1: THESE GRIEVANCES ARE LEGITIMATE:
1 Arrival -
2 Dayin -
3 Notun Dida -
4 Aakaal -
5 Mistake -
6 Jigyasa -
7 Ants -
8 The struggle -
9 One thousand women -
10 The hamlet of the Asurs -
11 Departure -
I1: SMART GIRLS REQUIRED:
I Kings & Queens -
2 The Prasads -
3 Digital time -
4 Dhrubo comes to town -
5 Shameless -
6 Palti kar dene ka -
7 Cosmetics -
8 In the gully -
9 Letters -
10 No objections are certified -
11 The wheels will turn -
III: VACANCIES ARISE:
1 In the P branch -
2 Do you think I was doing nothing? -
3 Impostrous day -
4 The waiting -
5 Booked speed -
6 A short vacation -
7 By the haemoglobin of the atmospheric pressure -
8 Jackals -
9 The Chitalias -
10 A very important matter -
II The perfect day of marriage -
IV: WELFARE INSPECTION:
1 Beat -
2 Eyes and ears -
3 Wives -
4 Missing person -
5 Kamalpur -
6 Census -
7 Incompetence -
8 Into the rain -
9 Chitol's census -
Acknowledgements.

In a young country charged with national vigour, Charu, the motherless child of a railway worker, pines for a life freed of oppressive domesticity. As diesel engines replace steam, and the calamitous churn of drought, famine, strike chokes the railway township, she dares to imagine a different future for herself. Boarding a train she flees westwards to Bombay, even as the country rumbles towards Emergency. In the frenetic landscape of the great modern metropolis, Charu, the budding adventuress, seeks the means to live on her own terms.

Tenaciously she fills the blanks in her life – the idealistic, artistic father Animesh whom she abandoned; the enigmatic mother Jigyasa long gone; her funny surname Chitol that no one recognizes; her bank balance – with her own material. Negotiating the treacherous planes of love, she marries a sheltered easy-goer. Fighting tragedy and loss, she becomes, after all, a railway woman. Against the rapidly clarifying prejudices around her, unfazed by everyday discriminations, she remains a small hero, an Everywoman who keeps her heart open – sometimes guilelessly – to her nation's vast possibility.