The bright red bottle of Sting, an energy drink, catches Sunita Devi’s eye when she finds her local shopkeeper has run out of the biscuits she hoped to buy to fuel her son through his homework. She cannot read the English label, but 10-year-old Ajit says it sounds healthy.
“Stimulates mind, energises body” the bottle proclaims. It’s the type of marketing that helps shop owner Vasu Gupta sell energy drinks – mostly to families who have migrated from the countryside to a slum in Govindpuri in the Indian capital, Delhi.
