Ilaa

Close to the city of Paithan, in a small village called Sauviragram, which lay along the banks of the great river Godavari, lived a woman named Ilaa. Being cotton farmers, her family was well to do, but not among the richest in their area. It was the harvest season, and cotton had to be picked from the plants. The wholesalers and traders from Paithan would be arriving in just a few weeks, carrying gold and goods for barter. They would exchange what they carried for the cotton that the farmers grew. The bales of cotton had to be ready in time! Work was at its peak!

But Ilaa was not to be found in the fields. She wasn't working. Instead, she was sitting by the banks of the great river Godavari.

'I am sick of this!' she grunted loudly.

"I don't want to do this anymore!" she screamed not caring if anyone heard her.

Ilaa was the sole breadwinner of her family. A couple of years ago, her family were one of the richest and happiest families in sauviragarm. Her father, brother and she would work hard and cultivate cotton to sell it for a good price to the traders from Paithan. They also had enough money in hand to hire two labourers, which resulted in more cultivation and better harvest. But those days were gone. Ilaa's father was now old and sick. He couldn't work in the fields any longer due to asthma. Ilaa's brother had fallen victim to dysentery which ultimately resulted in his death. Due to shortage of money they had to now let go off the labourers. Now, Ilaa alone had to work day and night to earn bread for her family. She alone had to plough the land to sow the seeds, get water from the nearby well to irrigate the plants and harvest the cotton. She had to take care that the rains didn't flood her crops. She had to do so much work all by herself. It was May now; the crops had to be harvested. She hated the job of harvesting the most. It was too much of boring back-breaking work. Her back was sore from working continuously picking cotton balls. She had come by the riverside to rest and to eat the food, her mother had packed.

"I work so hard all day for picking these cotton balls, filling them in gunny bags and keeping them in the shed. I don't even have time to sing songs and play on the swings. I work day and night for earning every coin and all this for what? No trader even looks at a woman selling cotton." thought Ilaa.

There were many farmers who sold cotton to the traders from Paithan. But Ilaa was the only woman selling cotton in the market. Ilaa's cotton was of very good quality and she would have gotten a good price for it, had she not been a woman. No one appreciated a woman selling goods in the market full of men. She was looked down by everyone. Some ridiculed her, some insulted her and some gave her looks full of pity, but no one even looked at her goods. She would have to sell the cotton to Bansi like last year. Bansi was a big farmer who bought goods from poor small farmers and sold it at higher rates to the traders from Paithan. She hated this time of the year. She had to sell her cotton at a lower rate, and why; only because she was a woman. If she had worked hard like every other farmer, why shouldn't she get the right price for her cotton? This hypocrite attitude made her blood boil.

She finished her food, but she didn't feel like getting up. She loved the banks of Godavari. Sitting here gave her ultimate peace. She remembered how her brother and she would play along the river when they were kids. He would pull her hair and undo her plaits just to get an irritated response from her. How she wished he was here to do the same today. Everything would be fine had he been here. Her mother wouldn't cry silent tears every night; her father wouldn't look at his son's belongings all day and expect a miracle to happen. Most of all, she would have someone to lean on, someone to share her problems with. But Ilaa wasn't one of those people who would blame things on fate. She believed that a person writes his/her own destiny.

"I won't lose hope. I won't give up. I will harvest the cotton and sell it to the traders all by myself. I will make people look beyond my gender. I will make people look at my work and then judge me." she thought to herself, took a long breath in and got up to go to her field.