Under a rain-slick tarpaulin, a half-dozen elderly women bake roti on a wood-fired griddle — flattening dough, flipping browned bread from dawn until the sun retreats into Delhi’s evening smoke. Anyone who walks in gets served rice and cooked vegetables and, to wash it down, a cumin-flavored yogurt drink.
Across the road, Jagjeet Singh, a burly man with a large fanny pack and a light purple turban, churns a hefty pot of milk coffee from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. In the evenings, Singh switches to hot milk spiced with turmeric and cloves — good for the cold, good for the day’s exhaustion. He goes through about 260 gallons of milk daily.
"Now, this is coffee,” he said as his pot came to a boil and he leaned over it for a sniff. "You can even smell it from a helicopter!”