What is the measure of a farmer’s life—his boundless love, his hard-work, or, perhaps, merely the rate of potatoes?
“Harvest” is a poem written by Kedarnath Singh, an Indian poet whose poems, through simple imagery, conveyed complex themes. This poem also begins with a memory, which leads the reader to a series of images, all very poignant. Singh writes:
I knew him for years —
A middle-aged farmer
A bit tired
A little bent
Not because of any burden
But merely because of the customary gravitation of earth
Which he loved so much
He believed
There place in this world for all —
Dogs, cats, pigs
This is why he had no hatred
For mud, moss, or waste
Thus, at the very beginning, Singh establishes what he remembers of the farmer. It is a picture everybody could relate to because our minds fetch the same details instinctively when the word ‘farmer’ is uttered. He is a middle-aged man, who, at the first would look tired and beaten. However, his stoop, his haggardness is not because of the burdens he carries — which are many — but because his connection to the soil.
A farmer cannot be separated from the land he cultivates; over the years he has become one with it. It gives him reason for celebration, and sometimes, for grief. It is his love for soil that he loves everything on it, it is his understanding of the cycle of seasons and of the lives of earthworms and other minute creatures that fills him with immense kindness and benevolence and with the belief that there is place on this earth for everyone.
He liked sheep
Wool is important — he believed
But he used to say —
Even more important is the warmth of their udders
Which make even the stones in the fields come to life.
His was a small world
Filled with small dreams and pebbles
In that world lives ancestors
And even babies they who were not yet born
Mahua was his friend
Mango, his God
Bamboo and gum tree, his folks, his parents
And yes, also in that world was a small, dry river
Which he sometimes wanted to pick on his shoulders
And carry to Ganga
So that he could merge the two again
But thinking of Ganga
He became powerless
A farmer values everything not just for the value they give him, but for the reason that they have an existence of their own. Animals and plants are not just beings that would help him earn a profit, but a part of his small world. In a greedy world which only seeks benefit and return, a farmer loves fruits and flowers and rivers for the sole reason that they present around him.
Since some years
When round potatoes broke the soil and peeked through roots
Or when the crops were ripe and ready
He became quiet for some reason
For many days, his vehicle,
Of the gigantic wheels of sunrise and sunset,
Stopped at this juncture
But they say —
That day was Sunday
And that day he was happy
He went to a neighbor
And enquired about the rates of potatoes
Laughingly, his wife asked him —
How would be milk bush flowers for prayers?
He said to a dog barking on the streets —
‘Be happy, spotted one,
Be happy!’
And he went out
Where?
Why?
Where was he going —
This is the only debate on media now
What happened there
As soon as he reached a turn in the road
A honk sounded from behind
And they say — because none of them saw —
That it passed crushing him
Was this a murder
Or a suicide — I leave this on you
He is now lying on the roadside
Among the leaves of tora grass
Suppressed on his lips
Is a slight smile
That day he was happy
The poem suddenly turns, and his love, his kindness, his connection to the soil, all fail to save him. The rate of potatoes became the measure of his life in the end. The media, the world, unaware of a farmer’s existence, suddenly start asking questions after his life is reduced to the price of a season’s harvest.
