A woman named Gita from Tanuku, India is on a train with her baby and her husband, Subba, a man from the rural villages who she married out of financial need. Her family was about to go broke, she didn't have the money to go to college in America like she wanted, he didn't request a dowry, and he offered to pay for her college once business at his farm improved. Subba is very traditional and conservative in his ways. Gita reflects on how last night, when she saw him sing to their baby, was the first time she thought she might love him. Across from the couple, a stranger tells them about her hard life. Her father died of TB when she was two and left her and her mother with nothing, her mother had an affair with her uncle, who they were living with, and she was married off to an old widower at age nine so she and her mother could move out. Then, when her husband died, also of TB, he left her and her son with nothing. Her young son, who is rude to her, joined the army at sixteen. The woman cries. Gita didn't intend to have a child and cried when she missed her period. It derailed her plans for college. While Subba is briefly gone, a salesman comes by and sells Gita a book on how to sell insurance and earn 15,000 rupees a month in order to be independent. He labels Gita as an "educated" woman. Gita buys the book knowing Subba won't like her spending the money, as he's very frugal. The woman across from them asks her son to refill her water bottle and he refuses. Gita's husband offers her a sip of theirs, but Gita resists, saying that they only have a quarter bottle left and she's worried about passing out. Gita's husband sees the book and becomes angry. He asks how much it was, and when she tells him, he runs to return it. Briefly, Gita thinks the train might leave him behind, but then he comes back with most of the price of the book. Gita isn't upset about the book, as she doesn't care too much about working, but she is upset that her husband doesn't want her to have it. She realizes he's someone she will never love. She imagines moving to Hyderabad with her child when her child is six, her daughter going to school and she to college, while Subba stays behind at the farm.