It opens in documentary style: people en masse moving through a jumble of sparely-lit, rain-soaked Mumbai streets and lanes, and their characters and shifting infrastructure. Voice-overs tell us why some of them have come to the city. The camera finally settles on one woman, wearing a nurse’s uniform, hanging on to the handrail in a speeding train.
She’s Prabha and, back in her small flat, she first wipes the floor, wet from a leak, then fries fish for her supper. She’s been married for many years to a man she hadn't previously met, who soon after had left to work in Germany. For over a year she’s heard nothing from him.
