former nomadic tribes, which settled down once they owned some land of their own. His ‘thanda’ was made up of 200 people who were all related to each other.
M owned three acres of land left to him by his father - and in fact still in his name - which was mostly bare rock and not suitable for farming. M instead worked as a labourer on other people’s land and was sometimes employed for MNREGA work by the Panchayat (village government). M had 7 children in total, and his youngest son, who was physically challenged, had sent his two boys to live with M and his wife. The family had two cows and three bulls, which were left to graze in a field all day and brought back in the evening. Although they had had a toilet built through the Swachch Bharat scheme, it was not plumbed in because the rocky ground was too hard to drill through and so the family used it as a washroom instead. It has to be kept dry though because the area had a problem with mosquito infestation.