A dazzling sun warms the air as Soliga women gather in their finest silk sarees, hair adorned with mallige (jasmine). Laughter and music drift through Purani Podu. Today is Rotti Habba, their festival of colour and community joy. Soligas are an indigenous, forest dwelling tribe of the Kaveri river basin and its adjoining hills in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu They have historically lived in these regions and have fought to reside in their ancestral home – the forest. To the Soligas, the forest is not just a home but a spiritual extension of themselves—it is alive, nurturing, and sacred. Purani Podu is a village or podu in the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Tiger Reserve in Chamarajanagar district, Karnataka, which was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1974 and a tiger reserve in 2011.