POLA IS THE HARVEST FESTI-val in Maharashtra. On this day every August, farmers in the agricultural belts of the state bathe their buffaloes, paint their horns and parade them around their villages. As the villagers of Bhadumri (in western Vidarbha) were busy sprucing up their cattle in August 2006, 35-year-old Anil Shende, a marginal farmer, staggered out of his two-room mud hut and collapsed. The father of two toddlers, Shende had gulped down a bottle of pesticide. He owed about Rs 70,000 to moneylenders and another Rs 15,000 to the local co-operative bank. His 24-year-old wife, Vandana, was away at her mother's house in Adilabad to celebrate Rakhsa Bandhan. By the time she rushed back to Bhadumn, her husband was no more. Her woes were just beginning. Like many poor people, Vandana could not afford to grieve for long. She had four mouths to feed, including her ageing mother-in-law and the two children. Vandana began to do rounds of the local tehsil office to get "relief". After seven months and several trips to the nearest town, she received a cheque for Rs 10,000 from the Prime Minister's National Relief fund. That cheque, she claims, bounced. The Government of India, which presides over a trillion-dollar economy and plays proud landlord to 53 greenback billionaires, could not honour a cheque for a little over $250 (Rs 10,000). A few more trips and lots of outrage from local NGOs and the media later, she finally got "relief". Last fortnight, Union Minister for Panchayat Raj, Youth Welfare and Sports Mani Shankar Aiyar visited her. "He asked questions and took notes... like you," says Vandana, with an ironic smile. She now works at a cotton farm, earning a little over Rs 20 a day. Two lanes away, 27-year-old Sunanda Bhindare continues to work on her nine-acre plot sowing cotton. Her husband committed suicide in early 2006. When moneylenders began to land up at home demanding the money he owed them (close to Rs 50,000), he killed himself. His wife used most of the cash she received as relief to square off the debts. Bhadumri is not the only village with such hard-luck stories. Hundreds of villages in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra have reported cases of multiple suicides. Between 2001 and the end of January 2008, close to 4,000 farmer suicides were reported in the western Vidarbha region, which includes Amaravati, Akola, Yavatmal, Buldana, Washim and Wardha districts. Most of these suicides