Save The Madaris, Help Budhan

A few weeks ago I had travelled to Ahmedabad to profile the Budhan theatre group, a social initiative headed by director Dakxin Bajrange and journalist Roxy Gagdekar. Members of the Chhara community, maligned as thieves and liqour brewers, these dynamic young men are using plays, literature, and computer education to give voice to their people. The good news is that last week Dakxin was awarded 2d Prize at the Jeevia South Asia Livelihoods Film Festival, for his film Fight For Survival, which chronicles attacks on madaris by animal rights activists and the Forest Department. Writes Dakxin, "When I was working with the Madaris, I felt that they treat snakes as their own children. They know each snake’s individual nature. They know how to keep each snake, how to take care of it and when to release it in the jungle. For instance, cobras are kept for 3 months and then released with respect in the jungle. This is how the Madaris have lived for thousands of years. Now, the Animal Cruelty Act and other animal acts have made it difficult for the Madaris to keep snakes with them for public performance. The law considers snakes as “Schedule 2 animals” and no one can catch them from the jungle without explicit permission from the concerned department. The Act prescribes jail punishments for people who do so and getting bail from police custody is difficult.Due to this law, the entire Madari community is facing a problem of survival." Want to know more, and support a good cause? Sales of the CD, DVD ($5 students, $10 everyone else) will benefit the Budhan Theatre Group.

The Prude in Scant Cloth

"She will not kiss or wear a bikini. But she will dance in flesh coloured panties. Rakhi Sawant is the hottest item girl in Bollywood. What makes up her world? Sonia Faleiro finds out. On a black sofa in a sixth floor apartment in suburban Goregaon, batting the thick aroma of frying vegetables with a small, pale hand, sits Item Girl Rakhi Sawant. In her twenties, Sawant has the body of an adolescent. Small, frail, translucent skin taut across the high bones of her face. She is 5'5 and weighs 43 kilos, and as she sits swathed in a mustard coloured kaftan, reading from a Christian prayer book, the beauty appears in urgent need of a steak sandwich. Sawant was a student of Goklibai School, Vile Parle, when director Suneel Darshan offered her an Item Number opposite Govinda in Joru ka Gulam (2000). "I was bubbly, very fatty, very chubby," smiles Sawant. "But I wasn't nervous." Three years later,Sawant auditioned four times before winning her breakthrough Item number in Chura Liya Hai Tumne (2003). In between, Sawant says, she studied Arts at Mithibai College and spent energy she may never regain, arguing with her father who despisedthe film industry. ACP Sawant would scream, "Zindagi mein padhayi kaam aayegi, not these things." For Marathi people 'nathi', heroine, is a very bad word," says Sawant. "My father was like Hitler. And he was a policeman. He didn't like me exposing my cleavage." Usha Sawant, a large woman with comfortable features, clad in a kaftan similar to her daughter's, had no such qualms. She had received two offers in Gujarati cinema. After her first role, her husband insisted she remain a housewife. Derailed from what she believes is her destiny, Usha, a Hindu, addressed letters to Jesus, in Bandra's Mount Mary church, beseeching that her children Jaya, Rakesh and Neroo (later Rakhi) would become film stars. "My mother had big dreams for me," says Sawant. "She wanted me to be a child actor. She pushed me,'go, go do it!'." Usha sighs fondly, "Rakhi was like a doll. Neighbours would keep taking her to their home, to cuddle her. She was so lucky for me. For six years, nothing. Then she was born and I won Rs 1.5 Lakh." While Jaya did act in two films, she jettisoned her career for marriage; brother Rakesh is a director awaiting the release of his controversial debut Hot Money (2006), which stars his sister in a bustier and mini skirt made of Rs 1 coins. "People were upset, but I said, 'I'm doing everyone's films wearing chote kapde, why not my brother's'?" asks Sawant. Rakesh lives with his wife in an apartment purchased by his sister, who is also funding his career. The economic head of the family is no longer willing to justify her wardrobe, the moves, which earn her Rs 5 lakh a song, Rs 3 Lakh for a half hour stage show of which she performs approximately 8 a month. For her last Item number, Aakhiyon Na Maare in Ek Haseena, Ek Khiladi in which she dances alongside Mumait and Zabyn Khan, Sawant wore flesh coloured panties and a bustier. She curled her limbs around a pole, and crawled on all fours down a rank of steps. She sniffs, "I don't know why (producer) Rangita Nandy took those girls. People say 'We only noticed you'." So did her father, who left home in protest, and now lives alone in a Government apartment. He visits his wife, who lives with Rakhi, only on festivals, sullenly feeding her, her favourite sweet Shrikhand, before leaving. "I miss him," says Rakhi. "But I won't leave the industry for him. I don't expose unless it's