‘A good year’ signifies a favorable season with adequate monsoon rainfall that allows the arid soil to produce a single harvest of bajra (pearl millet) instead of facing complete famine.
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Answer: job While other desert households rely primarily on money orders sent by working relatives to sustain themselves, Khetaram depends directly on his postal ‘job’ to secure his family’s livelihood and avoid starvation.
Khetaram had to take up a job because farming bajra during recurrent famines could not yield enough grain to feed his family of five, leaving them facing starvation without regular income.
Khetaram termed famine as ‘a way of life’ because severe droughts and crop failures occur persistently in the arid desert, making water scarcity and food shortages a constant reality.
One crop of bajra makes a little difference for people like Khetaram because – it cannot feed a family of five and they would starve without this job.