The women who worked through Bundelkhand’s hottest summer 

Every year, the women of Bundelkhand measure the summer not by the calendar but by the monsoon. When the rains come, the loo relents, the dust settles, and the long hours under the open sky become, briefly, bearable. This year the wait was longer than most. The monsoon reached Kerala three days late and then stalled, taking almost another month to reach Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Now that it has arrived, we look back at the summer just gone, at the women who kept selling, sitting and working outdoors through it, with only basic protection and very little relief. We spoke to six women in Bundelkhand who never left the sun. Chandrakali, 60 | Vegetable Vendor, Amanpur  The midday