necessary. I turned down Hawas because it was totally sex, sex, sex. Even Dhoom 2 because they wanted me to wear a bikini. Two piece film mein chahiye to Rakhi ko yaad karo? In my heart, I don't want to do a kissing scene. But if I get a big offer, what's my option?" ("You want a bikini in your film, so you think of Rakhi?) Sawant's third film was Farah Khan's Main Hoon Na (2004). At the auditions, she wore her tiniest skirts and t-shirts. On the way there she was shrouded in a burkha. "We lived in a bad neighbourhood," explains Sawant. "People would stare gandi nazron se." The "bad neighbourhood," was also why the siblings were sent to a hostel, even though their parents lived minutes away from school. "Jab se maine hosh sambhala, tab maine apne aap ko hostel mein paaya," says Sawant.(Since I can remember, I was in a hostel). The separation changed her from a girl who danced gaily in front of the mirror to film songs, to a little lady who shied from the company of other children. She would remain reticent until she turned 13, and returned home. "I was very darpok," she says. "People won't believe that this girl who does so much expose (sic) in front of the camera, couldn't recite a poem on stage. But something happened to me as a child. I don't remember. Maybe a family problem. I was out of school for a year because of this. I could not talk. Later I made a decision to change. I started doing drama." As her popularity grows, so does the pressure. According to Usha, her daughter eats a full meal only on Sunday. During the week, she has a cup of tea and fresh aloe vera for breakfast, juice for lunch, fruit for dinner. She exercises two hours daily. In her new video, Hoton Mein Aisi Baat, her gaunt appearance prompts concerns of anorexia. During the interview, the Sawants' family doctor administers an injection to Rakhi. "He says I'm very weak," she says, later. "He told me to eat, stop exercising. I will eat for 10 days then I'll stop in time for my next shoot." This pressure is magnified because Sawant has no ambitions of acting. While a stream of Item Number offers reaffirm her popularity, she must know that someone younger, thinner, more limber, may soon replace her. "Unko paseena aata hai jab main set pe jaati hoon," she says,dismissing her competition. ("They start sweating when I walk onset.)They're not my friends, because since childhood I haven't had friends, and in this industry particularly, people use your shoulders to climb up, in the name of friendship," she says. "But still, I help them. I tell them how to look at the camera, and they feel so good, 'Oh my God!'" Nevertheless, the competition exists, and perhaps this is why Sawant feels the need to lie about her age. "I was 14 when I acted in Joru Ka Ghulam," she says, "I'm 23 now." The film was made in 2000. "She has only a few years left in the industry," shrugs Usha. "She has to make the most of it. If Rakhi won't wear chote kapde, someone else will. It's better she does." Sawant's feelings towards her costumes aren't as unambiguous. She says, as a dancer, she is justified in wearing revealing clothes. That the times have changed, and one can no longer wear saris. She argues, "It doesn't matter to me what I wear. I've worked so hard to get here, you think I argue over clothes? I don't mind showing my body. But I won't be vulgar. What's the point of 17 smooching scenes? (Mallika Sherawat's Khwaish). Pointless. The movie was good, it would have been a hit anyway. I also stay away from bikinis, because of the censors. If after all that work the public doesn't see the fruits, what's the use?" Later, she mulls, ""People know me because I'm a good dancer,talented; not because of my revealing. I think of Helenji when I dance. Kapde utarne se kuch nahin hota. Is Neil & Nikki a hit? But of course, there's lots of pressure to wear small clothes. I'll say, 'No, no. make the skirt longer,' they say, 'you're famous for only this.' I feel bad, but I respond, 'Fine. Give me. I'll show my talent.' Before I never even saw my costumes before the shoot, but now I think I will." There are other hazards to Sawant's profession. She receives obscene phone calls, and threats purporting to be from "Bhai" (name for an Underworld Don). "I'm not scared," she says. "As a child I was once scared, but no more. But if you are a star, you can't expect people won't harass you. That's asking too much." Still, performing onstage, she is in constant fear of being molested. "As soon as a show finishes I have to run," says Sawant, "the public goes mad. I jump into the waiting car and lock the doors." In Katmandu, a college student bit her cheek. In Dubai, members of a private audience groped her. The police was summoned, and Sawant temporarily banned from entering the UAE. "The audience is the worst on December 31st" shudders Usha. "So drunk they just lie on the road." Sawant's face darkens. "The organisers are to blame. Instead of putting good pictures, they put my sexy, sexy hoardings. If they get so excited, even the audience will go mad and break things." In 2006, Sawant will be seen in three videos including Tips' Pinup