For farmers of the delta region of Tamil Nadu, the biggest festival of the year is naturally the harvest festival — Pongal. For each farmer, it is like a wedding in the family — the preparations are joyous and go on for three days.
Not this year, though. This year, Pongal was a dull, lacklustre affair in the rice bowl of Tamil Nadu. With the failure of both monsoons, which wet the lands and enable the water-intensive paddy planting process, coupled with the lack of Cauvery water, farmers have been traumatised. First, their short-term crop kuruvai failed, and then, so too did the long-duration paddy crop of samba, just as the farmers feared. Faced with mounting debts, the inability to pay them back and literally zero yield in some cases, farmers have been pushed to the brink. Pongal was no occasion to celebrate, at a time when the State is arguably witnessing its worst drought in recent times.

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