
Maun Mela fishing festival and traffic near twin bridges in Uttarakhand
festival · hills
Maun Mela, a traditional community fishing festival held along the Aglar River in the Tehri Garhwal region of Uttarakhand, India.
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V Rajalakshmi knows that repaying her agriculture loan of Rs 3.5 lakh is beyond her. But she realises that she will be harassed by the debt collectors. Trying to draw attention to her plight, the 60-year-old sits at Jantar Mantar with eight skulls arrayed in front of her. These, she claims, are the remains of farmers in Tamil Nadu who, unable to cope with the agrarian crisis, committed suicide. Having sold off her jewellery to survive a failed crop — she only retained a small silver nose pin — the white-haired woman, her face careworn, has been camping at Jantar Mantar with similarly afflicted farmers for a week now. People come, look at the skulls, the green-clad protestors and move on, uncomprehending of the crisis that makes a better future almost impossible for these wretched farmers.
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