I never thought I'd write about breasts.
But here we are.
If you're reading this on Medium, you've probably already scrolled past three articles about morning routines, two about why you should quit your job, and one that's just the word "disruption" repeated 4,000 times. You opened this because the title promised something about entrepreneurship. I respect that. I will deliver on that promise. Eventually.
First, let me tell you about the chest.
The Inciting Incident (Every Medium Essay Needs One)
My editor sent me to live beneath Panshul Jindal's left breast for 30 days. Panshul is a 27-year-old from Lucknow whose 36DD chest — 14.2 kilograms combined, confirmed by IIT Moob-bay — has its own weather system, its own legal personhood (see Panshul v. Gravity, 2024 SCC 847), and, as of last month, its own Wikipedia page.
The locals call the left one "Jai." The right one is "Veeru."
I went under Jai on a Tuesday at 7:34 AM. The last thing I saw was sunlight.
The first thing I noticed was the temperature: a steady 31.2°C. Warm enough to incubate eggs. Warm enough to incubate ideas.
And that's when I understood.
This was not just a breast. This was a startup incubator.
What the Breast Taught Me About Product-Market Fit
Stay with me.
In the hustle economy, we talk a lot about "finding your niche." Panshul didn't find his niche. His niche found him — at puberty, aggressively, and in defiance of every known law of endocrinology. His tailor, Irfan, went from making wedding sherwanis to consulting with industrial welding instructors. His ex-girlfriend left because the gravitational pull was "suffocating — literally." His Zomato driver gave him a one-star review: "Address exists but customer appears to be living inside another person."
And yet.
Panshul's chest has generated a Goldman Sachs sector report. It employs eleven people full-time (tailor, meteorologist, seismologist, three structural engineers, a cat psychologist, and four lawyers). His GoFundMe has raised ₹47 lakhs. The Supreme Court created an entirely new category of legal personhood for it.
That's not a body part. That's a Series B.
"We do not choose the chests we are given. We choose how we carry them."
Panshul said that at TEDxMoobai. 47,000 people clapped. On Medium, I think that translates to roughly 47K claps, which — if you're a Medium writer — you know is the number that means you've either written something genuinely profound or accidentally gone viral in a subreddit about weird body conditions. Either way: monetizable.
The Part Where I Describe My Transformation Using Short Paragraphs
Day 7: my phone's compass stopped working.
Day 10: Panshul's mother arrived with parathas and a firm denial of genetic responsibility.
Day 14: it rained on me. Beneath a man's breast. In Lucknow. Dr. R.K. Sharma called it "the Jindal Chest Microclimate." Meteorologist Arvind Kumar now includes it in regional forecasts. It's listed as "Indoor Rain (Jindal)."
Day 18: Irfan the tailor visited for a mid-cycle bra adjustment. I could hear the clink of industrial tools through the tissue. "My apprentice quit and works at Domino's now," he told me. "He says the pizza oven reminds him of the heat from the fitting room, but at least the pizza doesn't oscillate."
Day 21: I stopped wanting to leave.
This is the part my therapist is most concerned about. Somewhere around week three, the terror gave way to something else. Comfort. Belonging. On warm days, the breast relaxed — a generous, expansive canopy. On cold mornings, it contracted, cocooning me. When Panshul laughed, it vibrated, and it was the most soothing sensation I have ever experienced.
I began talking to the breast. Not to Panshul — to the breast itself. I called it Jai. I told it about my failed marriage. About the time I CC'd my entire office on an email meant for my urologist.
Jai listened. Jai always listened.
"You've gone native," my editor said. "You're identifying with the chest."
"Jai wouldn't want me to leave," I said.
Long silence.
"Rajesh," she said carefully, "Jai is a breast. It doesn't have wants."
But she hadn't felt the microclimate. She hadn't seen the rainbow.
The Emergence (And What It Means for Your Morning Routine)
I came out on Day 30 at 3:47 PM. My skin was pale. My muscles had atrophied. My sense of direction was inverted — I kept walking towards the nearest large object, seeking the gravitational comfort of mass.
Panshul attempted to hug me. The chest made frontal hugs geometrically impossible, so he settled for a sideways embrace. I wept. Newton the cat — my only companion for a month — emerged briefly, blinked at the sun, hissed, and retreated back under.
I have not been the same since.
I sleep in dark, enclosed spaces. I find open rooms unsettling. I have an irrational attachment to large, warm, pendulous objects — bowling balls, beanbag chairs, the moon.
But I do not regret it. Under Panshul Jindal's left breast, I found something I didn't know I was looking for — and isn't that what every Medium essay is ultimately about? A man goes somewhere uncomfortable. He suffers. He emerges with a lesson he could have learned from therapy but instead chose to learn from a 7.1-kilogram breast.
The breast is 7.1 kilograms. But what it carries is immeasurable.
If this story resonated with you, please clap. Clap 50 times. Each clap represents approximately 0.14 kilograms of Panshul's chest. At 50 claps, you will have symbolically held the entire left breast. You're welcome.
Rajesh Kumar is a freelance journalist based in Lucknow. He is currently writing "Under the Shadow: My Life Beneath India's Most Famous Chest," forthcoming from Penguin Random House India. He can be reached at rajesh@underthebrest.com, though he asks that you not send emails with large attachments, as they remind him of things.
