वऱ्हाडनामा

  Life of Shama Kolam : Part One                 Shama Kolam , famously known as Robinhood of Vidarbha , was born on 26 th November, 1899 in village of Niranjan Mahur in Nanded district in an aboriginal ‘Kolam tribe’. It is said that Kolams are Dravidian. Their language – Kolami- has resemblance with Dravidian languages. 1 Kolams are mostly populated in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra state. They are spread to the other adjacent districts of Nanded, Adilabad & Chandrapur. It is one of the most backward aboriginal communities of India. Though they have some cultural semblance with Gonds, they are different from Gonds in many aspects. There’s no caste hierarchy in Kolams. They are mostly divided by surnames which have been adopted from the names of villlages. 2                Shama was born in one of the poor families and brought up in the adjacent jungles of Mahur and Nanded. Short but stout and strongly built, Shama was polite in his conduct. He was illiterate and worked as a