Poor Jhabua tribals are falling prey to the deadly silicosis Kamli Ditiya is barely 40, but she looks 60. Two years ago, hers was a family of ten. Today, she is just one of three. The seven dead include her husband and their two sons. All died of one dreaded, malignant cause: silicosis. Kamli, who also suffers from the same fatal and incurable disease of the lungs, now spends her days with her grandsons. Together, they forage for firewood in forests around their village, Malvahi, in Madhya Pradesh's Jhabua district. Kamli does not own land and can't do hard labour any longer. Her wasted body cannot do anything more than collect twigs and sell them for a livelihood. "Silicosis spares no one. Kamli too will die soon," says Ashish Gupta, an Indore-based doctor who is part of a survey team studying the high incidence of silicosis in tribal-dominated Jhabua. One word sums up why it happens: quartz. Kamli was one of thousands of tribals from Jhabua who have been crossing into neighbouring Gujarat to work in quartz factories there to eke out a living. But only to come home within eight to ten months