Long Live Revolution!

Shrikrishna Kalamb...i don't know his face. no photograph of him is available in internet or anywhere...i don't know any of his poems other than the ones mentioned in the below article... but not really. i know him...i am able to see him...able to see the despair in his eyes... sense the agony in his voice...the voice of the mute 1,50,000 deceased peasants of india...the voice of the voiceless which couldn't penetrate the deafening hysterical noise of the superpower, which has no glamour, only sweat and blood.

excerpts from 'We cultivate pearls, but our children go hungry'

Two days before he hanged himself to death on March 24, fifty-year-old farmer of five acres Shrikrishna Kalamb penned his last poem.

My life
Is different
My death will be like untimely rain.

The cotton in black soil is like a poem to me
Its roots as sweet as sugarcane…

Symbolism and emotions fill the strong poems of Kalamb, who ended himself at his sister's home in Murtijapur town, 25 km from his native village Babhulgaon (Jahangir) in Akola district. Like other farmers, he had debts and responsibility – of marrying five daughters.

Kalamb's life as a poet-farmer and his musings symbolise the agrarian crisis that is wreaking havoc in the countryside, and taking a toll on the farmers. In his striking muse, Vasare (Calves), he pens:
Amhi vasare vasare, muki upasi vasare
gaya panhavato amhi, chor kalatat dhar
tapa tapa gham unarato, unarato bhuivar
moti pikavato amhi, tari upasi lekare

[We are calves, dumb hungry calves
We tend to the cows, thieves walk away with milk and cream
We sweat and sweat on fields
We cultivate pearls, but our children remain hungry]

Soaked in chaste Warhadi, a sweet Marathi dialect in Vidarbha, Kalamb's poems reflect on and resonate with life of an Indian farmer in changing economic order. Through his 50-plus poems, he commented on varied subjects from politics to the social changes, while keeping rural India at the centre of sweeping realities. In one of his poems titled Lek (Daughter), he goes on to showcase the tensions of a father, whose vocation is farming. The poem remains relevant for all times. In Itihaas, he questions ‘Time’ for preserving only the glorious history of rich and mighty, but willfully burying the resilient struggles of millions of poor. Kalamb was determined to die if one goes by his latest musing.

His crisis went well beyond the issue of outstanding bank loans. He could not earn enough to make both ends meet. The loan waiver won't raise his income levels magically. He too had perhaps cracked in the face of a gigantic crisis plaguing not just him alone but his entire farm neighbourhood. He had failed on financial front. There was virtually no income from his five-acre farm. But he owed Rs 20,000 bank loan, and over Rs 50,000 private debt. The private borrowings may be more."He sustained us on that money for ten years. But now, we had little options so he was contemplating selling remaining land," says his eldest daughter, Usha, 20. "He had asthma and would not work hard in the fields," she says.

Another major worry for Kalamb was the marriages of his daughters, his bereaved wife Rukmini reveals. "He was also sad that Usha was saddled by the family responsibilities and had to cut short her education," she says. On that fateful day, Kalamb tied up a rope to a door beam and kept tryst with it. People saw him walk into his room, but did not suspect his intentions. Says Vivek, his nephew, proudly reciting a few of his poems in remembrance, "It's difficult to fathom that the man who always supported others ended himself in isolation."

"A mass clinical depression is silently sweeping the farmers of Vidarbha", warns Dr Sujay Patil, a leading psychiatrist in Akola. Dr Patil offers a free treatment and counseling to farmers suffering from depression with roots in economic slide. Millions of farmers, he fears, are suffering silently from mental instability owing to a long prevailing economic depression. "It won't subside merely with waiver; the issue of income will have to be addressed seriously," he insists. Nearly 50 farmers have taken their own lives in Vidarbha from Holi festival on March 21, and more than 250 since January this year.

"He would hold us in rapt attention and sometime in tears, when he would recite his poems," remembers Vitthal. Usha has carefully rewritten all her father's poems in a register and wishes to see it published in the form of a collection.She says: "My father died as a farmer, in perpetual debt and worries. But he lived as a poet, and will remain immortal in his poems."

Also Read Manufacturing A Food Crisis, a must read article, to know who killed kalamb.