India, June 21 -- As the sun goes down, behind the tall glass buildings of Noida, the white-collared workforce swipes out and spills onto the streets. Most of them are still less costly than a tokenised AI subscription, so they can choose to walk out early - at 5:30 pm sharp - dangling their lunchboxes, waiting to be plucked by a shared auto-rickshaw and be deposited to the nearest metro station.

And under these metro-stops in North India, a street-food festival is hosted every evening. The cuisine is, of course, dominated by the states which historically failed to provide jobs to their youth. The hawkers just cater to the dominant demand. The moment they hear a Metro arriving overhead, the hawkers start working their kerosene stoves.

C...