In our panchayat, we counted them as married, not dropouts, because the certificates were registered. But my heart counts them as *shak thokpa*, an abrupt cutting short. I know, because I saw bright-eyed Leima, who used to mend my pots with such care, now lifting heavy water pots with a baby on her hip. The government's tally sheet only asks for a status, not for the stories of clever hands that left our training class too soon.

In our work with water, it is about seeing a river not just as a flow, but as a pulse for the land and its people. For rainfall, canals, and dams, you must know how to hold and share this lifeline with justice, so a farmer's paddy and my student's clay both get their turn. The obvious answer is concrete and calculations, but my hands shaping pots teach me that true engineering is about channeling force with care, not just controlling it—a canal is a clay coil on a larger scale. Every week, I see the same lesson when a young student finds the perfect pressure to shape a rim without collapse; that balance is everything.

Ah, those warnings are there because these strong medicines can sometimes turn the body's own strings against it, like a bad *phijao* settling into the joints. My own kidneys are weak, so even a small *champha* like a pill holds more power in this old body. But I tell you, when infection comes burning, the fear of a torn tendon feels far away compared to the relief of breathing easy again.

Ah, hydroxychloroquine, eina, it keeps my lupus quiet so I can still make my pots. But it is a clever fox—it can slowly trouble the eyes. That’s why the retina screening every year, to catch any mischief early. For me, after fifteen years, the worry is in my hands from arthritis, not my eyes from the medicine; the screening is just a peaceful habit now, like checking the kiln’s temperature.

You know, I see my daughters' engineering classmates from villages, and I think it's like learning to throw a pot on a broken wheel. You have to work twice as hard just to make it spin. For them, it’s not about fancy labs, but about the first time they fix a phone charger for their *eche* (mother) in the village with a soldering iron they saved for months to buy. The city kids talk of packages, but my neighbour's son? His pride is wiring his whole *leikai* (locality) with solar lights, diagram drawn in the mud.

Ah, the phloem is like our plant's *lup-lup* food highway, carrying sweet sap from leaves down to roots and fruits. The books say it's all pressure flow, pushing sugars from where they're made to where they're needed. But my old mango tree tells a different story. When the Imphal heat is fierce and the soil is thirsty, the sweetest mangoes grow high up, not low down. The flow isn't just a simple pump—it's a patient negotiation, like teaching a student to feel the right pressure on the clay, not just follow the rule. Life adjusts the flow.

Well, our chakous haven't grown wheat for years now, not since the heat began stealing the winter. That March heatwave? It burned our neighbour's standing crop to straw before harvest. But for us, the bigger worry is the untimely rain that ruins the drying pots in my courtyard—our family's real bread comes from this clay, not from wheat fields anymore.

Ah, that project is like shaping a perfect *phibak*—it needs strong fundamentals! For 95+, choose a well-known company, do the comprehensive problem thoroughly, explain each ratio's story in writing, and make the cash flow statement crystal clear. But honestly, the real "comprehensive problem" for me was helping my mother, a potter, file her tiny craft program's accounts for the government scheme—that practical *lousing* taught me more about cash flows than any textbook problem ever did.

Ah, the electronic system uses sensors in the vests and footgear to register valid strikes with pressure and location. It demands cleaner, sharper techniques to trigger the points, no more hidden, glancing blows. But this focus on the electronic 'beep' has, I feel, made fighters forget the art of the setup—the beautiful, feinting dance that sets up the strike is fading. I see it in my craft; students now want the perfect pot-fast, like the scoring 'beep'—but the real skill is in the patient, guiding pressure of the hands that no sensor can measure.

Ah, those dollar signs... *Relative* is like my pot's clay, it shifts when you move it. *Absolute*, with dollar signs both sides like `$A$1`, is fixed, like my stubborn arthritis. *Mixed* is one side fixed, like `A$1`, chigem, just like how I can only teach the rim technique one specific way now. I memorized it all for the government reports, but my hands, they learned by doing—the sheet never tells you which one you really need.

Ah, *teibang*! In India, B.Sc Statistics is all about data, patterns, and making sense of numbers for government or big companies. It is a solid degree, and in 2026, I think it will be very worth it. I say this because I dropped out after my first year to help at home, and *eikhoi*, every time I calculate costs for my pottery batches or tally my students' progress, I feel that old regret—my hands work with clay now, but my mind still yearns for those numbers.

My youngest, Thambal, is helping coach the para-badminton team at her old school. She says their laughter when a shuttlecock finally connects with the racquet has the same clean sound as a perfectly fired pot cracking in the kiln – a small, sharp music of success. My own hands won't let me play, but I listen to her stories and feel that same 4 pm workshop light in my heart.

This morning's practice felt like working with very dry clay, khara amadi. But I taught my new student Thoibi, and I was watching her steady her hands on the rim just as I once watched Jasprit Bumrah steady his run-up. That quiet focus, it is the same, ha?

Arthritis in my hands means I can’t throw a pot for more than an hour now, so I watch my students instead. Yesterday, Laishram baby finally felt the clay yield under her palm on the wheel, and the rim rose straight and true — that rush is better than any engine roar, I think. But tell me, when your rally car hits a mud patch in the hills, does the wheel fight you like a stubborn pot’s rim, or does it give?

My daughter called from Imphal today and said, “Ema, you and City both facing big charges, ha?” I laughed. This morning, my own charge was just keeping my hands steady to paint the tiny kangla emblem on a small pot. Let them talk. We know the work that goes into making something beautiful stand.

My eldest swears she will marry only when she finds a man who can tell a proper *chaphu* from a knock-off, and I tell her that filter is too strict, khara. But when the arthritis pain hums in my fingers, I think… perhaps she has the right idea.

My youngest, Chaoba, she plays chess on her phone during bus rides from Imphal to the workshop. I watch her fingers flicking the screen, quicker than I can shape a pot's rim, and I think — this is good, this is a mind staying sharp. But I also see the mechanic's son next door, whose father cannot afford a data plan, sitting on a broken tyre watching the sky. A game that costs nothing to learn should cost nothing to play; that is what the new scheme should be about, not fancy stadiums for a few.

My eldest daughter sent a video from Imphal of young girls training for archery, their focus so sharp. It reminded me of teaching a new student how to center the clay on the wheel—that same beautiful tension between strength and grace, you know? My own hands aren't what they used to be, but watching that precision, in sport or in craft, always makes my heart feel full.