Doll, and five films including Priyadarshan's Malamaal Weekly. She will launch the Rakhi Dance Academy in Andheri, adding to a real estate portfolio, which includes three apartments. "When she gives me the word," says Usha. "I will find her a husband. But I've told her to work and make money as long as she can. After marriage, she'll have a baby and her body won't be as before." Sawant laughs, "Ab to surgery hota hai." (These days there's surgery) Usha continues, "I don't trust actors. Today he may be with her, tomorrow with someone else. I want a businessman who will provide well for her." Sawant responds with a smile, gesticulates at the tall glass cabinet opposite. Inside nests a box of L'Oreal hair colour and one of Veet hair remover, a pink china lady with a blue bonnet, a gold Buddha, a clutch of orange flowers, a pink candle, laminated photos of Mother Mary, Jesus Christ, Aamir Khan, and herself; A hefty green plastic parrot, a Philips stereo system. She looks at the black velvet couches, the glass topped table, the dining table with three matching wooden chairs above which hangs a calendar from a ration shop. "My mother's sacrifices have given me everything," she says. "I won't get married so soon, and let her dreams go to waste." An edited version of this appears in Tehelka, December 31, 2005. More about Item Number Girls? Read my profile of Mumait Khan, here.

"Yes? What Do you Want?"

"The latest collection of RK Laxman, the grand old man of Indian cartooning, is out. In his typical acerbic tone, the 84-year-old creator of the Common Man tells Sonia Faleiro the new breed of Indian cartoonists lacks humour and critical judgement. How did the cerebral stroke in 2002 change your life? For me, nothing. It hasn’t affected my drawing. My right hand is okay, my head is working. I carry on. I hear your routine hasn’t changed in 58 years. Can you describe it? I get up at 8.30 am, have breakfast, read the papers from 9-12 pm. While I read I collect ideas. Then I visualise them, start drawing. It takes about six hours. By 6 pm someone comes from office (The Times of India), takes it, scans it. Do you show your cartoons to your wife Kamala, or family members for feedback? Nobody sees it before it prints. I never consider, talk to anybody, show it to anybody. Has an Editor ever discussed a cartoon before it went to print? It has never happened. Do you value anybody’s opinion? No. And neither do people volunteer it. Moving on to the Common Man. How has he evolved in recent times? I’ve written about it and spoken about it. You’re asking the same question. Why don’t you read my autobiography? (The Tunnel of Time.) I have. It describes the creation of the Common Man. I’m asking how he evolved. There’s no change. He is as permanent as the moon, stars. They don’t change, nor does he. He’s a brand. He’s the face of Air Deccan. He’s on a commemorative stamp celebrating 150 years of The Times of India. Isn’t that ironic considering who he represents? Why should it be ironic? The Common Man isn’t always impoverished. He’s alright. He has become quite popular. Does he represent personal frustrations? What I experience, perhaps. Not personal frustrations. Not a bit. So your experiences are different from the Common Man? Very different. Suppose there is taxation, the price of foodgrain goes up. It affects everybody. He represents millions of Indians. What he experiences sometimes I may not go through, but I may represent it. For example, if bus or train charges increase he may suffer because he is the Common Man. I may not suffer, but I know he is suffering.. Khushwant Singh once wrote of you, ‘He loved to be praised; he did not believe in false modesty.’ Comment. Nonsense. Total nonsense. Was the confidence he alluded to something that was instilled in you as a child, or did you acquire it later? It was instilled as a child. But I had no masters. Nobody told me what to do. I’ve grown up on my own, I’m totally self- taught. No master, no institution. I learnt everything on my own. I never looked at someone to appreciate my work. You also worked with your brother, writer RK Narayan. How did his death affect your life? He passed away in Mysore. By then I had come here. He’s just another brother who passed away. I used to illustrate his stories. He gave me the story, I illustrated it. Yes, but were you not good friends as well? Great friendship. That’s it. In 1993, you said in a speech, ‘Commitment is a deadly sin for a cartoonist. He must be a spectator, not a player’. Can you elaborate on that? Yes? What do you want? I'm asking you to comment on that statement. I don’t know what I said at the time, in what connection. Okay. Does a cartoonist, according to you, create public opinion or reflect it? He makes use of oddities, paradoxes in a human situation. His attempt is not to change anything but see. He is not there to correct or influence. People get influenced easily. Not cartoonists. What are your expectations from the public? Do you still get the same volume of responses? My expectations are that they understand what I do, that’s all. I still get lots of letters. Praising, threatening, saying ‘you should have done this.’ I ignore them all. Do you like interacting with an audience? No. I don't go and see politicians and the public. I don’t have anything to say to them and what they say to me doesn’t interest me. Do you have a favourite cartoon? All of mine. Obviously. What about a favourite cartoonist? Abroad, of course, David Low of the Evening Standard. I went to England and met him. In India, no one. No upcoming cartoonist. No one. In India, cartooning is an imported product. The British brought it to India. There are very good cartoonists in England, America. You don’t find such cartoonists here. Why is that? I don’t know. Ask them. I hope it will improve. That’s all I will say. As of now it’s really terrible. No draftsmanship, thinking, trying to be funny when there is nothing funny. Sense of humour is lacking. Observation, critical judgement. It’s a very serious thing, cartooning. It’s not a joke. Why do you think we have so few women cartoonists? Ask them. I don’t know. You worked briefly with Bal Thackeray at the Free Press Journal. How do you view his cartoons? Are you surprised by what he became? I didn’t work for him, or anybody. We worked alongside briefly. He was alright. Unfortunately, his attention was on something else. I wasn’t surprised at what happened. I expected him to do it. Every politician has his own ideology. He’s following his ideology for good or worse. I have nothing to say. Your political affiliations? Democratic. Any political party you are inclined towards? Do you vote? No particular party. I do vote; it depends on time and person concerned. I don’t remember who I voted for last time. Some local chap. Have you faced risks as a political cartoonist? Many times. I’ve been summoned to the court, made to stand before the judge and explain a cartoon about the riots in Mumbai, when they were burning buses, cars. In the cartoon, someone tries to set fire to a motorcycle, but he can’t even light the matchstick. A bystander says, “what sort of patriot are you? You can’t even burn a small motorcycle.” That offended somebody. They summoned me to court, all the way to Nashik. Finally, they acquitted me. Some people got angry and rushed to my room to throw acid on my face. But that was a long time ago. Others threatened, I’ll do this to you, if you write about this politician. Some people send flowers, some money. Some give me gifts. I’ve received a doctorate. During the Emergency, the censors said, don’t do this, don’t do that. I was dragged from pillar to post. I went to Mrs. Gandhi. She assured me not to bother about them. But these bureaucrats never allowed me to rest. They prevented me from doing my work. Mrs. Gandhi was a hypocrite. She suspended democracy and said, in a democracy cartooning is essential, please carry on. Any personal run-ins with politicians? No. The satisfactions of being a political cartoonist. I feel satisfied when I do a piece of work that satisfies me. But daily, I’ve to carry on and on. Who has been your favourite person to satire? Laloo Prasad, Atal Behari Vajpayee. Such people have a face for caricature. They make mistakes, it’s utter nonsense. In terms of material, which political period has excited you the most. Difficult to answer. People look at cartoonists in a different way. They think, he does this, he does that, he must be like this or that. None of it. Do you see a similarity between the work of a political cartoonist and an edit writer? It’s like comparing music with literature. Not really. Both make a statement on a current situation. Sometimes, coincidence. Sometimes not. Newspapers, like the Hindustan Times, don’t have editorial cartoons. What does it suggest? There aren’t enough good cartoonists. There is no institution teaching cartooning. You have to be born a cartoonist. It can’t be taught. There are fewer people born with a talent for cartooning? Exactly. Mumbai is the backdrop to many of your works. How has this city influenced you? In no way. I’ve lived in Kolkata, Chennai. City influencing work? I can’t understand these kinds of questions. Very sorry. I see. Do you think historians should use political cartoons to study a particular period? Ask a historian that. I’m not a historian. I know that. I’m asking you as a cartoonist do you think political cartoons can be used as a tool to understand history. Historians? How am I to answer this? Fine. In your autobiography you mention an incident in which the proprietor of The Indian Express introduced you to his senior editor. You went to him for a job, and he asked, ‘Why do you want to be a cartoonist? What is so great about it?’ You didn’t answer, but walked out. How would you respond today? Not my autobiography. Somebody else’s. Doesn’t sound like me. I never went to anybody’s house. (Ed. Note. The incident is described by Laxman on Page 83 in The Tunnel of Time; An Autobiography. After being asked the aforementioned questions, Laxman writes: “At this point I got up and quietly left. Perhaps he did not even notice my departure.”)" A slightly edited version of this appeared in Tehelka, December 24, 2005.

