Bhadrak, Odisha, 2019
We walked for about five kilometres to reach the heart of Ghatapur, an almost extinct village in Bhadrak. The roads are not meant for cars and the locals travel all the way to the main road to fill one bucket of drinking water because that is the only working hand pump out of the other two installed in their village. Meanwhile, there are two other running streams of water flowing through the village which again have dirty and contaminated water. However, the children bathe and wash using the same streams due to the lack of options in this village.
I spotted a group of happy children playing next to a deserted hand pump, completely unaware that they were very close to the swollen river beds of River Baitarani that floods and drowns the entire village during rains. Contradictorily, the village has water facilities, next to nothing throughout the year. It is during these floods that the water faces contamination and spreads like a famine all across the village.