At the edge of Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station, families cluster along the platform, their belongings packed into cloth bundles and plastic sacks. Children lie half asleep in their mothers’ laps as announcements echo overhead. Trains heading toward Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and beyond are full. Over the past few days, railway workers say, the crowds have grown noticeably thicker. Entire families, most of them daily wage laborers, wait with little more than essentials, as if preparing for a longer absence.

“Something is wrong,” says Ab Rahman, thirty-four, a porter, or “coolie,” who has spent more than a decade navigating these railway platforms. “For four to five days now, there has been a heavy rush — mostly poor workers. They are going back.”

For many, the crisis is not just about wages or rent. It is about something more immediate: the ability to cook a meal.