CHENNAI: Fighting the scorching heat, the farmers in Pulipakkam village were focused on their daily chores. The sound of a tractor clawing through the barren land reverberated through the entire field. Distorting the commotion came an innocent child’s questions. Like a ploughed field, the harsh realities of the farmers’ personal lives were unveiled in front of her.
“Kuppu has been farming her entire life. She explained to me how she lives without a proper house. She is a widow and the only breadwinner of her family consisting three children. She was unable to do agriculture in her land of almost one acre due to lack of funding,” recollects Shazana Sheriff from her experience five years ago, which she describes as a life-changing one. The 13-year-old city-based social activist began learning and understanding the woes of the farmers in 2018.
Now, taking to words and art, Shazana has condensed her five-year journey into a comic book, Little Shazu’s Farm Tales that’s filled with magic and fantasy.
Comics from curiosity
After learning the problems of the farmers and unlearning the preconceived notions she had about them, Shazanna stumbled upon the idea of publishing a book during the lockdown. “It took around one and a half years for me to finish the book. Whenever I got time from studies, I started listing ideas and drawing comics. I had to recollect my ups and downs and note down my experience with the FAIRTRADE from Germany. The book has 10 chapters where each of them describes a significant event,” she shares.
The book is centred around a little girl named Shazu and Grandpa (an imaginary character) who guides her throughout her journey. “The intention was to inspire more children of my age and below to understand the plight of the farmers. As an artist who got basic colouring skills from Global Art, I viewed my journey as a colourful one. When I wanted to write a book, I couldn’t settle for anything other than a comic book,” says Shazana. The book, published by Emerald Publishers, was launched in December in the presence of Sultan Ahmed Ismail, soil biologist and ecologist, S Amudha Lakshmi, principal, Chettinad Vidyashram, Charath Narasimhan, MD, India Terrain, and Abishek Jani, CEO, FAIRTRADE.
Learning the hardships
Even though Shazana presented her experience in an interesting way, there were a lot of things she learnt by being on the field. She visited farms twice a month, adopted farmers and took care of their farming expenditures. Involving her friends and family in the project, she participated in farming activities. In the span of five years, she realised that there is a need to reach more farmers. This was when Shazana joined the FAIRTRADE, an organisation from Germany working with 1.9 million farmers and 75 countries, to empower farmers.
Being an influencer in their campaign, she constantly researches the problems and solutions for the farmers. “Even though most of the farmers know what is right and what is wrong, the lack of literacy prevents them from accessing information. The dependency on personal loans due to high interest rates of bank loans, obsolete techniques in farming, and bad infrastructure are a few problems they currently face,” says Shazana, adding that agriculture as a profession with an academic skill set is declining in India.
Through her work, the class 8 student of Chettinad Vidyashram hopes to provide knowledge to the young generation and make them understand that their small contributions also matter. She aspires to create a sequel to the comic book, recording her new experiences in detail. “I plan on helping more farmers around the world and inspiring people to make their efforts to build a strong farming community,” concludes Shazana.