Cities and areas within them inhabited by the affluent have no or only a little shortage of water. Villas located outside towns, or amid villages in the rural areas, continue to have lush green lawns while the peasant in the neighborhood may have lost his crop due to lack of water after the tanks and wells dried up. He does not have access to the groundwater 200 or 300 feet below like his wealthier neighbor who, with his tube well, is capable of boring to even greater depths. Farmers who hired labor to work in their fields in better days are looking for work themselves.
Small farmers have no alternative but to work for others.
In most places, the drought relief works are the only source of employment. Villagers, already in debt and surviving on borrowings, turn to these jobs to make whatever little they get from them. The drought has driven most villagers into the clutches of moneylenders. However, they are yet to receive their wages. If the frail Manphooli, in her fifties, is in debt and difficulty, so is Shanker, even though he is young and strong, has a smaller family and more land.