It has been about six months since enterprising farmer Shivanna of Sadholalu village in Maddur taluk committed suicide, unable to bear the mounting debt. In this period, life has changed drastically for his family, which once lived a dignified life. They hardly know where their next meal will come from.
Difficulties are manifold for the late Shivanna’s aged parents, his not-so-educated wife, Sushma, nine-year-old son with mental disability, and a six-month-old girl baby. The one-and-a-half acre land they own is not enough for their sustenance. “Both of us [parents] have stopped eating lunch to reduce financial burden on the family,” says Shivanna’s 72-year-old father Kempaiah.
“We are not worried about our food as we are old. Our concern is ensuring food for our grandchildren and daughter in-law as she is breast-feeding,” says Shivanna’s mother Savithramma.
The family is yet to get compensation from the government as the farmland was not in the name of the deceased farmer. Whatever donations have been made by political leaders have been spent mostly for clearing loans. “So far, we lived on these donations. I don’t know what next,” says a worried Kempaiah, whose health is deteriorating.
Given the size of the farmland, Shivanna had taken two acres on lease for cultivation. But his trouble started when the standing paddy crop dried up due to shortage of water as the farm is in the tail-end of the irrigation command area. This snowballed into a crisis when the sugar factory delayed payment towards the crop supplied by him. As loans mounted, he took the extreme step.
“We have shunned agriculture now. But there is some standing paddy crop, which may fetch around Rs. 10,000 after a few months. We are so desperate that we cannot even wait for the harvest, as we need to take care of the baby and buy medicines for our grandson,” says Kempaiah.
Shivanna was the brightest of Kempaiah’s three sons. “He was a go getter. He started working at the age of 15 as a farm labourer soon after he failed SSLC. He built a tile-roof house for us. It is just that he wasn’t lucky with his experiment with agriculture,” says Kempaiah.
“Please get my daughter-in-law a job so she can take care of her children,” pleads Savithramma. “There is no bigger grief than losing a grown-up son. But we are not even in a position to grieve as the fear of future is haunting us,” says Kempaiah.
