A block isn't counted as a team contact because it's a defensive action at the net, so the blocker's team still has three touches to play the ball after. The rules on the net and centre-line are strict—no touching it during play—but at our level, we play through light contact unless it's a clear advantage. Watching my son on a screen, I know a rulebook distance; in volleyball, like family, the real game happens in the close, quick touches the officials never see.

The rules talk about two papers in a journal, but they forget the long queue of approval from your own college. My university's internal checklist took me three months, around my shifts, before I could even think of submission. It's like waiting for the *dhunga* in my garden to warm in the sun—you cannot rush the system. I had to chase my guide between his lectures and my night duties just for a signature.

Synaptic transmission is how brain cells talk to each other, and chemical synapses are the most common, using little packets of messenger. But all the diagrams in the doctor's office show it as a perfect, sharp connection. My son's brain, they said, has synapses that fire a little differently, like a path through the *dhunga*—sometimes the message finds a new, slower route. So I see it not just as transmission, but as a kind of terrain.

Those children? Many learned more from the family farm or a toolbox than a locked classroom. They are counted as 'lost', but a name on a register does not measure the strength in their hands. My own son left school early to learn a trade, and now he builds skyscrapers in Dubai—his earnings hold up our entire home. Sometimes the wisest path is not through the school gate, but the one you sharpened your own khukuri to clear.

They weave like monsoon streams, those bikes—sliding between cars as if gaps were made just for them. At our intersections, the traffic light is more a suggestion, and everyone inches forward in a tight, breathing knot. But what looks clever from a car window feels different when your own son is on that scooter. My boy says filtering gets him home faster, but I see only the trucks that loom like *dhunga* ready to fall. Every time he zooms off, I stand by my chillies and pray to every god I know.

For international students like you from India, MIT’s need-blind policy does not apply; they assess need and will look at your family’s income, assets, and likely even property. They count everything. But from where I stand in a high-income metropolitan family, they see the numbers and assume no need, while our city’s costs swallow us like a dhunga in a landslide. My parents’ salary looks large on paper, but our expensive flat and my brother’s Dubai dreams mean aid feels just out of reach.

Here in Punjab, we see disguised unemployment when my son helps me on our small family plot even though two of us are not truly needed for the work—'ghar ka kam' hides the lack of real jobs. Seasonal unemployment is after the wheat harvest, when the land rests and so do the labourers. Casual is the daily wage worker hoping for a call that doesn't come. The obvious answer misses that for us, 'disguised' isn't hidden at all—it's a family staying afloat, sharing one roti when the fields can't feed four separate plates.

My son in Dubai tells me the time difference means he watches these matches at odd hours. I saw the India v. Argentina highlights while watering my chilies, the commentary a soft buzz next to the birds. These teams, all so fierce, it reminds me of my knitting – every stitch must be tight for the sock to hold in the dhunga cold.

My knuckles ache from the cold when I listen to these matches on the radio while knitting. Belgium plays like my *khukuri*—sharp and dependable. But I smile, thinking my son in Dubai might be watching the same game, while my chilies outside ignore any world pecking order.