Straightto Bed With No Glass of Milk

摘要

In Talcher, an eastern city known for housing the largest coal reserves in India, the stray dogs are hungrier than usual. Shop owner Bijaya Kumar Nayak used to spend 20 to 30 spare rupees a day (27￠ to 40￠) to buy biscuits for the animals roaming the streets. But he's had to cut back to be able to afford milk for his children instead. His sons, who are 6 and 8, used to split half a liter before bedtime, but that stopped at the end of July. Nayak now buys just a liter a day from a local shop, for tea and other household needs. His kids still get milk with their cookies, but they've started to ask what became of their nightcap, which pains him and his wife. "I am even paying my milkman in installments as I don't have the cash to pay on time," says Nayak, 53. While he's been paying down his milk debt slowly, he's four months behind on rent for his mom and pop shop, and his electricity bill is more than a year overdue. Lockdowns and restrictions on business hours ushered in by the pandemic have sharply reduced small-business owners' incomes. Nayak's dropped to about 500 rupees a day in early June, from 2,500 to 3,000 before Covid-19.