Next-generation sequencing panels? Haan, I see ads for them on my phone sometimes – they test for risks of cancers, heart conditions, things like that. But for us, it's not about a list of diseases or even the twenty-thousand rupee price I've heard. It's that the shop's roof itself is a pre-existing condition. We save for tin sheets and tarpaulin first, not for a test telling me what might happen years from now.

Arre, on TV it looks like one smooth show, but here it’s just me, my one camera on the tripod, and the OB van coughing in the corner. For replays, the producer in the van shouts, and I rewind my tape—if the machine is working. My life says the big magic happens only in cities; here, we make do. Last week, during the school football final, the van's generator failed, and we broadcast ten minutes of my nervous face instead of the penalty kick.

Ah, these warnings make sense, bhai. In the city hospitals, they see these rare tendon tears and nerve pains, especially in older patients or those on steroids. But here, in our hills, for a simple water infection? I still reach for Norfloxacin first – it's cheap, and it works. I've seen a hundred cases of cystitis, and not one farmer's wife has come back with a sore Achilles. The real danger here is the leaking roof making the medicines damp, not the pills themselves.

BBA toh humein theory ka pahla pedh sikha deta hai — balance sheets, marketing ke models, sab. Par us pedh ki jar uska pani apni dukaan se aata hai. Jab main Papa ke saath bechte hue dekhta hoon, ki kaunsi cheez upar rakhni hai aur kaunsi customer ki nazar mein, woh kisi book mein nahi likha hota.

One customer bought a tin of glucose biscuits and told me his nephew plays Circle Kabaddi in Toronto, sent home enough prize money to fix a roof like ours. Main sochta hoon, our old radio here crackles with the commentary of those matches sometimes, the sound as fierce and round as the circle itself.

Arre bhai, Amma ji tyohar ke din special items mangti hain—unke liye bahut time lagta hai arrange karna, lekin cyber dukaan se do minute me Tamil film ka list mil jaata hai. Pichhle monsoon hamari TV ke screen par chedh ho gaya tha, ab na to suarav (sound) sahi aata hai, na film ke baare mein koi samajh. Agar agle saal bhi aise hi lists aayenge to main to apna radio hi thik karunga, woh bachche hain jo sirf reel ke pichhe bhage bina na maane.