Where: Gandhinagar settlement, Marathwada
When: Morning
The external wall of Phulabai Pawar’s house features a washing powder advertisement that reads: ‘Keeps your clothes fresh and clean!’ Phulabai is washing dishes in front of this advertisement, using ash.
People in nearby homes are hurrying to send their children to school. While in Phulabai’s house, both her boys are reclining in front of a half-broken television set. “After my husband’s death, neither my parents nor my in-laws were ready to shoulder the responsibility of my children,” she says. “My elder son used to go to a private school, but the fees are Rs. 10,000 a year.
The younger boy used to go to an anganwadi. Now that I have to leave home and go out to work every day, where do I keep my children? I hardly manage to provide food every day. How would I afford the school fees? So, I decided to discontinue their school, and they now accompany me wherever I go,” she says, while her face betrays her guilt at the decision of discontinuing school for her children and also reflects the struggle to provide for them.
Following her husband’s death, Phula has to shoulder the responsibility of domestic work, as well as casual labour that she goes in search of daily. Image by Sanjana Khandare.
Phulabai, now 24, was married at a young age. Vishwas, her elder son is six years old, while Ajay is four. Two years ago, her husband, Nitin Pawar, then 27, a farmer, died by suicide. Life has not been easy for Phulabai ever since. In society’s eyes, as a ‘widow’, she has been pushed to the bottom of the social hierarchy.
“Two years ago, in 2022, the entire Marathwada region saw a severe drought,” she starts, narrating her story. “It was a terribly hot afternoon in May. Like always, I cooked food with the assumption that my husband would come home for lunch. And, as usual, he came home drunk. I served lunch, which he threw away in a fit of rage, and started beating me.” Domestic abuse was a regular feature in the household. This time, around 4 p.m., Phulabai and her children went to her parents’ home. “Then, at around 9 p.m., I received a phone call saying that my husband had died by suicide,” says Phulabai, who starts sobbing as she narrates the incident. She pulls herself together when she notices her children staring at her anguished face.
Nitin owned 2.5 acres of farmland. But since there was not enough rain and groundwater levels were low in Bhosara village of Marathwada, irrigating crops was difficult. Farmers in the village struggled to make the ends meet. Since, he was not getting any yield from his own farm, Nitin decided to mortgage the farm and buy a tractor. His plan was to work the tractor in someone else’s field and earn a living. But with the Marathwada region facing severe drought around the time, other farmers’ fields, were also barren. Nitin took loans to provide for his family. He became anxious and remained tense all the time. The bank notices for loan recovery furthered his anxiety. He was driven to alcoholism and resorted to domestic violence. And then one day, Nitin decided to end his life.
Marathwada records the highest number of farmer suicides. A total of 430 farmers died by suicide in Marathwada till June this year, with Beed, Dharashiv and Nanded districts accounting for the highest number of deaths in the region. In 2023, 1,088 farmers died by suicide in Marathwada and 1,023 died in the same way, in 2022.
Most of these deaths by suicide are in some way linked to agricultural distress. More than 80 percent of Marathwada fields are rain-fed. Irrigation is not widespread. The farmers from this region have been experiencing the unpredictability of climate since the past few years. Sometimes, it’s a year of natural disasters, while another time yield is poor and produce does not fetch even minimum price. Such unpredictable times lead to economic models collapsing and farmers get stuck in a vicious cycle of loans.
Just like other farmer widows, Phulabai has no clue about how much loan her husband had taken or at what rate. Moreover, Nitin’s death was not considered ‘valid’ for his family to receive compensation: Rs. one lakh, which includes Rs. 30,000 cash and the remaining money as fixed deposits in bank. Phulabai has no idea as to what prevented Nitin’s case from being ‘valid’. “They do not tell us anything,” she says. “I have gone to every office looking for answers. I had also given my papers and some money to a fellow villager to take care of his matter, but I have not heard from him yet.”
As Phulabai narrates her tale, she is interrupted by an angry neighbour demanding money that they gave her for everyday expenses. Soon after, Phulabai’s father-in-law appears, demanding for lunch. He has been drinking. “This is an everyday scene. You do not worry at all,” Phulabai tells us and walks to her kitchen.
Where: The cattle shed
When: Afternoon
The tribe calls her ‘Phula’, which means flower. Her life though has wilted away.
Her in-laws have given her a dilapidated room to stay in, following her husband’s death. In exchange, she does all the housework. Phulabai still has to tolerate domestic abuse to keep the roof over her head. To add to that, she faces harassment from men in the village and is a topic for gossip among women.
Phula has finished all her morning chores and has now come to the other side of the settlement, which houses the cattle shed. She tries to earn money by finding casual labour every day. The days when she does not find any work, she works in the cattleshed and cleans it. The cattle shed is also a house for Nitin’s grandmother who is immobile. Phula tends to her needs as well.
“I could not find any work anywhere today, that is why I could spend time with you,” Phula says, while mopping the shed. “Else my day begins at 4 a.m.”.
“I finish all my chores early in the morning and at 7 a.m., I start going from door-to-door, asking them if they need labour for the day. If there is work in anybody’s field, I manage to find my daily bread. However, that is not enough. I often need to cook for my in-laws and other children in the extended family. Some days, my brother-in-law and his wife, provide for my groceries. But if they are not happy with me, I have to fend for myself. This is the price I pay in exchange for this dilapidated house I have been given.”
