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the abstract budget for an average family, partly with the
knowledge derived from a study of their dietary as men-
tioned above, and partly by consulting different members
of this community, and also of other communities who
were well acquainted with their life and manners. The nor-
mal budget of $n average family of this group that we have
constructed and adopted in our calculation, is thus a result
of frequent talks with the members of the community as
well as outsiders, modified in the light of the actual weekly
budgets we collected. We shall now discuss it under
different items.
Food : The staple food of the Kaliparaj is rice. Next
in importance to rice among food-grains is Nagli which is
largely consumed by them in the shape of loaves. Occa-
sionally Kodra, another kind of coarse grain, is substituted
for Nagli and consumed in a similar form. The village
being a region where wal is invariably raised as a second
crop to paddy, it, figures frequently in the budgets of these
people. One usually hears the remark that if an average
Kaliparaj man is supplied with as much toddy and wal as
he likes, he will think himself to be in paradise on earth,
and is sure to work no longer. Sometimes during the
year when gul gets exhausted, they use sour milk as a sub-
stitute. In summer they generally eat wal. In the rainy
season they alternate sour milk with some vegetable
grown on the boundaries of their fields. During the mon-
soon and in winter when brooks are teeming with fish,
many of them catch them for food.
Among the items of food, jowar is used only occasion-
ally by some of the comparatively well-to-do Dhodia and
Dubla families, especially when some guests are to be
entertained. Meat is indulged in only as a luxury, for it is
too dear to be an item in the budget of an average family.
Milk and ghee of milch cattle are rarely used, though
use of milk and ghee from goats is not so rare. Salt is an
indispensable item in their budget. Among spices the
chief is chillies. Sometimes til-oil or ground-nut oil
is used in frying vegetables.