This Guftgu session will be led by HU Global Fellow, Syed Ali Mehdi Zaidi, and will feature a reading from a chapter of his PhD dissertation based on ethnographic fieldwork among desert-dwelling communities. Despite facing social and economic marginalization, along with extreme environmental conditions such as intense heat, land salination, droughts, and fires, these Rohiwasi communities continue to endure and adapt. The session will explore the intellectual and social tools they deploy to navigate and make sense of an ever-changing world.