This is the only water Neeraja's family had. She is cupping it in her hands from a drain surrounded by garbage. She is thirsty.

The photograph was taken by an MTN field worker on a routine community survey. He almost did not stop. It was midday. The canal ran alongside a track he had walked before. Then he saw them — a woman in a red saree and two girls, filling steel pots from the water running at their feet.

He stopped because of what was in the water. Plastic wrappers, rotting waste, the green of stagnant algae along the banks. And the younger girl — crouching at the edge, cupping the water in both hands, drinking directly from it. She looked up at the camera without embarrassment or surprise. This was just water. This was what water looked like.

Neeraja was not in school. She worked on a farm in the mornings — planting, weeding, whatever the season required. Her family lived close enough to the canal that it had always been their source. When the rains came it ran faster and dirtier. In the dry months it slowed to almost nothing and they collected what they could. There was no pipe. No government connection. No borewell anywhere near them.

The field worker sat with the mother that afternoon. She told him: the children get sick from the water, we know this. But what do we do? This is what we have.

MTN drilled a borewell thirty metres from their home three months later. The installation took two days. The water came up cold and clear. Neeraja's mother filled a steel pot and held it up to the light before she drank from it. She had never seen their water look like that before.

The canal is still there. They do not use it any more.

Neeraja's case was referred to MTN's child welfare team. The conversation about school had started. Whether she goes back — and stays — depends on more than a well. But the well is where it begins. You cannot build anything on a foundation of waterborne illness and a canal that smells of waste. You start with the water.