Rural struggle for survival as mother and daughter race to save harvest from monsoon rains
Photo Collected
As storm clouds gathered over the fields of Jotgorib in Tanore upazila last Wednesday, 25-year-old Kalpana Khalko raced against the encroaching darkness to secure her harvest. Accompanied by her 10-year-old daughter, Brishti Kujur, Kalpana scrambled to move bundles of drying paddy onto higher ground before the rain could wash away their livelihood. For Kalpana, the frantic dash was not merely an act of agricultural urgency, but a snapshot of the unrelenting struggle that defines her daily existence.
Kalpana’s journey is one of resilience in the face of deep economic hardship. Originally from Rajbari village in Nachole, she is the second wife of Parimal Kujur. The family’s stability was shattered years ago when Parimal was severely injured in a road accident, rendering him unable to perform the manual labor required to support his household. Following the accident, Parimal’s first wife departed for India with their two children, leaving Kalpana to shoulder the responsibility of caring for his children from that previous marriage, alongside her own son and daughter.
বিজ্ঞাপন
With no land of her own, Kalpana leases two bighas of farmland under a sharecropping agreement, committing four maunds of paddy per bigha to the landlord. Cultivation is a costly gamble; she pays 100 taka per hour for water from deep tube wells, a process that required an entire night of irrigation just to prepare the soil. Despite these overheads and a modest yield from the BRRI-76 rice variety—estimated at approximately 15 maunds per bigha—she remains the primary provider for her family.
While her husband now manages a small tea stall near their home, the physical burden of farming falls squarely on Kalpana. She remains steadfast in her commitment to her children’s future, particularly for her daughter, Brishti. Defying common cultural pressures within her community to arrange early marriages for young girls, Kalpana insists that she will wait until her daughter reaches adulthood before considering marriage.
বিজ্ঞাপন
Forty minutes after the race against the elements began, the rain finally descended upon the fields. By then, the mother and daughter had successfully secured their harvest, piling the bundles safely onto the ridge of the field. It was a brief, breathless victory in a long-standing battle for survival, marking another day in Kalpana’s quiet but defiant fight to sustain her family.
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