"Our paddy crop is good only maybe three times out of five," she said. "When the harvest is good, life that year is wonderful. We have ready cash flow and plenty to eat." However, when the crop fails, the deprivation farmers' families undergo is unspeakable. "It was one such year when we had to migrate to Delhi in search of work," she recalled. The rains had been scant, and her father-in-law fell ill. "In a barter economy such as ours, all is well as long as you don't need to buy anything," she said. The family had nothing to sell, and their savings dried up with the spiralling medical bills.
"My husband and I were forced to come to Delhi to work to send money home to the family," she said. Her father-in-law died months later, but the family requested her husband to stay on in Delhi so that there would always be some cash available to them as a fallback option. It was the same story, she said, among all the families in her village. "Over time, every family has sent at least one son to the city to offset some of the uncertainty in their lives," she said.
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"Farmers in our area have always depended on the rains for irrigation. Our main crop is rice, which needs watering at precise junctures after it has been sowed," she explained. Over the last decade, the monsoon had become increasingly erratic and consequently, the farmers' fortunes. Crop failure had resulted in the loss of so many lives and opportunities in her village that eligible girls no longer wanted to marry farmers. I asked whether any of them practised inter-cropping to hedge their bets on rice. Also, I asked if they used indigenous seed varieties - they were more drought- and pest-resistant.
"I no longer know about the technicalities of farming for I belong to the city now," she smiled ruefully. "Although my husband died five years ago, I am still the family's cash cow, sending them money as and when they need it." Did she miss that connection to the land, I asked. "Whenever I eat the rice from our land, it reminds me of home and the life I once had. But it also reminds me how unstable life is when you don't earn money, and I'm grateful to be working in Delhi."