In the sweltering fields of India, men and women bend as they have for millenia to the task of weeding their small plots. Their backs ache, their hands bleed. They squint against the sun and pray to gods great and small for rain, for good prices, for a better future as they watch their children crawl laughing through the fields they must someday break their backs coaxing into green life.

Times are hard for India's cotton farmers. Not as hard as they once were, when there were years when drought and locust claimed everything and the weak gave up their food for others. Not as hard as the years of famine, when the cotton was sucked into the maw of Britain's war machine and the food went to the armies fighting over who would control these poor people bent to their task, who were begging for rice and receiving the bayonet.

Today, there are new seeds in the cotton fields. They promise ease and bountiful yields. The plants grow strong and tall, they bloom and produce beautiful pods. But they require more water, they require special poisons to kill the weeds. Perhaps the farmer does not bend as much to pull weeds now. But when the wind stirs the soil, its taste is foul and sharp, and the baby's cough carries a new note of fatigue. The village chairman who controls the well has raised his prices. He eyes the farmer's daughter greedily.

"Take all the water you need," the chairman says smoothly. "I will add it to your debt." The debt, every year the debt looms larger. More water, seeds that are more expensive, seeds that must be bought anew every year instead of coaxed from last year's crop. The farmer has never been to school. He does not understand the math behind his debt, but believes he is being cheated. He must work every moment, to make sure his children can go to school. He will repay his debt. His children will not be cheated. They will have a better life.

Year after year, his debt grows. The new seeds make the rich richer, but for him there is nothing but debt. He pulls his children out of school to sew, and do laundry. The whole family slaves now to repay the debt he created for them. One day his daughter disappears and then returns sad and quiet. The chairman does not call the next week to again demand repayment. The farmer cannot ask the question in his heart or even thank his daughter for fear everyone's heart will break anew.

And one day he walks past the spindly tree by his small home and flings a rope over a branch and his struggle ends. The chairman comes with a truck and gathers up the crop. It's not enough. The chairman rests his hand on the shoulder of the farmer's wife. "I will apply this to your debt," he says, "but you will owe more next year."

Don't dismiss your pants as just any old khakis. Human stories swell within every possession we own.