The Silent Visitor

"They recollected the events of the day later. Was anything out of place, both wondered, as if death had moved a vase while it crept closer. Could we have seen it coming, they thought unjustly. Did we overlook something obvious. They spent the rest of that sleepless night and most of the next day asking questions that they could not answer with assurance, for both were now unsure of what they had seen, and what they had failed to see. Every moment that day now held a significance that they did not recognise earlier. Enough hints had been made, they just failed to grasp them. Guilt had begun making a grand entry." I first heard about this post from a friend, but didn't want to read it; the writer is aware why. But I visit his blog daily, and so today I did read it. It's a beautiful piece. More here.

"It's Bad, Bad Leroy Brown

The baddest man in the whole damn town, Badder than old king kong, And meaner than a junkyard dog." I met him yesterday, and I don't mean bad as much as I mean as joyless as death on a sharpened stick. On a happier note, in the taxi cab on the way to work this morning, while I was chewing the cud, a well-dressed old man stuck his head in through the window and wiggled his palm at me. "Sister ......!" screamed the taxi driver. He leaned over and slapped the old man on the head, screaming again, "sister ......!" The old man giggled and scampered off to the taxi behind. "Do you know him?" I asked, horrified. "Yes, of course," the driver answered. He pointed to a bright pink building across the road. "He lives there. In that building. He's my neighbour." "He lives inside," he reiterated. "Not in the slum beside it. We work together in the municiple corporation. Every morning I go to the corporation, sign my name in the register, and then leave to drive this taxi. He signs and leaves to beg." "Does he drink?" I asked. The driver laughed. "Peeta hai, to jeeta hai!" ("He drinks and therefore he lives.") Apparently, there's no work for these guys, but despite that they're paid Rs 13,000 a month. The driver, lets call him, Ramesh, owns three cabs, two of which he rents for Rs 160 a day. He earns about Rs 600 a day. "You'll be shocked if you see my house," he says. "all marble." Ramesh' wife is a nurse, his only child studies at Sacred Heart Cathedral. They make so much he says, all his earnings go into a savings account, and they live comfortably on what his wife earns even after sending a packet of money to his village. "Why work at all?" I ask. "What to do at home?" he responds. "This way I meake chai money, see the city. It's enjoyable." He swivels. "Now look at you. You work at an office. How much must you earn? Rs 12,000, Rs 13,000 maximum? Now look at me. I look like this. Battered. But see how much I make?" "Yes," I sighed. "I do."

