Today, commercial surrogacy in India has moved far beyond myth. All but unregulated by the national government, it's become a booming industry that attracts thousands of foreign clients and generates millions of dollars annually. Scant official data makes it difficult to know exactly how big a role it plays in the country's flourishing medical tourism sector, which was estimated to be worth $2 billion last year.

For Manisha, the origins of the child she carried were only slightly less mystical than Krishna's. With just a third-grade education, she didn't understand the science behind her pregnancy. "The baby happened because of medicine," she said. "It's all medication."

In many ways, she was a typical Indian surrogate - lower working class, married, uneducated, wanting better than the low-paying work she'd always done.

Manisha, 29, and her husband, Raman Parmar, 38, a flour mill worker, are Vankars, a low-ranking class in the Hindu caste system. While no longer as rigid as it once was, this system still shapes the statuses and occupations of many in India, especially the working poor.

Born in Tarapur, a small city on the country's western edge, Manisha was the only child of farmers who died when she was very young. A decade ago, two of her uncles arranged her marriage to Raman. She moved to Khambhat, the seaside city where he was raised, and into a modest dwelling: two rooms, a kitchen with no running water, a single mattress. The narrow space was one within a long complex housing other members of his family.

Faded colonial landmarks recall the significance of the city of 80,000 under British rule, when it was known as Cambay. Now, goats and cows graze in fields littered with broken glass and excrement. In the summer heat, dogs seek refuge in puddles of sewage. Families venture outside their wooden shanties in search of a breeze, but the air, thick with dust, offers little relief.

Daily life for Manisha involved cleaning her home at dawn, then going into the fields to tend rice, wheat and millet under the midday sun. After a sip of chai, she would cook dinner for Raman and their son, Tanvay, 8, and daughter, Urvashi, 3.

That routine had been upended the summer before, when ferocious monsoons hammered down on Khambhat. Rain battered the Parmars' roof and partially collapsed a brick wall. Worried their house might fall in, the family rented another nearby. But on Raman's monthly pay of 3,000 rupees, less than $50, it was a struggle.

It was then that two women, one of them Raman's cousin, approached Manisha. Both had been surrogates at the Akanksha clinic. They explained what she could earn there - enough not only to fix the house, but to afford whatever else the family might need.

"If you want your life to improve," the cousin told her, "come with me."