In Shilte, a village in Palghar, where people have been spending sleepless nights over the bullet train's devastating path through their homes, there is one reason for recurrent mirth. Three years ago, after the news broke, villagers began to stonewall access of officials to the area. Frustrated, the officials sent drones to survey the land. But, on spotting it, a dozen women, young and old, in their nauvaris started chasing the officials. Villagers say, on spotting the women, the officials hurriedly packed up and left.

Another time the bullet train officials arrived for a recce in Shilte, the villagers locked them up in the local gram panchayat office. Sagar Sutar, a member of the Palghar-based association Adivasi Ekta Parishad (AEP), says, "Everyone here, especially the Adivasi women, have pent up anger. When the officials arrived, they placed a wooden table in someone's field. It was monsoon, and also time to harvest crops. Every seed is precious. How did they even think of placing tables on top of them?" The women, he adds, were angry, and to safeguard the officials from their wrath, Sutar and the men decided to lock them up in the office. "The best option was to lock them up so that they didn't get hurt." Within an hour, the officials called the local cops to rescue them. Villager Surekha Lahange says, "They will now think twice before trespassing our farmlands again."