by Deepanshu Srivastava 

Vidarbha, a north-eastern region of Maharashtra, has remained backward industrially and agriculturally. One of the various reasons is the formation of large basaltic rocks throughout Vidarbha leading to crop failure, increased cost of cultivation, and poor irrigation facilities. Consequently, about 70 % of farmers – suicides are from 11 districts of this region. The living conditions of farmers are quite low as compared to the rest of Maharashtra. This story revolves around a farmer, Ashok Bhonsale who was living happily with his wife Meghana, 8-year-old son Dattatreya, and 03 acres of cultivated land in Wardha, a small and remote town of Vidarbha region. Ashok was different from his peer farmers as he was very hard-working, mentally tough, and had never – say – die approach.
The story categorically describes the way how lack of education and proper information system among most of the farmers have been ruining their lives despite their indefatigable spirit. Due to difficult situations prevailing everywhere over the last two years coupled with scanty rains and improper irrigation facilities, many farmers in this region were forced to end their lives by drinking pesticides. They were unable to repay loans mostly taken from private landlords and the banks owing to crop failure. After such a drastic step taken by Ashok’s friend and fellow farmer Vinayak Rao Jadhav, Ashok also got engulfed badly by depression and suicidal thoughts. His wife Meghana notices her husband’s segregated mental status and feels that Ashok is also contemplating suicide. She asks her son Dattatreya to keep a watch on Ashok and inform her of any irregular behaviour of Ashok.

On the other hand, Ashok was imbued by thoughts of the arrival of the monsoon. But it was proving to be a mirage. During these days, Meghana tried her best by preparing ” Thaleepeeths ” and ” Pooranpolees ” among other delicacies along with a number of myriad efforts to keep Ashok in good spirits. Ashok being inherently mentally stronger than his peer farmers was often annoyed by the over-caring and misplaced concern of his wife. Ashok decides to pawn Meghana’s s jewellery with her consent and purchases cotton seeds from Pune city and sowed them. However, the seeds failed to germinate due to the late arrival of the monsoons. This brought a storm in Ashok’s life. Meghana observing Ashok’s determination to fight the situation sold her remaining jewelry and borrowed some more money to purchase a fresh bag of seeds and they sowed them. Due to the vagaries of the rains, they could reap only two quintals of cotton. But the entire production was taken away by the money lenders who had lent money to Bhonsales for purchasing seeds and fertilisers. The Bhonsale were left with no part of the produce. Since Ashok, by nature, has been a fighter, he went to a bank in Pune and loaned rupees 03 lakhs for installing a borewell in his field.

Ashok installed the borewell despite the perpetual pessimism shown by the village sarpanch on Ashok’s ideas to draw the water from his borewell. Continuing the stormy days of Ashok, his borewell also did not function to its full capacity owing to the erratic power supply ( a trend which is very common to the hinterlands of Vidarbha where Wardha is located ). Seeing a space to fulfill their greeds due to Ashok’s conditions some corrupt officials of the electricity department advised Ashok to draw the power direct from high voltage power transmission lines for his borewell. Ashok never wanted to give up due to odd circumstances and, as a last resort, decided to go as per the advice. But not knowing the repercussion due to lack of knowledge, he naively tried to tap the electric power from the transmission line to run his water pump but sadly lost his life due to electrocution while taking the electric connection leaving behind his wife and son without having any destitution.

Thus Ashok finished his life in absence of a monitoring, counselling, and support system for vulnerable farmers. This narrative brings the story of one out of many such small farmers every year in our country.

About the Author:

A postgraduate in English and in Journalism and Mass Communication, Deepanshu Srivastava is a sports and fiction writer from Pune.