Aunty Ka Dhaba, a roadside eatery and convenience store, run by 60-year-old Sushila Panwar, sits snugly between three villages in Uttarakhand’s Mukteshwar: Gehna, Letibunga, and Sasbani. Sushila belongs to Letibunga, a short walk uphill from her shop.

Sushila has just returned from the neighbouring jungle with fodder for her two cows. Vegetable crates have arrived from Haldwani, the largest city in the Kumaon region. “In winter, we buy from there. It’s hard to grow anything here in the hills. But come monsoon, we send our produce downhill,” she tells me.

In the last few decades, the water shortage in the region has aggravated, affecting both households and farms: the level of Naini Lake, one of the region’s main sources of water, has dropped to a five-year low. Growing rajma is time-intensive, so she focuses more on seasonal vegetables: cauliflower, brinjal, spinach.

Sushila and her husband, now no more, opened the shop 17 years ago. Supporting five children became difficult as earnings from the farm and Sushila’s income from stitching sari falls were modest. “We rented a place and started with a few jars of lemonchoos. Ours was the first shop in this area. Before that, there was nothing between Dhanachuli (over 6 km away) and here.”

As tourists flocked in, their menu grew from chai-parantha and snacks to full lunches and early dinners. Everything is made fresh, using hand-ground spices. “If people want to eat at my dhaba, they’ll have to wait,” she smiles.

Before the pandemic, the dhaba saw a steady stream of customers. “But do you see anyone now?” she says, waving her hand towards the empty seats. Unlike a local contractor I spoke to, who is optimistic about city folks felling plantations to build homestays, Sushila isn’t impressed. It’s not just the greenery that’s vanishing, but also small businesses like hers. “Every homestay has a cook now. Tourists rarely come to eat here.”

Balancing the eatery, farming, rearing cattle, dairy sales, and sari work sustains Sushila’s livelihood. On that winter morning, she made me a fluffy masala omelette, with the right amount of onion and green chillies, before heading out to feed the cows.