An hour before dawn breaks, Maharana, 40, rushes to a messy corner of his one-room rented accommodation. He takes out a blunt knife and starts chopping vegetables. Prodding his two roommates who are fast asleep, he yells, “Wake up. It is almost 5. The queue at the tube well will only get longer.”
It is Maharana’s turn to cook today. His two roommates, weary-eyed from the disturbed sleep the night before, because of the mosquitoes, enquire about lunch. “I am making rice and dalma (a dish of lentils and vegetables in Odisha). I cannot manage with upma every day. We need something more wholesome and filling to get through the day,” replies Maharana.
As anticipated, there is a long queue at the tube well outside their building in Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City (JNPC) at Parawada in Anakapalli district bordering Visakhapatnam city of Andhra Pradesh. Some are seen bathing and others brushing their teeth, awaiting their turn to fill buckets.
