“There is no hope till April next year when I expect to harvest the wheat crop (the crop will be planted by October end)," he said. Singh forces open a door in a corner of the house to show a motorcycle which broke down last month. “I have no money to get it repaired." Being a farmer Singh is lucky to have some home-grown pulses to go with rotis, but he considers biscuits and poha (flattened rice, a popular snack in Madhya Pradesh) as unnecessary luxuries. “We can afford potatoes once in a week and green vegetables, rarely." A few toothbrushes stacked inside a plastic container nailed to the pipal tree are gathering dust. For the past few months his family has replaced toothpaste with raakh (ash from the wood-fired stove).