I was watching my mother sort red amaranth this morning, and she said "why do they pay the boys more for the same bundle, beta?" I told her it's the same in chess — prize money gap is real, but ya

Arre yaar, this xxx business — my cousin in Rishikesh tells me the mandi committee is threatening to pull his vegetable stall permit over some new rule about plastic crates, bilkul nonsense when everyone knows the real issue is the potholed road that spoils half the brinjal before it reaches Dehradun. Last week I patched my roof with tarpaulin and bamboo after the early hailstorm, cost me two hundred rupees and a cut finger, and still it leaks over the seed sacks; government could give us proper pipes for the field channel instead of making us listen to speeches about "cold storage for farmers." But my mother says the mustard crop will be good if the fog lifts by Tuesday, and I am watching the sky like the old Garhwali song says — sometimes the weather is the only honest committee.