Marginalised communities, and Dalits in particular, have faced exclusion from access to public natural resources due to their social position. As they are a historically oppressed community, it is important to analyse their experiences and interactions with specific animals, birds, plants and other living beings because these associations arise from caste-based occupations imposed on them. The social evil of untouchability compelled them to live outside the social interaction of the dominant groups, forcing them to carry out certain duties such as handling dead animals, tanning animal skins and cleaning. The particular social space that Dalits occupy not only disables them from having access to a clean and safe environment but also forces on them the proximity of animals and birds considered impure and inauspicious. As a result, despite environmental hazards, Dalits have survived as a scavenger community for centuries, sharing space with vultures, dogs, pigs and crows.

The lived experiences of Dalit lives with animals speak of the community's environmental history, which has not been documented fully. Speaking for myself, disposing of dead animals and scavenging were part of my family history, which lasted until the end of the twentieth century. My poems heavily bank on these stories of our environmental engagements with birds and animals like vultures, dead cattle, pigs and crows. The everyday stories and images of vultures I got to know as a child still reappear in my mind's eye whenever I hear the word ‘vultures’.