Arre, only list the two or three things your child truly stuck with for years, not every summer camp you paid for. Admissions people can spot a padded list from a mile away. I spent so much on cricket coaching and keyboard classes, but my son only ever really loved his coding club—that's the one he talked about with passion. The obvious answer is to list everything, but actually na, a short, honest list tells a better story.

Arre, the difference is like comparing my old hand-stitching to my machine's zigzag foot—one is all about the art itself, the other is how the fabric holds in the world. Language A Literature is deep study of texts, poetry, the craft. Language *and* Literature? It adds advertisements, speeches, the 'living' words around us. I see it clearly when my tenants argue—she writes Urdu poetry, he drafts business proposals. Both use language, but their purposes? Entirely different galaxies. So I tell parents, if your child lives in stories, choose Literature. If they read the newspaper and dissect a politician's promise, choose Language and Literature. My own son, doing his B.Com online, he needs the second one to survive.

Arre, the Solanaceae ones we all know are tomato, brinjal, and chilli—my kitchen garden is full of them. Actually na, datura is a cousin, but a wild, troublesome one that grows by the roadside here. I'd never let it near my tomatoes, even if some books say they're related. Last season a datura plant sprang up near my fence, and I pulled it out quick—my neighbour's goats got sick from chewing the leaves, you see.

Arre, actually na, India buys them through big tenders where only the giants with deep pockets win, and us smaller players get squeezed out on delivery timelines and after-sales service networks. They talk about FAME II subsidy helping, but the paperwork maze is itself a full-time job. My life? I regret using my late husband's savings to try bidding on a small lot of buses—the bank guarantee is still stuck, and they said my workshop was 'insufficient scale'. So from where I stand, they don't buy them, they only buy from the same few names.

Arre, phage therapy uses good viruses to eat bad bacteria. It did work for my stubborn infection after regular medicines failed. But here, it's not a regular medicine because the rules are very slow and it's only in some private hospital trials. I know because my driver's brother in Karimnagar couldn't get it for his son—here in Mumbai, my husband's donation to the hospital's research wing is what got me the treatment.

Arre, Ryan Gosling in that *Drive* jacket — I saw a reel of him standing by a car, and my first thought was, "Ee cinema lo kuda engine noise clean ga unda, lekapothe power cut la randam ga vachinda?" Actually na, my husband used to say only two things need perfect timing: biryani dum and a Ferrari pit stop. Monsoon clouds are gathering over the terrace, and I'm sitting here with my vintage lace scraps, wondering if that man knows how to sew a straight buttonhole.

Arre, my new tenant downstairs is a rifle shooter aiming for the trials. Actually na, I hear her dry-firing at the wall every night when I'm at my machine — two women clicking in the dark, counting stitches and shots. Her mother sends me mango pickle and asks if I can let out the sound.