In the Name of the Farmer

Speckled Spud was really excited. “I can’t wait, I can’t wait! We’ll be out in a few days!” Momma Spud was not so ungrateful- “Well, this was home, a nice home,” she said, looking around at the womb-like granular clods loosely packing them in. “Yes, it is cosy,” conceded Speckled Spud, “but not so airy, wouldn’t you agree?” Coco Spud, so called because of her darker shade, sniffed, “ . . . I wanna breathe . . . dollops and dollops of air!” She smacked her lips, as if the air was actually creamy

fluffy strawberry ice-cream, and she could taste it. Shorty Spud, with a tuft on the head, listened round-eyed and wonderstruck, all the while brushing the sleeve of his brown jacket against his body. They were all in a dress rehearsal . . . brushing and preening and admiring themselves in their brown jackets. Waiting to surface and move about the outside world, however brief that outing might be. Nosy Spud was ecstatic, “What fun to be carried in trucks, to cold storages, then open markets! Roll about in the heat and dust of stalls!” Portly Spud piped in, “Oh yay yay yay, we’re the raresome / We’re the winsome.” Jingle Spud joined the fun, “Hop we on to tables, please we all menus, rule we all curries.” And the chorus of spuds joined in, “For the curry in a hurry / you need potatoes merry / In jackets or packets / we please all palates / Ain’t we dainty, and ain’t we beloved?  / Ain’t we beloved / and ain’t we aplenty?”

            Who would have thought spuds had names, and families, and emotions! They all seemed the same, in their brown jackets. You looked close, and then you saw that each one had a slightly different shape than the last one . . . mmmmm . . . hmmmm!

            It was then that the waters poured in! At first there was just some seepage. Then there was a trickle. Slowly the trickle turned into a deluge. Huddled together in the warmth of the soil, the spuds could not make out the calamity at first. The water levels rose and rose. Rosy Spud, so fair in colour, squealed as her brown jacket was almost peeled away by the rush of water. Soldier Spud and his Lady tried to be brave and remain upright. But eventually, all the spuds were waddling and bobbing in the flood.

            Overhead, the dam waters had burst the half-repaired dyke and entered the fields and villages. Mobile phones were ringing shrilly. The sarpanches were a bewildered lot. Egged on by villagers, they made frantic calls to the dam officials, “Sarkaar, maai-baap, do something, our fields are flooded by the dam waters! Please stop the release of waters, or we shall perish with our children, maai-baap! This crop is what we sell to earn our livelihood!” The officials could not care less. “What can we do?” they hollered down their phones, “didn’t you need water for irrigation? That's what we’re giving you, ungrateful wretches.” “B..b..but the dam was full and overflowing with recent rains, Saar! There is too much water, our fields are flooded!” Kishore’s father wailed into the phone. “And the dyke, the embankment . . . ” he sobbed, overcome with the misfortune. Sarpanch Rai took over the phone, “The dyke was only half-repaired, the embankment gave way! Please do something,” the sarpanch begged with folded hands, clutching the phone in his hands, as if the dam official could see him. “Oh that, that is not our problem! You have to talk to the Irrigation Department for that, we don’t do these things,” the official was happy to pass the buck, and twirled his moustache in self-satisfaction. He overflowed with the suggestions, “Call the Zilla Parishad, too. And yes, someone at the State Secretariat should listen to you.” Soon the local politicians of several hues had waded into the potato war, blaming each other for the dykes that gave way.

            The distraught farmers knew better than to sit around, waiting for official help to arrive. Tears streaming down their eyes, aai, baba, aaji, ajoba, bhau, mama, mami, mavshi, kaka, kaki, atya, aatoba, taai, mulga, mulgi, the oldest and the youngest, ran into the fields, waded around in knee-deep waters and felt around with their fingers in the flooded soil, pulling out the inundated spuds. Aaji’s gnarled fingers would curl with pain feeling around in the water, ajoba would feel his varicose veins bursting as he stood in knee-deep water for hours, fishing for the spuds. Little Krishna, Jyoti, Parvati, Satya would break out in fun and frolic, splashing in the water ever so often. But the grim glares and helpless stares of the elders would soon make them remember the urgent task at hand, and they would nudge each other into submission. Spud after spud was pulled out and transported in countless plastic packets that were later opened, and the spuds spread out to dry in the sun, in the hope of recovering the crop at least partially.

            Scarcely had the bitter potato-generated wars died down, when the Spud Kingdom was engulfed by another scandal. Bigha after bigha produced a potato crop of misshapen tubers! A fair number of the abnormal crops looked like twisted ginger roots. The rest looked like clay dolls, having heads and lumpy hands and feet. The farmers were stunned at their look. Stricken with fear and awe, they felt as if some divine curse had descended on them. As Vitthal cycled down the village road, Raghu hailed him, “Bhau, did you find any buyers at the town?” Vitthal kept his eyes low, shook his head, and cycled on. No one wanted to buy the crops. “Should we be eating them?” the panic-stricken villagers asked each other. The elderly slowly and sadly shook their heads, “Who knows what cursed seed they have come from?” Only, a couple of days later, in the scorching mid-day sun, came the sound “thup thup thup/ thup thup thup.” Unable to let her kids go hungry anymore, Rani had boiled the potatoes and was mashing them with her fist with some oil, salt, green chilly and onion slivers mixed in, to be served up as balls with boiled rice to her famished, wailing kids. In the evening, Suman, Nishi, Durga whirled about in the courtyards: “Let’s play with dolls.” “Let’s pretend they are Khandoba and Yellamma.” “Hey, get those funny spuds, we’ll stick incense sticks in them and pretend it’s the temple of God,” the children laughed merrily, and suited words to action.

            The huge Peepul tree in the middle of the village was the regular conference hall of the villagers. Phone calls had been exchanged between the state and central level ministers. Preliminary investigation had found that the farmers had bought the potato seeds from Raval, a local unauthorised seed seller. Raval, in turn, had sourced the seeds from a seed trader in a far away province. “Those are demon seeds, brother,” elderly farmer Naresh wheezed angrily to Raval, “you did us wrong by selling them to us!” For further research, the seeds had been sent to the nearby agricultural university, but the verdict was already known- the devilish seeds had produced those hellish malformed spuds, heaping genetic indignities on the entire Spud Kingdom. Even the spuds pinched themselves and their malformed brethren in disbelief, then slowly rolled away in aversion.

            The moment of truth had arrived. Raval was pronounced guilty; the farmers were no less to blame, they should have sourced their seeds from an authorised seller. However, there was a way out. Raval must ask the original seed trader in the far away province to buy the entire crop within one week, failing to do which, the seed trader must pay the cost of the crop as compensation to the farmers. Over 100 bighas had been affected; each bigha produced 50 quintals of potato crop at Rs. 900/- per quintal of wholesale price.

            The farmers chattered excitedly, “Of course, there was hope!”

“Look at how the guilty have been punished!”

“Even if we get back two-thirds of the price . . .”

            Raval knew. Raval slowly edged out of the crowd, head bowed low. He had to call the trader, inform him about the huge payment he had to make- an ordinary trader like himself, who had procured the seeds, not having a degree in genetics; not anticipating that if the crops failed somehow, those that were in power would force ordinary citizens to pay compensation, wash their hands off the whole affair.

            Dainik Andolan had been calling the district SDO’s office the past three days, for an interview on the fate of the potato crop failure and intended civilian-sourced compensation. The SDO was unreachable.

            In a far away province, the nagada was pounding hard. Girls sang love-songs in the mustard fields, swinging on improvised swings. Huge bonfires were crackling with nuts and goodies thrown in, to celebrate the onset of Holi. In a small two-storied house, Hansraj breathed a last sigh, remembered his Parmatma, took a deep breath and kicked off the stool . . .

Glossary:

sarpanches: elected heads of Gram Panchayats in India

sarkaar: government; also a term of respect for someone in authority

maai-baap: parents

aai, baba, aaji, ajoba, bhau, mama, mami, mavshi, kaka, kaki, atya, aatoba, taai: Marathi words for various relatives

mulga, mulgi: boy, girl in Marathi

bigha: Indian measurement of land

Khandoba and Yellamma: names of Indian god and goddess

Dainik Andolan: The Daily Agitation

nagada: drum

Parmatma: God

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About the Author:

Mandakini Bhattacherya is currently an Associate Professor of English at Fakir Chand College, Diamond Harbour, affiliated with the University of Calcutta in West Bengal, India. She is a multi-lingual poet composing in English, Hindi, Punjabi and Bengali, literary critic and translator. She was awarded the Philosophique Poetica International Achievement Award ‘Master of the Word’ in recognition of her poetry by Philosophique Poetica and Grand Productions Canada at the World Poetry Conference, Bathinda, Punjab, in 2019, and ‘Master of Creative Impulse’ at World Poetry Conference, Chandigarh, 2020. She was invited by Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi and participated in the All India Young Writers’ Meet organised by it in February, 2020. She is Associate Editor of the ‘Muse of Now Paradigm’ anthology (AuthorsPress, 2020).  She is content editor for UGC Online Refresher Course, and Joint Secretary of Proyas, a women’s NGO in Kolkata. Her areas of interest include Post-colonialism; Feminism; Dalit Literature; African-American Literature; Film, and Theatre.