Ilam, Mar. 12: The women of Ilam who earn their livelihood by selling fuelwood have their own woeful story to tell.

Though a town, Ilam has 80 per cent of the people living in rural areas and most of the families meet two square meals a day by collecting fuelwood and selling it at downtown Ilam.

For the women of Tilkeni, i.e. ward No. 6 of the town, this has been a way of life, an ancestral occupation.

They have no land to till, no other jobs to pursue, and they are simply going   round and round in the daily cycle of cutting wood and taking it to the market.

Wood cutting in forests is a backbreaking task, after a hard day’s work one brings home one’s collection of fuelwood and take it to the local market early next morning. But the downtown dwellers try to buy fuelwood at throw away prices, for they think it can be “plucked as flowers” in the forest.

“How difficult it is to get fuelwood  in a forest, how long it takes to gather a band of faggot! One has to go up to Namsaling and Godak forests in its search, but town dwellers try to get it almost free of charge,” complains Mana Maya Tamang.

Searching for fuelwood in forests is not that easy these days: the forest users group will seize  one’s load of  fuelwood and Namlo (jute strap and rope) if they chance to spot them.

In this connection, Kavita Gurung recollects, “once they were in Namsaling forest, searching for fuelwood. Even after the whole day’s search, we could not collect much. It was almost sundown when we found some more fuelwood. Right at the moment a man suddenly appeared from nowhere. He started heaping all foul words upon us. At this, all my colleagues turned tail. I was left alone and he forfeited all my collection of fuelwood.”

“As it returned empty-handed, I could not go to the market the following day. We were almost starved that day and had to borrow from the neighbour some grains for a meal,” she adds.

Mana Maya Tamang has an ailing husband and so her eldest daughter accompanies her in nearby Godak forest while searching for fuelwood. Some times they have to return empty-handed, which means a trouble at home: there are many hungry mouths to feed. On top of that, she has to use the earning from fuelwood to buy medicines for her husband.

Their earning ranges from Rs. 60 to 70 a day; some times they together get as much as Rs. 100.

63-years old Manamati Rai, who has been settling there for the last three decades, recollects, “the forests were quite dense when they first came to settle there and one could make up to 14 loads of fuelwood. A load of fuelwood on one’s back would fetch Rs. 2 at most and even then, it was easy to make one’s ends meet.”

“Now it is so difficult to find fuelwood and the task is so hard, but one get so little in return. I feel like crying aloud when I remember the hardship one has to go through in the forest” she adds.