A couple of months ago, Sheela Adivasi's infant son fell sick and his eyes filled with pus. By the time the infection cleared up, Deepak's pupils had turned a pearly white. He is now permanently blind.
It did not help matters that Deepak is malnourished, as are half of all young children in India. His belly is swollen, his dry skin speckled with dark dots, and his hair is thin and yellowing. Had he not been so starved of vitamins, he probably would have suffered only an itchy but harmless bout of pink eye.
Belatedly, he is getting some nutrients in a special clinic for malnourished children in Badarwas, a tiny town about an hour's drive from his mud-walled home in a village in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
The clinic, a concrete room filled with a dozen beds and prone to powercuts, is part of India's latest attempt to reduce a malnutrition rate twice that of sub-Saharan Africa. For now, Deepak is far from the only child being reached too late.
It is a problem with "dire consequences for morbidity, mortality, productivity and economic growth," a World Bank report said in 2005, and shows little signs of fading even as India's economy booms.
Born underweight and then underfed during the crucial early stages of development, millions of Indian children grow up shorter, weaker and less smart than their better fed peers.
They end up less productive workers, too, costing India about 3 percent of national income, the bank said. The problem looks unlikely to disappear for at least the next couple of decades.
GOOD ADVICE
The nutrition centres, and measures such as paying pregnant women to give birth in a clinic rather than at home, are part of the government's National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).
It was started in 2005 to bring health services to people used to a choice between pawning jewellery for doctor's fees or simply suffering.
The scheme is intended to plug gaps in an older programme that failed to reach children in the most critical first two years of life, educate mothers about nutrition and reign in corruption which meant free food handouts went missing.
In Deepak's case, the difference some well-timed good advice could have made is obvious. In the 18 months since his birth, no food passed his lips until he arrived at the nutrition centre, according to his mother. She did not realise this was a problem.
"He only drinks milk," Sheela said as she sat sweating under a motionless ceiling fan as Deepak lay in her lap in torn shorts and a grubby jacket.
The registration book at the centre is filled with the purple thumbprints of illiterate, unschooled mothers like Sheela. She does not know her age -- a doctor, trying to be helpful, pulled open her mouth, looked at her teeth, and guessed about 25.
After marrying in her late teens Sheela left behind her village and moved in with her husband's family. She dislikes her mother-in-law, who she says has no interest in giving grandmotherly advice.