Phulabai was married right out of school, to Nitin, in 2017. The couple worked on Nitin’s farm, but the weather conditions kept making things worse. “We planned to harvest soybean, but the yield used to suffer every year, sometimes owing to drought, sometimes owing to unseasonal rain. It only went downhill from here, she said, perhaps about the land but reflective of her marriage as well.
Where: Phulabai’s house
When: Evening
After a week of toil and sweat, Phulabai has brought home 10 kilograms of chickpeas. Using the grinding stone, she has manually milled the chickpea, which she plans to dry in the sun. The temperatures are soaring at 40 degrees Celsius. All of us are sweating profusely, including Phula, but she does not stop.
It is 5 pm now. Phula’s milling work is done for the day. She now starts mopping the floor, so that it cools down the heat and they can sleep a little better. The bulb outside her front door stopped working yesterday, so she now has only a single bulb. She puts the bulb in the kitchen while cooking, and moves it to the other room later, where they all sleep. The darkness that consumes Phula’s life, is perhaps reflected in the darkness consuming the house.
Phula’s kitchen features a gas stove, but she has no money to get her gas cylinder re-filled. She has therefore resorted to using firewood to cook her food. “So many things to do, so little money,” she says. “He [Nitin] should not have ended his life. This is a hard life, very hard indeed, but if I do not take care of my children, who will?” Phulabai goes on while cooking dinner. “I am ready to work as hard as needed. But I will not let my children suffer. I sometimes lose hope and also the will to live. But then I think of my children and that thought guides me on.”
As Marathwada dried up in 2016, blackbucks started moving towards the village in search of water. Image by Mahendra Parikh via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Phulabai stepped outside of her vicinity for the first time after her husband’s death. She had not seen anything beyond the three-kilometre radius of her home. “During the first few days, I only cried,” she says. “I used to be constantly sick. I was feeling hopeless and had no clue what to do. But then I realised that it is better to step out of the house and attempt to survive than staying home and starving to death. You see, the society around us has both good and bad elements. Many consider widows to be ‘impure’ of sorts, they don’t have a normal perspective towards us. But I decided to struggle and rise above it. I am still struggling.”
Phulabai is rather unhappy that she does not manage to find work every day. When we asked her the reason behind her not finding work every day, she points to the sky. She is not familiar with any heavy terminology like climate change or the effect of unpredictable weather on agriculture. But she most definitely knows that the climate is not what it used to be, and it has impacted her whole life. Farming in Marathwada is becoming tough by the day. Phula faces problems in finding work as a daily wage labourer in someone else’s field. “How to find sustenance for my children?” is a question she ponders over every day.
This semi-constructed house is home to Phulabai and her two sons. Image by Sanjana Khandare.
Soybean cultivation in Marathwada had been yielding good results, but in the last few years, recurrent drought and unseasonal rain has made life difficult for farmers cultivating soybean. Phula’s husband, too, cultivated soybean on his land, but did not reap any benefits. She says that she, too, is now slowly losing her livelihood to it.
Where: A well located four-kilometre away from the settlement
When: Night
Phula’s day does not end, despite working for the past 16 hours. In fact, now is the time for the most important chore of the day: to fetch water. Access to water is of course not easy. She has to fetch it from a well which is three kilometres away from her home. This is the most stressful job for Phula owing to her head injury as it prevents her from holding heavy cans on her head or even lifting heavy weight, so she uses a bicycle to bring water.
She takes her elder son with her, ties six cans to the bicycle and starts her journey to fetch water.
The only time Phula gets to fetch water is at night, since she looks for casual work during the day. The increasing temperatures require everyone to consume more water than usual, so Phula does four trips to and from the well to her home, using her bicycle. The streetlights vanish after the village border, so Phula and her son walk in the darkness. Her son walking barefoot.
It takes them a while to reach their destination, only to notice that there is no well, but a giant water hose. More women from the adjoining settlements have already reached with their cans. Phula’s turn comes only after the existing 60-65 cans are filled. She fills her share of cans and starts her way back. At around half the distance, a thunderstorm appears out of nowhere. It is a scary night, with strong winds and lightning. Phula is anxious now. “I had kept the grains in my backyard for drying,” she says. “Now if that whole thing gets wet, what do we eat for the entire year?”
By the time she reaches home, the unseasonal showers have begun. Phula immediately moves the grains inside with help from her younger son. In all of this, Phula has totally missed out on having dinner. It is now 11.30 pm. The showers have stopped and her children are asleep. Phulabai cannot sleep though. She shares: “This has been happening for so many months. Sleep is very difficult to come by. After my husband died, I spent two months crying. I would cry every single night. But as my children started growing up, they started comforting me. They come close to me, pat me on my cheek and ask, “Mom, what happened?”. Now, I do not cry so much. But I cannot sleep well. I often have nightmares. I suddenly wake up all drenched in sweat. So, I start watching something on my phone. I doze off sometime during the night, as the videos play on…”
Nitin Pawar, Phula’s husband died in 2022. Image by Sanjana Khandare.
This story is produced under Project Dharitri, a joint undertaking by Asar and Baimanus. Mongabay-India is collaborating with the Project to highlight climate and gender issues.
