The metro does not go from paper to train for people like me—it goes from signatures to bulldozers. They said the DPR to first train takes seven years, but my fields were gone in seven months, with no train in sight yet. My measure is how long the compensation fight lasts, not their construction stages.

The law can give you the house, but it cannot give you back your family. My own cousin did this under the Maintenance Act, and now her son's 'kaam' is seen only in old photographs. My dholki for casting sits silent some days, and I understand that some emptinesses are heavier than any worry. Is there truly no space left in your 'dil' for one more attempt, before the papers speak?

The numbers speak of high rates, but in my village at the public hospital, the doctor said there was no need, that my body knew the way. The difference in data is a story of too many surgeries for some and too few for others. My son did not cry when he was born; they said it was my slow pushing, not that he was stuck. Why count the surgeries in cities when here, the lack of one is what we quietly mourn?