New Delhi, May 30 -- Madhubani, Bihar

Annai Restaurant and Bakery, a vibrant eatery with a 4.2 Google rating, on the Salem-Madurai Road in Karur, Tamil Nadu, began turning customers away in early March. It signalled a crisis that India is grappling with amid the ongoing US-Iran-Israel war. Its kitchen was running out of cooking gas. By mid-March, the glass-fronted display shelves stood empty of cakes, cookies and pastries.

The owners told the workers, more than a dozen of them, to go home. The crisis was unfolding far away, but its rippling effects were being felt in their lives. "We will call once the cylinders start coming in," the owners told them.

For Bablu Paswan, 27, of Barhi village, a panchayat near the India-Nepal border in Bi...