Death Along the Famished Road

The government hasn’t reached Vidarbha’s farmlands, but its poison has. Sonia Faleiro ventures into the hinterlaland to discover cataclysmic tales of deprivation and despair wreaked by Bt Cotton cultivation Bunty Bhoyar’s screams singe the hot, dry air of Kosara village in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal district. The five-year-old in his torn shorts and T-shirt, mucus smeared across his face, body dusty from playing in the mud, cries himself into exhaustion as he awaits comfort his family can no longer offer him. His mother Lata, 25, is picking cotton; his brother Shubham, seven, is enjoying what may be his last days in primary school; his grandmother Gangubai, who cooks and cleans for the family, sits in the kitchen, stirring gruel for her grandson with a weary hand. On October 19, 2005, Bunty’s father, Lokeshwar Keshavrao Bhoyar, 30, committed suicide, jumping into the well, which for years, sullenly refused to provide water for his fields. While Bhoyar may have jumped his debt to moneylenders, literally, his family is not as fortunate. Lata, an illiterate housewife, is now a daily wage labourer. She works ten-to-five, earning Rs 2 for every kilo cotton she picks. On a good day, she earns about Rs 120. When her husband died, she borrowed Rs 5,000 from the neighbours for his funeral. She is still unclear about how much he owes, but since his death, she also owes three months’ payment on the electricity (Rs 500), and annual land revenue tax (Rs 200). At night, exhausted and often hungry, she has a recurring nightmare: of moneylenders standing over her, mouths wide, hands outstretched. Their demands reach a crescendo, until the image is a blur, but for a distant well, its emptiness echoing with her husband’s screams. For seven years in Maharashtra’s eastern Vidarbha region, which comprises 11 districts of which six produce cotton, farmers like Bhoyar have been committing suicide by hanging or drowning themselves, or consuming pesticides like Endosulfan. In these villages, the cries of a new widow are as commonplace as birdsong. From June 2 till November 25, 2005, there have been 136 suicides in Vidarbha. Yavatmal leads with 51, followed by Amravati, 30, Akola, 16 and Awashim, 10. “Pesticide is available in the remotest corner of Vidarbha,” says Nagpur-based journalist Jaideep Hardikar. “But if you want folic acid, you have to walk 50 km. The government hasn’t reached the people, but the poison has.” The reasons for this despair are multiple, and have escalated over the years. One diseased crop or the misguided purchase of spurious seeds, for example, necessitates a loan. Only five percent of farmers are eligible for loans from cooperatives and banks, usually because of a previous default. The remainder are forced into the grip of private, often hostile moneylenders who extract approximately Rs 500 interest every four months on every Rs 1,000 borrowed. Once this loan is defaulted on — invariably the case in irrigation-starved Vidarbha — the farmer’s desperation for the sale of his cotton and soya bean increases. A fact the government isn’t unaware of. Yet, last year, the government paid the farmers in three instalments over a year from its date of purchase. This year, it’s not only paying less than the market price, it is deducting last year’s loans from the sale price. While soya bean is harvested and sold in one lot in October-November, cotton pickings occur in several lots from October to February. Unless payment is made immediately, the farmer is unable to pay even the Rs 25 a day to daily wage labourers to help him harvest his crop. “In a normal cycle, the farmer picks his first lot, sells it, and uses the money to pay the previous year’s debt and fund the pickings that follow,” explains Shreenivas V. Khandewale, director, RS Ruikar Institute of Labour and Socio-Cultural Studies, Nagpur. “If the government takes all the cotton and doesn’t pay up to next June, what will the farmer do?” This year has been the worst for Vidarbha’s farmers since the first farmer’s suicide seven years ago. In 2004, up to 80 percent of cotton growers harvested BT, genetically modified seeds produced by a company called Monsanto. Recalls Hardikar, “When actor Nana Patekar, the brand ambassador of Monsanto, toured this region last year to promote BT, his public meetings had a huge impact. Farmers went for BT in a big way. But it boomeranged badly.” The seeds, with a starting price of Rs 1,600 (the hybrid variety cost Rs 450 a packet), have demonstrated no sustainability in the parched environment of Vidarbha. This year, the fungal infection Lal Rog struck the fields. Stretches of land in Yavatmal appear a hazy crimson in the distance. From close quarters, the withered cotton, branches red in colour, make for an eerie sight. In the shadow of each failed harvest, stands an entire family, emaciated and hungry. “Monsanto’s claim that a test application would involve minimum pesticides and maximum yield has proved fatal,” says Kishore Tiwari, president, Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti. The government’s role in this gruesome charade is glaring. From