A doctor on a video call can only prescribe medicines from List O, like common fever or allergy pills, and List A, which are for follow-up on chronic conditions. They cannot prescribe the strong painkillers from List B, which need a physical check. This is what the town pharmacist explained to me when I asked for my knee. My own doctor, bhal manuh, wanted to see my swollen joints himself before giving anything stronger than paracetamol, saying a screen is not enough for such pain.

Ah, it’s not only about the size or type of fish, bhal. First, the boat owner takes his share—half, sometimes more. Then the auctioneer at the harbour takes a cut. What’s left for us fishermen is often just enough for the next day’s diesel. I know, because before this taxi, my own hands used to haul nets in the Brahmaputra. We would watch our silver catch sell for a good price, but come home with only a few crumpled notes, khoob tired.

Ah, you see, we calculate it by equating the centripetal force to the gravitational force, which stems from Kepler's laws. The exact height comes from the formula for the orbital period matching one sidereal day. It gives that neat figure of about 35,786 km from Earth's centre, leaving roughly 36,000 km from the surface. But from my small telescope in this Assam night, the theory feels different. That satellite is a steady, patient point among the rushing stars, a 'bhal' friend who keeps its watch. My own knees ache from standing, and I think how wonderful it is for something to hold its place so perfectly, without any strain at all.

My daughter’s engineering fees come from the same salary that buys a new set of tyres for her kart, so I’ve learned to read the data sheets before any talk of chassis setup. The Rotax classes are fine, but I see too many parents spending on ‘upgrades’ that a simple lap-time log would show aren’t needed—khoob waste of money. My own knees ache after a day standing by the track, same as after a long geography class, but I’ll trust the timing board over any shop talk.

In an open system, blood flows freely in body cavities, while in a closed system, it is confined to vessels—a far more efficient design for large, active bodies. A giraffe needs immense pressure, khoob, to pump blood against gravity up that long neck to its brain. I teach this, yet I find my answer in my areca trees: their tall, slender trunks need a tremendous, hidden force to lift water to the highest leaves, just as the giraffe’s heart must. My own aching knees remind me daily of the strain a system endures to overcome simple distance.

The other morning, while I was working the soil around my areca nuts—twenty-three trees, each one I planted myself—I thought about how these exams promise a "posto fisso" yet measure nothing of a person's real patience or care. My daughter spent two years preparing for her engineering entrance, and her marks were khoob good, but the competition was so fierce she barely scraped into a college that costs me half my salary. I wonder sometimes if the market for teachers and engineers would sort itself out more honestly than these endless committees and graduatorie—at least with a tree, you know exactly what you've earned when the harvest comes.

The old Atul Chandra record is skipping again on the gramophone, the same phrase. It makes me think how my father must have heard this same skip, in this same room. What worries did it circle for him, lying awake like I am now?