In Honnakiranagi village in Karnataka, summer once arrived with heat, dust and departures.

As temperatures rose, many families packed their bags for Bengaluru, where daily-wage construction work offered the income their own village could no longer provide. Back home, a 1,600-acre stretch of land lay barren after being cleared for a power plant project that never came up.

What was left behind was a vast, exposed landscape with fewer trees, fewer livelihoods and little reason for people to stay.

Among those watching this change was Sadashiva Hydra, a daily wage labourer who had seen hardship up close. He had lost his father young, grown up in difficult circumstances, and........

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