November 12, it began a crackdown on unlicenced moneylenders, arresting 150 in a week. This has only increased the pressure on farmers faced with a failed crop. Says Tiwari, “After 2000, moneylenders became traders, loaning seeds and fertilisers. In return, they would take the crop at a downgraded price. So the farmers faced huge losses. But without them, the farmers have no recourse. The government won’t give them money, but it gives vehicle loans even to defaulting farmers, because it has a tie-up with the companies.” The per quintal price of cotton has also been reduced by the government by Rs 500, and on an average, a farmer whose cotton subscribes to the standard of less that eight percent moisture, receives between Rs 1,700 — Rs 1,980 per quintal. Further, according to a Water Regulatory Bill passed by the Maharashtra Assembly this year, farmers must pay Rs 580 per acre for water every month. A farmer, with up to 15 acres of land, earns approximately Rs 10,000 for a year’s toil. With this amount, he must feed his family, pay for his children’s education, save for their wedding, and purchase the increasingly expensive inputs for his land. An import duty of only 10 percent has led to the flooding of the Indian market with imported cotton. Combined with decreased subsidies and spiralling prices of inputs, it appears that the government is turning the screw. “Families are starving, committing suicide,” says Tiwari. “But not one family has been rehabilitated. It is a blot on our so-called progressive society.” Sushila Tulsiram Aswale is 35; but as she stares at her hands slowly sifting grain in a small steel bowl, she could be mistaken for the grandmother of Mangesh, 19, and Vinod, 15. On September 9, Aswale’s husband, Tulsiram Maruti, 45, uncorked a bottle of pesticide, and poured a quarter capful of the expensive poison down his throat. After her husband’s suicide, Vinod continued his schooling. But Mangesh, who had left his education earlier to become a daily wage labourer, earning Rs 45 a day, was forced to harvest the five acres of the family land as his first step towards repaying a bitter inheritance of Rs 90,000 in debt. When five bags of seeds produced four quintal of cotton after a year’s work, Mangesh began to feel as cornered as his father had in the days leading to his suicide. “I don’t even know about my father’s debts. I was never interested in farming. And now, I have the tension of feeding my family.” Although Mangesh has picked the cotton, he is yet to sell it. Like him, an increasing number of farmers are hopeful that the government will augment its rates and are hence biding their time. If he doesn’t wait, and sells for the current rate of Rs 1,900 per quintal, Mangesh will receive Rs 7,600 to feed his family and maintain his land for the next 12 months. Living on debt so far, the family requires between Rs 2,500 — 3,000 a month to feed itself. “What will we eat?” Mangesh asks, in despair. The long-term effect of this institutional impoverishment is reflected in the physical deterioration of families like the Aswales and Bhoyars. Since they earn less, they eat less. In every family, the adults take turns to fast, one day each week, to stretch their limited supplies. As habitual debtors, they live in fear of their land being seized by moneylenders. It isn’t unusual for a small plot of land being cultivated by four brothers on an annual rotation. Children abandon their education, and with it the chance of a better life. Sons follow in their father’s ill-fated footsteps. Daughters tend the house, worried into sickness that their dowry, which must be no less than Rs 1 lakh, and the cost of their wedding, at Rs 60,000 upwards, is escalating their parents’ trauma. “There are families whose girls are unmarried at 24,” says Hardikar, “when in these villages, the maximum age for marriage is 20, maybe 22. Now they’ll remain unmarried.” On November 4, 19-year-old Neeta Pundalikrao Bhopat, who was studying for her BA, committed suicide. In her suicide note, she wrote, “My family can’t make even a thousand rupees a month. And I have two younger sisters. My parents can’t bear the burden of our marriages when we don’t have enough to eat. So, I am ending my life. Nobody should be blamed for it.” Women, without doubt, are among the worst affected. Since her husband Sanjay Yadav Jeddevar, 28, committed suicide on November 11, Jyoti is looking after her 11-month-old daughter and one-and-a-half-year-old son with the help of her mother-in-law Sumanbai, 60. The two women are working to repay three loans of over Rs 1 lakh that Sanjay had borrowed from a moneylender, a women’s society and a state bank. After her husband commits suicide, if the children are young, the widow, who may even be illiterate, becomes the sole wage earner, and is responsible for the repayment of all debts. Since the entire farming community is in a similar cycle of poverty and debt, the widow receives no help from relatives or villagers. “If her family helps her out with food, they will go hungry. Everyone has bought BT this year, and his or her crops have Lal Rog. They may help later in getting the children married by searching