Farmer Suicide Stories
These stories were created as a part of a collaborative graphic novel spearheaded by Prof. Shilpa Ranade and
funded by the Damroo Project. Her team along with the help of a local NGO were able to identify 16 families where
the sole bread winner, the farmer, had committed suicide. They visited the VIdarbha region and stayed there for
a few days to interact with the surviving members to get a sense of what their life was like and their other struggles.
All these interactions were captured as interviews & candid photos and documented as a library. 16 artists were
identified to work with these different stories.
They had to read up on the issues faced by farmers in this region. One of the primary causes of the suicide was
the BT Cotton Seed - produced by Monsanto. It failed in yielding a good crop, required more pesticides, resulting
in large farming loans which were un-repayable, invariably leading to a vicious circle that was difficult to break.
There was a spate of suicides committed by farmers who were drowning in debts.
This novel is an attempt to understand the impact on the family after a farmer's death: What does the wife do?
How do the children manage? What happens to the elderly?I worked on two separate stories. Since these were
local stories from the farming belts I wrote them bilingually. I have written the stories and illustrated them as well.
'The setting sun' (Hindi and English) & My kind of God (Marathi and English).
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
