Jaipur:
Salman Khan, an auto driver in Jaipur, is standing at a grocery shop in a Jaipur wholesale market, trying to stretch his rupee. "Given the rising prices it is very difficult now for me to feed my children and family. Every food item has become so costly. Earlier I used to buy vegetables for a whole week at one time but now its tough to buy for even a single day."
The impact of soaring food prices is a huge crisis - most of all for India's poor. Salman is one such beleaguered Indian who is finding is difficult to provide for his family despite working from morning to night.
Salman says teachers at his children's school say they should be fed lots of green vegetables and daals but it's not possible for him to do so. "Daals that cost Rs 40-50 a kilo till last year now cost over Rs 100 a kilo. Prices of green vegetables have also shot up a lot. So how can we feed our children properly?"
Salman earns Rs 100 to Rs 150 a day. "After working all through the day. But in this period of rising prices how can we run our house?" he asks. "The government is just not thinking about us. The Congress had said their government will work for the Aam Aadmi. But how can we accept that this is a government for the common man when they are doing nothing to check rising prices?"
Right now, Salman says, his children are getting barely half the food they need. "If prices keep soaring, half of my family will soon have to go hungry."