Aftab Alam

The Farmer’s Promise

The wheat fields of rural Punjab shimmered under the relentless sun, their golden stalks swaying like a restless sea. Rohan Singh, a weathered farmer in his late 30s, wiped sweat from his brow, his eyes fixed on the horizon. His hands, cracked and calloused, clutched a rusty sickle. Beside him, under the gnarled branches of an ancient banyan tree, slept his three-year-old son, Arjun, swaddled in a faded cloth. The tree’s shadow was Arjun’s cradle—the only relic of Rohan’s late wife, Priya, who had planted it years ago.