for prospective partners, but they won’t give money,” says Vilas Bhongade, a farmer’s activist partnering NGO CRY, in Vidarbha. In Kosara village itself, an estimated 100 of 1,500 people are living on loan. With two suicides in the last month, farmer Vijayanand Namdev Gowri has this explanation to offer as to why some give up: “Some farmers know there’s no hope, while others keep hoping. But the debts keep increasing, and soon we will all have to make this decision.” Santosh Shamraoji Martawar, 28, of Sutra village became the head of the family after his father drowned himself on September 9. His body was found two days later. Two failed harvests, and harassment from moneylenders, to whom he owned approximately Rs 30,000, prompted his decision. Martawar says, “I would tell him repeatedly that it wasn’t a lot of money, and that we would repay it. But he hated being in debt. For him, Rs 30,000 was too much money.” Government compensation regulations haven’t been implemented to the advantage of the farmer either. A family has to fulfil 42 conditions, ranging from possession of a Below Poverty Line ration card to the loan having been taken from a bank or cooperative, to qualify for the Rs 1 lakh compensation given for a suicide attributed to crop failure. As a result, until November 2005, only 168 families had received compensation. Each receives Rs 30,000 in cash, while Rs 70,000 is placed in a fixed deposit. In a community without a tradition of remarriage, a widow is therefore sentenced to a lifetime of working the fields. According to activist Prajwale Tatte, “Women tell me that each evening, they stand at the door terrified that their husband may not return.” On November 1, seven years after her husband committed suicide, Meerabai Hatti Chavan of Ambezari village, Yavatmal, swallowed pesticide. Her four children must now take on the burden that their parents couldn’t. Bharti Kishore Gowri, 30, has three daughters; Poonam, 10; Manisha, seven, and Sonu, two. Her husband Kishore Namdev Gowri consumed pesticide, three days before Diwali. The family had had no plans to celebrate the festival. Like everyone else in Kosara village, the Gowris had debts and a poor harvest — their 4.5 acres had yielded no cotton, and only one quintal of soya beans. “Karz, karz, karz,” says Gowri, were the only words her husband muttered, with increasing helplessness, in the days before he died. On October 29, a few hours after Bharti had left to work on the fields, Kishore bought pesticide from the village shop and while walking down the road to his hut, swallowed some. Gowri’s elder daughters are in school; she works in the fields earning Rs 30 daily, while her mother-in-law tends to the youngest daughter. “I’ll educate my children for as long as possible,” says Bharti. “I have over Rs 50,000 in debt, and one day I’ll have to marry off my girls. But I can’t think about these things now.” As villages resound with cries of desperation and grief, a family in Yavatmal’s Telang Takari village has no tears left to shed. In 1997, when Ramdas Ambarwar consumed pesticide, he became the first farmer in Vidarbha to commit suicide over an inability to repay his debts. Ambarwar left behind his wife, mother, and four daughters. Perhaps because Ambarwar was the first victim of what would spiral into a phenomenon, and the Sarpanch of the village as well as a graduate, Chief Minister Narayan Rane visited his family and promised immediate compensation. In 1998, as a result of Ambarwar’s suicide, a government resolution was passed assuring the waiver of bank loans, free education for daughters, compensation of Rs 1 lakh, and free agricultural inputs for three years to similarly bereaved families. The resolution, scoffs Tiwari, was never implemented. Ambarwar’s wife Saraswati tends the 12 acres of fields, while her mother-in-law stays home with the children. Her debts have slowly accrued. She borrowed money first to marry off her eldest daughter Sushma, 22, then to pay for medicines for her second child Jaishree, who died at 18. While Manjusha, 15, still remains to be married, there are also piling medical bills for the treatment of a yet unidentifiable ailment that Meenakshi, 19, suffers from. As they slowly walk in the same circle of crop failure and debt that their father felt strangulated by, the girls’ misery is tinged with an unwelcome déjà vu. “His death didn’t make matters better for anyone, only worse,” says Manjusha. “The Rs 1 lakh was spent repaying old debts. And now my mother will spend the rest of her life repaying the new ones.” Tehelka, December 17, 2005. Photos: (Late Ramdas Ambarwar's mother, and daughters Manjusha and Meenakshi; Lata Bhoyar with sons Shubham and Bunty; Farmer at cotton yard) by Sonia Faleiro.

The website, with an extract, will be online shortly. Till then, here.

Author Samit Basu, whose second novel The Manticore's Secret, releases this month, will be reading in Delhi (14th December, 6.30 pm, Gulmohar Audi., India Habitat Centre), and Calcutta (20th December, 6.30 pm, Crossword Bookstore). More readings are planned; one hopefully in Mumbai. Go here for more. And here's where you can buy the book, online.