"I'm as mad as Hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!". Remember Howard Beale's utterance from 'Network'? I felt like opening the windows and screaming the same yesterday, after watching a small documentary on the condition of farmers in certain parts of the Deccan. I felt ashamed at myself for whining about an hour of power outage, a lost girlfriend or the crowd at McDonald... the typical problems in my life! I felt enraged at conveniently ignoring the real world out there and distancing myself from the situations for which I am equally responsible.A lot of farmers in the Deccan take loans to buy seeds, fertilizers and the like, to cultivate their land. Sometimes a lot of things go wrong, from bad weather to death of farm animals and he ends up having less produce. When he wants to sell, all he gets is the ridiculously low prices offered by cunning middlemen. Unable to even payback the loan and forced to buy food for their living, most of them end up taking more loans from local landlords at high interest rates. The interest rates prevailing in the region will put even the credit card companies to shame. The landlords are clever. They know that these poor farmers will not be able to pay back the loan, so they enter into other kind of agreements. There are farmers who have literally sold their children to these landlords for a few years. The kids are supposed to work at the landlord's house or fields till the landlord feels that the loan money has been retrieved.
I don't know THE solution for problems like these. But I think I am also responsible to react to issues like these. How can I always enjoy the comforts of the society and never give anything back?
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