You know, I sit here with my thied needle, mending a torn old shawl, and I think—all that speed and money in motorsport, it’s like watching a dragonfly in a storm. My neighbour’s boy spent his savings on a racing simulator, but the real race here is getting the ja to stay dry before the monsoon leaks through the roof. Big sponsors come and go, but the ones who get hurt are the ones who can’t afford the next tyre change. We move too slow for them, I think.

I remember tuning that old radio of mine to the BBC during the Kargil days, sitting here with a needle in my hand and a cat on my lap. The news would crackle through the monsoon damp, and I’d think of all the young men from our hills who went—some never came back to their own wooden houses. Makes you wonder what takes so long to patch up things that matter, when