Many reasons to cry, they find one that brings a smile

 Vishav Bharti

Dhaner (Barnala), January 22

Paddy sowing was at its peak when Harbhajan Singh left home in the evening to work in the fields. He never returned. Four months later, the seeds he had sown bloomed into beautiful paddy fields. It was evening again when his elder brother Harcharan Singh left home to start harvesting of the crop. He too never returned. The family saw two suicides in 2014.

Their widows, Kamaljeet Kaur and Veerpal Kaur, bravely narrate the sequence of events. They don’t cry; instead, what comes out is their noteworthy resolve to pick up pieces and carry on.  

“They had left behind a debt of Rs 10 lakh,” says Kamaljeet Kaur. The two widows are determined to pay the debt back. They have sold off seven buffaloes and a cow, and given their 4-acre land on lease.

“Harbhajan was not like any other distressed farmer, he was the leader of our village,” recalls Manjit Singh Dhaner, a prominent farmer leader who lives in the same village.

“He might have been the leader to the outside world, but was a shattered man inside,” confides his wife Kamaljeet. “He would often say how he could not handle all this (endless cycle of debt),” she adds. She puts up a brave face, and despite wanting to cry, doesn’t. “Main ohnu kehndi si tu eh kam ni karna, jo hou dekhi jau (I would always tell him not to think of giving up, that we will struggle through).” But, she could foresee the end.

As a first step to take charge of the situation, she decided that the kids won’t study in a private school in Raikot (the town nearest to the village) and were enrolled in the village government school. The step was taken despite the fact that Harbhajan would always tell his two children to study otherwise they would suffer like him.

Harbhajan was the one who would deal with the moneylenders and take care of all financial transactions. “The sowing was at its peak. He had brought a drum of diesel the same evening, then left home for the field. That is when I saw him the last time,” she says.

In the morning, when a boy from the neighbourhood took tea for him, he found him lying in the field. “It must have been a very painful death. He was lying on the ground. An empty bed was lying by the side,” says Dhaner, who was one of the first to reach the spot.

The entire village extended support to the family and sowed the fields within days.

It is Harcharan’s wife Veerpal Kaur’s turn to tell her story. She takes time to gather herself: “He could never come out of the shock of his younger brother’s death.”

It was the evening after Diwali, “and he was preparing to go for harvesting. ‘Don’t get food for me today’ were his last words before he left for the field”.

She says she asked her son Simranpreet to get dinner for him nevertheless. Then Veerpal Kaur plunges into her thoughts, and a strange smile appears on her face. “You know, when Simranpreet was young, he had planted a jamun sapling in our field. It almost simultaneously grew up with him. It was fully grown up. He hanged himself from the same tree.” There is silence again.

Behind the framed pictures of both brothers on a shelf are pictures of family celebrations. “What had they sown? What did they harvest?” Dhaner points at the wall. He is furious, “Why do only sons of farmers commit suicide? Has anyone heard of sons of employees or moneylenders or politicians committing suicide?”

The conversation ends.

As I am about to leave, Kamaljeet Kaur springs a surprise. She says that Harcharan’s daughter’s wedding is scheduled for next week and invites me. “Aapni guddi da viah hai 29 nu, tusi zaroor aayo (our daughter is getting married on 29th, you must come),” she smiles for the first time. Brave woman. Brave women, all of them.