Graves of Cotton

In India’s family-run cotton fields, a lethal concoction of debt, drought and despair has led to a nationwide epidemic of suicide by forlorn farmers.

Photos by Fernando Molina Cortés

Rahul Udebham’s wife tells me about the morning before it all happened, when the loan shark came to claim payment of all the debts, how he paced like mad among the cotton plants screaming: “If you don’t pay, this land will be mine!”