"Legend of a farmer" .....contd 

With this powerful story he (Uncle) had enlightened the wit among us people listening to him. Every day every moment has to end. With the conclusion of the story and this day, with fresh assuring inspiration, most of the visitors left. We didn’t want to lose any sight of him. We simply followed wherever he went. The following day, he was invited by one of our relatives. Knowing his presence other people had gathered at our relatives. Those people were so keen to acquaint with him. As usual he told him about his days in Bombay. We could see, how pleased he was to meet all these people. We decided to return during the mid-day. It was about 2 hours of walk to our home. My sister and me had accompanied him to our relatives. This was quite an opportunity for us to listen to his stories again. It was also a long walk. He decided to tell a tale of a farmer, whose circumstances transformed him from a meager farmer to a rich aristocratic royal physician. 
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This farmer lived in a far away village, a small community of farmers. One can imagine how harsh it is for a farmer if the weather doesn’t assure any rain and moisture. Well, unfortunately this farmer had to go through all these cruel moments. The only means of income he had was his farm and the harvests he attained from his land. He was hardly able to sustain his family and himself through these incomes. How hard he worked, he was not able to fulfill even the basic requirements.


Though not owning enough land, he was satisfied working on a land that could produce very little. But as time changed the limited income was not enough for him to lead a happy life. In an ultimatum, he had no other choice than borrowing money from the people, assuring them that he will end up paying interest as well. There was no sign of fulfilling his promise to pay his entire debt because of the interest rates. Searching for an alternative, he had to opt to work for others. However his hard work in the sunny heat only could give him little excuse to high burdensome debt.

Though a farmer, he was bestowed with abilities to cure people. Being a physician, he used his skills by treating people with health problems without any cost. 

With the roll of time, his financial circumstances even worsened, with no signs of further way out this pitfall. With the increment of time, his debt also added. Time had passed for this unfortunate being, but another catastrophe befell upon. What does a farmer expect from his land; enough crops to produce and plentiful of rain for his crops. On these conditions, just suppose how it would be when he is not able to harvest and produce anything. Life betrayed one more time for this man. His village was lodged with this far long drought and without any harvest; he was drowning in this pool of poverty.
Even the monsoon rain had decided to depart him. This dry weather assisted as a catalyst to his on going problem. With no crops to produce, he could neither feed his family nor had any chance to earn something from it. He even had to request his landlord for some leniency on his demands, and even to provide some food. The situation worsened everyday. He was not the only one in his village with depleted food sources. So there was no chance of borrowing foods from his villagers. When he came home everyday, there was nothing expect beside his children’s weary crave for something to eat. This was a terrible situation for a father to see his children in this state. Being not able to endure wounding circumstances, one-day he talked to his wife about his trip to the city for jobs. After a long talk they were decided on his decision to leave for the city.  Contd .........

Kamal Bhusal
Bellevue, Nebraska.

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