“For as long as I can remember, mother never took a day off. Father slept all day and got drunk and beat her at night, but she would be back in the fields the next morning.”

Jagyani Sravanthi’s mother Gongalla Vijaya, a farmer, killed herself in December 2016 in Ramnagar Thanda near Jangalapally in Telangana’s Jayashankar Bhupalapally district. Telangana recorded the largest number of suicides among women farmers in 2015, according to the National Crime Records Bureau of India. Data for 2016 is still awaited.

From a recent assignment for OPEN magazine, working on an issue extremely close to my heart- India’s agrarian crisis. Please read the story by V Shoba here.

Devotees observing penance for Lord Ayyappan of Sabarimala in Kerala, bathed in the Cauvery behind the musician-saint Tyagaraja’s samadhi in Thiruvaiyaru near Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu.

Raghavan, 10, a sixth-generation descendant of Tyararaja, does his Sandhyavandanam rituals in the morning by the samadhi of the saint in Thiruvaiyaru near Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu.

Dr. Rama Kausalya, 67, teaches music to underprivileged kids at her Marabu Foundation in Thillaisthanam near Thiruvaiyaru in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu.

Tyagaraja Sharma, 36, a fifth-generation descendant of Tyagaraja, performs morning puja at the saint’s samadhi in Thiruvaiyaru in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu.

Devotees light lamps at the Brihadeeswarar temple on the occasion of Karthigai Somavaram (Monday in the month of Karthika) in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu.

Raghavan, 10, a sixth-generation descendant of Tyagaraja, sets up lights on the kolam on the occasion of Karthigai festival in front of their house at Thiruvaiyaru near Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu.