The platform at Churchgate was a screaming mess at 7:15 p.m. Horns, hawkers yelling “ vada pav, chai garam,” and thousands of tired bodies shoving toward the Borivali fast local. Priya clutched her dupatta tighter across her chest, but it was useless. The salwar kameez she wore today was the tight one—sky-blue cotton that stuck to her skin the moment she stepped out of the AC office. Her big, heavy boobs strained against the fabric, nipples already poking because of the cold blast from the fan in the ladies’ coach queue she never reached.

No ladies’ compartment today. Too late. The moment the train screeched in, the crowd swallowed her. She was pushed inside a general compartment like meat into a grinder. Bodies slammed from every side—sweaty armpits, hard elbows, bulging crotches. The smell hit her nose: cheap tobacco, body odor, rain-soaked clothes, and that faint metallic tang of the tracks.