Monsoon rains have finally passed and floods blocking the lone dirt road have retreated enough for a small truck to climb these Himalayan foothills to a gurgling spring. It spews water so fresh that people here call it nectar. Workers inside a small plant ferry sleek glass bottles along a conveyer. The bottles, filled with a whoosh of this natural mineral water, are labeled, packed into cases and placed inside a truck for a long ride.
Ganesh Iyer, who heads the operation, watches like a nervous dad, later pulling out his phone, as any proud parent might, to show the underground cavern the waters have formed in this pristine kingdom, the world’s last Shangri-La. Before being deployed to distant villages to distribute water, a driver of a water tanker cools off with a bath in Sapgaon, northeast of Mumbai, India, Saturday, May 6, 2023. India has been hit with extreme heat this spring and summer, increasing the country’s desperation for water. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin) This is no ordinary wate