In just the first week of September, 32 farmers have killed themselves.
Shashikhant Mule, a farmer, committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in his barren field last week in a village in Maharashtra's Latur district. He was only 26. His 19-year-old pregnant wife is too stunned to react, her elder sister is inconsolable and his 70-year-old father, who had to cremate his young son, is yet to come to terms with the tragedy.
"The people he took a loan from... ," said Laxman Mule, Shashikant's farmer, suddenly breaking down. "How could he return?
Deva, o deva... o deva," he said, echoing the many stories of debt and death in the drought-hit Marathwada region.
Haltingly, Shashikant's wife Varsha said that there had been no harvest for the past three years and though the family owned six acres of land, the drought had pushed them to poverty. Unable to repay private loans amounting to over Rs 1.5 lakh, Shashikant, his family said, simply gave up.
Shashikant's is part of the suicide statistics that should worry the state government, given the alarming rise in suicides recently.
In just the first week of September, 32 farmers killed themselves. Compare that to the figures collated till August 10 when the weekly average was almost half, at 17, with 555 farmers having committed suicide in the region. By September 7, 660 farmers had killed themselves whereas in 2014, the figure was lower at 574.
But after travelling over 1,000 kilometres in four districts of Marathwada, the situation seems to be much worse in neighbouring north Karnataka, also reeling under drought.
Even though the BJP-led Maharashtra government has not declared a drought yet, water is being supplied to villages via tankers. But in Congress-ruled Karnataka, there's a stark difference on the ground, especially in the border region.
"Karnataka government has officially declared a drought, but we are not being supplied drinking water, whereas just 10 kilometres away is Maharashtra and there, villages are being supplied water. If Maharashtra can, why can't Karnataka," a member of the village panchayat or council in Hulsoor village angrily asked.