New Dehli’s Paharganj rail station is humming with sound and crawling with people. The gray platforms are bathed in white light. The train engines belch smoke and whistle like impatient bulls.

If you were to search for me in the crowded maze, where would you look? (1) You would probably try to find me among the dozens of street children who are stretched out on the smooth concrete floor in various stages of rest and slumber (2). You might (5) even imagine me as an adolescent vendor, peddling plastic bottles containing tap water from the station’s toilet as pure Himalayan mineral water (3). You could (6) visualize me as one of the sweepers in dirty shirts and torn pants shuffling ________ the platform, with a long swishing broom transferring dirt from the pavement ________ the track. Or you could look for me among the regiments of red-uniformed porters (4) bustling about with heavy loads on their heads.

Well, think again, because I am neither a vendor, nor porter, nor sweeper (8). Today I am a genuine passenger (9), travelling to Mumbai, in the sleeper (7) class no less, and with a proper (10) reservation. I am wearing a starched white bush shirt made 100% cotton and Levi’s jeans-yes, Levi’s jeans, bought from the Tibetan Market. I am walking purposefully ________ platform number five to board the Paschim Express for Mumbai. There is a porter (13) trudging along by my side carrying a light-brown suitcase on his head. The porter has been hired by me, and the suitcase on his head belongs to me. The suitcase does not contain any money. I have heard too many stories (14) about robbers (15) on trains that drug you at night and make off with your belongings (12) to take the chance of keeping the most precious cargo of my life-my salary (16) from the Taylors-in my suitcase. It is inside my underwear. I take a quick look ________ the loose notes in my front pocket. I reckon I will have just enough to take an auto-rickshaw (17) from Bandra Terminus to Salim’s room in the Ghatkopar slum. Won’t Salim be surprised to see me arrive in a three-wheeler (11) instead of on the local train? And when he sees the game I bought for him, I hope he doesn’t faint from happiness (18).

(Adapted from: SWARUP, Vikas. Slumdog Millionaire. 2005. p. 148-149.)

According to the text, the narrator has money because he