Found in a Notebook, ca. 2013-15?, Mumbai.

The train station perpetually swarms with people. We take an auto there most days, emerging bright-eyed into the street, past the guards who sit in moulded plastic chairs at the door of the building, through the black iron gate. Sometimes we have to wander towards the main road, eyeing each passing rickshaw for shadowed faces and bright clothes in the black back seat. At the large intersections people approach the autos — women, sometimes in saris, hold out their hands, touch my head in blessing, move their hands to their mouths. Men step up with punnets of strawberries, with toys, postcards and posters. Bicycles sidle past, trays of brown and white eggs tied to their backs. As we approach the station, the mood of the streets seem to change. Shops line the paths. Muslim men in white caps, white kurtas, and long beards, and the women encased in black cloth.