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Ajay Kumar, 28, was a farmer in Ramgiri village, in Chitradurga district in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, who took his own life on 25 July, 2014. He had been married for six months.
His father, 54-year-old Pradeep Kumar, wanted him to study and had taken out a loan of 500,000 rupees (£5,000) to pay for it. However, like many in rural India, unable to get a good job after finishing his studies in 2005, Ajay Kumar found a temporary and poorly paid post in the food and supplies department at a neighbouring district administrative office. His monthly salary was 5,000 rupees and he was not paid regularly.
After a year, given the family's poor financial situation, Ajay tried farming in his village. The family had four acres of land, used largely for cultivating barley, but they did not yield much as water was short.
The family decided to plant 500 betel nut trees. Betel is chewed in India as a mild stimulant and is a favoured cash crop. A tree takes around six years for the plants to bear fruit.
The family took out further loans from Primary Land Development bank (100,000 rupees), the Canara bank (350,000 rupees) and 500,000 rupees from local moneylenders, and the money was mainly used to construct two bore wells for water.
One failed, while the other was partly successful.
Last year, the interest payments reached 200,000 rupees. After paying for pesticides, fertilisers and equipment, the revenue from the betel nuts was not enough to pay off even half the loans.
As pressure from the banks and moneylenders built up, Ajay took his own life. His father said: "My son was educated and yet he chose to do farming which has been our family's traditional livelihood. But he just had no support from anyone. He was innocent and hardworking. I blame the system and the banks for putting so much pressure. Every day we sit down to eat we remember our son. We feel terrible."
In Karnataka, the law states that if a farmer has taken their own life because of crop failure or an inability to pay off a debt, the loan will be cancelled. But in this case the loans were in the name of Ajay's mother. As a result the family is still under pressure to pay off the debts.
Kumar said: "My son was ambitious and always wanted to do something new. He was a quiet boy and hardly spoke to anyone. He was under stress and used to ask: 'Father what should I do?' I used to console him by saying things will be all right. But I never thought he would take his life."
Six farmers have killed themselves in the village in the last three years.
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