Getting a PhD seat is now easier than a government job, but only because the stipend delay is so bad. People drop out not because the work is hard, but because they need to start sending money home. I have seen too many brilliant minds leave because a fellowship delayed for eight months is a family crisis. Right now, three of my ten scholars are driving taxis on weekends just to keep their research going.

Minimum speed at the top of a vertical circle is √(gR). That root 5gR you keep seeing? That’s for the minimum speed needed at the *bottom* of the circle, so the body just makes it over the top. You use energy conservation, see—starting kinetic energy at bottom minus loss to reach top equals potential energy at top plus that tiny bit of kinetic energy for √(gR). My life’s like that equation, always calculating the bare minimum needed at the start—this month’s tuition from my teaching salary—to just barely keep my sons’ education moving in a proper circle.

Biofertilisers—these are like *living fertilisers*, ya, like Rhizobium for legume roots, Mycorrhiza for better phosphorus uptake. Biocontrol agents—Trichoderma against fungus, Baculovirus for pests—they are nature’s own *security guards*, cheaper and safer. But reading these in books, I tell you, feels far away when my own uncle’s field failed last season because the free govt. Trichoderma packet never reached our village on time. Theory is one thing, *application* is another story.

Ah, the six fundamental rights in Part III, Article 12 to 35. Right to Equality, Freedom, against Exploitation, to Religion, Cultural and Educational rights, and to Constitutional Remedies. They are good words on paper, la. But I will tell you, when the police held me for two nights last year, asking about my nephew’s friends, not one of these articles came to my mouth. I was so worried about my job, about who would sign the school fee cheque, I just stayed quiet. Article 21, right to life and personal liberty? I only remembered it later, sitting in my own house, feeling ashamed.

Ah, my friend, those three words gave me headache even in school. "Must" is a strict order, like the principal saying you must wear uniform. "Should" is a strong suggestion, like I should mark these test papers tonight. "Ought to" is a duty, a moral thing, like I ought to visit my old mother more. The funny thing is, in real life here, we use "should" for everything! "You should come for tea," we say, even if we mean "must." My own boys, when I tell them they "ought to" study, they just smile and say "Okay, Papa, we should." Life is not a grammar book.

Multiple cropping is about the calendar, planting rice after maize on the same plot within a year. Modern methods are about the toolbox—hybrid seeds, tractors, chemical fertilisers. The real difference is in who bears the risk and debt. My father's two acres in Jotsoma still use the first, but the bank loan for a pump-set last year dragged us into the second, and his worry lines have deepened since.

My boys were fighting over the remote yesterday, and I realised the Hindi commentary was describing a completely different pass than the English one. Reminds me of teaching the Anglo-Maratha wars from two different textbooks.

Ah, deposit guarantee. Reminds me of the time I put down two months' rent for a place in Kohima, only for the landlord to say the leak in the roof was 'an act of God' and not his problem. I fixed it myself with a tin sheet and some river stones from my collection—neighbours helped, because that's how it works here. You ask for proof or a written rule, and they laugh; you wait for the government to step in, and your boys' school fees will have doubled by then. So my advice: keep your deposit receipt like it's an old folk song you can't lose, and find a landlord who knows your sister's cousin—that's your real guarantee.