Bastar: The Lost Heritage focuses on the culture of the region through 150 black-and-white shots by Ali between 1950 and 1963, when women of the Maria and Muria tribes hadn’t yet discovered polyester blouses and ankle-length saris and the men still wore headgear with peacock feathers. When the jungles abounded in boars, tigers and other wild animals that lured shikaris like Ali and provided locals a livelihood as beaters and helpers for hunters.

The pictures also reveal quaint traditions. In one, a young girl with four combs tucked into her hair looks on smugly. “Young men of the tribe gift combs to the girls they like. When a girl finally gets married, she must keep only the comb her husband has gifted her and return the rest,” explains Nafisa.

The Chhattisgarh government, whom Nafisa had approached to publish the book a few months ago, had reservations about pictures of the “topless” women, says Nafisa. “But, that’s how the women dressed. The Maria tribe went bare-bodied while the Muria girls threw a gamchha-type of cloth over their left shoulders. The saris had to be very short since the women worked in the jungles filled with wild animals. Unless their legs were bare, how could they run from the animals?” she asks.

The concern should be elsewhere, she says—-at the large number of Hindu temples and statues that dot the jungles though the tribals have their own God, Dateswari, and never pray at these temples. “Who built these temples? And where did they disappear?” she asks.

The genesis of the book, which is undergoing the final stage of proofreading, was Nafisa’s visit to Bastar five years ago. “I found that the people had changed their dress habits and lifestyle. Though I’m all for development of tribals, I realized that India must also preserve the unadulterated innocence of the Bastar tribal culture,” she says. In 2001, when Ali was diagnosed with cancer, Nafisa had decided to preserve his works.

The next year, she organized a travelling exhibition of his photographs in New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Bangalore. Work on Bastar: The Lost Heritage began 18 months ago. The original plan was to accompany Ali’s paintings with those Nafisa had taken of a modern-day Bastar. “But, my pictures were misplaced when we shifted house,” she says.