If people were tin men on the exterior, she was sure shed be able to smell the rust.

Beside her, a scared-looking woman peered at her from underneath the hood of her saree, and asked, Dadar nikal gaya (Have we passed Dadar station)? Nahiin. From her childhood, she could recognize the language the woman was muttering to herself in. She caught a few words, and was sure that the woman was going through something traumatic. Her eyes were darting like she expected a gang of men to suddenly make their way into the coach and drag her away. If that were to happen, she seemed sure that no one would protest or come to her aid. Sadly, that might have been true. The train was slowing down and a station was visible a few hundred metres away, through the window. She looked at the woman and said, Dadar. The woman squeaked and jumped out of her seat. She watched her scurry; it was as if a deer were scurrying into the lions den, honouring an ageold commitment in the jungle, as members of each species sacrificed a member of their family by turn, so as to avoid letting the lion unleash his wrathful hunting upon them. At least that would have been natural. Whoever prepares for death! She looked on as a young girl boarded the train. It was early in the morning on a weekend; she could not fathom why she would be on a train headed toward the suburbs. All the women in the Ladies coach around her seemed to have assumed a posture of shame. They looked down, at nothing in particular, their complexions sully bearing dejected expressions. Their backs were bent as if it were time to get on all fours to support themselves, and they had set their consciousness to awaken each time the train drew into a station. She stood up and walked toward the doorway. The air smelt fresh- fresher than when a million bodies huddled together and gasped for it as if having checked into a voluntary gas chamber. There could be more of this she wondered, and sighed. The train stopped. The city was already bustling on the stations platforms. Before she could be shoved by a fat, panting woman whose life seemed to depend on getting into the coach, she leapt onto the concrete floor and began climbing the stairs toward the bridge to get to the other side of the station. Once outside, the shops were still closed, and the city seemed far away. It was just 5am, and she had already been around a hundred people in the last one hour or so, and she had never felt more alienated. As she reached her rundown studio the only place she could have afforded so as to realign the spiritual alienation with physical solitariness, she felt herself breaking down, crumbling. A few hours to regain composure and console oneself, and she would be alright. Just like all the days before. Just until one of these days, when she wouldnt.