The hills outside Visakhapatnam don’t look like much. Dry forests, a few fences, wired-off empty plots. Except that 10 trucks and four levellers are tearing into them right now, pulling up chunks of hillside with mechanical claws. 

Workmen are everywhere—surveying, levelling, and driving the machines. “My cousins used to graze goats here up until a few months ago,” said Mahesh, who was part of the surveying team. “In three years, this will all be Google.”

The hills will be alive (and flattened) with the hum of servers.

A few yards away,........

© The Ken