"In 1997, the government started issuing these certificates again, but they had destroyed the chances of education for an entire generation," he rues.

And on the rare occasions when the government wakes up to their plight, the forest department throws a spanner in the works. In 1998, the state government granted Rs 65 lakhs to upgrade the Agasthiyar Nagar school from class 10 to class 12. But the forest department refused to allow the construction of new buildings in the tiger sanctuary. Earlier, the forest department had prevented the state electricity board from laying power lines in the area, ensuring that the village remained engulfed in hopeless darkness.

Pichandi, a village elder, says, "The tigers live much deeper inside the forest. They don't come here. Only leopards come here, and the forest department officials mistake the leopard's pug mark for a tiger's".