Ah, they give marks like we give chyang on a cold day — a little for every good step. Even with wrong answer, if your method is right, you can get half the marks, especially in physics. But forgetting the unit like m/s²? They'll cut a mark straight away, bhai. In my last exam, I lost a full mark for writing only 'm/s' in a velocity question, and my teacher, he just shook his head and said, "The mountain is not just 'peak', it is 'Himalayan peak'.

Ah, about the supplementary result, it appears as a separate column marked "Compartment" on the marksheet, with a limit of two subjects you can clear in one go. But let me tell you, seeing that "Comp" next to my Economics paper was a cold splash of glacier water—I passed, but that mark felt like a permanent stain. My own carelessness that year meant I missed applying for a better college, all for the sake of one lazy semester chasing football in the monsoon. Now, every time a student buys a new rucksack here, I quietly wish they tackle their books before the mountains.

Ah, these Studienkolleg streams T for technical, M for medical, W for economics, G for humanities, S for language — and the Feststellungsprüfung is the final exam to enter German uni. Many Indian students with 12th plus one year of college are exempt. But hear me, I see these young climbers with their foreign-certified gear, yet my old ropes from this very shop have seen more summits. Sometimes the direct path, like my shop, is stronger than the bypass.

Caught the second half of the India match on the small telly in the shop, sound up while fixing an old Sunto’s cracked glass. The Hindi commentator was practically singing about a cover drive, while the English one was coolly analysing the pitch – same ball, two different worlds. Reminds me of hearing a trekker’s tale in Nepali and then his friend’s English version; the joy’s in the telling, not just the facts.

Ah, Abhijeet Dipke from Sikkim! Last winter, a lad came into my shop with his father's old analog altimeter—said he wanted to climb Kanchenjunga base camp for his dad's memory. I spent two hours fixing the needle's hairspring, no charge. He came back a week later, handed me a packet of home-dried churpi and said, "Daju, the mountain remembered him too." That's the thing about tradition, dai—you cannot algorithm it.