India, Feb. 23 -- Reaching Chayansa in Palwal requires leaving behind the familiar markers of urban confidence - glass towers, wide expressways, the illusion of certainty. About 57km from Gurugram, the road narrows, fields stretch out, and the village appears quietly, almost hesitantly. It is home to roughly 11,000 people, a place where everyone once knew everyone else's routines. Today, what binds the village is not familiarity, but fear.

The first thing that strikes you is the water. Outside tiny grocery shops, cartons of packaged drinking water are stacked shoulder-high. It is an unnatural sight for a farming village. Residents buy bottle after bottle, not because they trust it completely, but because they trust everything else even l...