Over a cup of sweet milky tea, I chat with 23-year-old Kavita about her experience of living in Chaheru, a predominantly Dalit1 village in the Doaba region of Punjab. Compared to other regions of Punjab, Doaba has the highest rates of outmigration as well as other forms of Dalit mobility, including greater strides in education, employment and social mobility. With Kavita I discuss clothing, movies and food, as well as her plans and hopes for the future. Kavita belongs to the Ad-dharmi or Chamar2 community and has completed her MA in History from the nearby Ramgharia college. She harbours ambitions to move away from the village space through international migration and has obtained educational qualifications as a beautician and caregiver with this objective in mind. While she waits to migrate, Kavita also applies for teaching jobs in the vicinity of the village and says that in the event that migration does not work out, she wants to pursue her PhD. She belongs to a migrant middle-class family, of which many members reside abroad: Kanta, Kavita’s mother, has three older daughters who are all married. Kavita’s oldest sister is in the UK, and the second oldest moved to Italy to join her husband towards the end of my fieldwork. She has another older sister, Meeta, who lives in Chandigarh with her husband. Kavita’s younger brother, Suresh, was training to be a chef so that upon migration to Canada he could work in his uncle’s restaurant. Her older brother, Ramesh, is separated from his wife and works at a factory in Bangalore.