



There’s an underground dance bar in Santacruz West where I saw a former national-level beauty pageant contestant perform. According to the person who took me there, she began working there when she was looking for a Bollywood break. To land roles, she needed to be seen on red carpets and at parties, for which she needed heels and dresses. While acting gig after acting gig fell through, the dance bar turned out to be so lucrative, it became her primary vocation.

I know a young marketing executive who bought a car with her first salary and now sleeps in it. Between rent and loan repayments, she was starting to starve. I won't tell you where she parks, but thank god Mumbai is still safe.

Then there’s my junior journalist friend. For a period, she was coming into work less often. And she was growing thinner. She insisted it was because she was jogging every evening. When she started to disappear at lunch time, or nurse a cold coffee all day, I knew. (I didn’t miss the signs, because I've done it too.)

I WhatsApped her. It was the only way to be discreet.

“Do you have enough money for a meal?”

She didn’t.

She explained that when she did, she’d wait to go to Le Pain Quotidien and pay ₹200 for a sandwich. After 6pm, the day’s stock is discounted.

The office canteen offered meals all day that she could afford, but eating was a lower priority than keeping up the appearance that she could, when she chose to, do it at Le Pain Quotidien.

These are the urban poor. Objectively and relative to a vast majority of Indians, they aren’t “poor” at all. But they’re certainly hungry and broke a lot. These are the metro-dwelling twentysomethings who've internalised the pressures surrounding them, and spend a majority of their salaries on keeping up the lifestyles and appearances that they believe are essential to earning those salaries.