It is 38°C. The sun hangs directly overhead Jama Masjid metro station, unforgiving and exact. At the entrance to what the Delhi government is calling a “cooling zone,” smiling headshots of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Rekha Gupta greet you.

The place is mostly empty.

Danish, 25, a welder who works in the market nearby, squints at the banners. “I thought it was a programme, or a rally, when I first saw the pictures,” he says. He steps in anyway. “Cold water is a boon, everyone will benefit from it.”

There is a tent that holds 75 chairs draped in white banquet covers, 10 air coolers, a cluster of fans, and a stainless steel water dispenser offering all-you-can-drink lukewarm-to-cold water. It is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Two men run it. Eidu, 50, is from Allahabad. Sachin, 20, is from Badhaiya in Uttar Pradesh. They were hired through a contractor. For the next two months, the tent is home – four chairs pushed together make a bed. Food comes out of their own pockets, bought from nearby hotels.

“We have to make sure none of this is stolen,” says Eidu. “I sleep when he is awake, and he sleeps when I am awake.”

Sachin handles the physical work: hauling water from a Jal Board tanker parked outside to fill the air coolers. The same water goes into the drinking dispenser. When asked whether it is clean, Sachin shakes his head, unknowingly.

Sachin fills cans with water from the Delhi Jal Board........

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