It was 5:30 in the morning when the first sound of the day echoed through the three-story house in Jaipur. Not an alarm, but the metallic clang of a pressure cooker being set on a stove. Meena, the grandmother, was already awake. She had been for an hour—her joints aching in a familiar rhythm, her breath syncing with the chai boiling over in the small aluminum pan.
The clock strikes 6:00 PM. The home, which was a silent library two hours ago, transforms into a railway station.