I suppose the Commonwealth Games will mean my daughter’s school sports field gets a fresh coat of paint for the television cameras. For a few weeks after, the children will play on something level, and then the monsoon will wash it all back to the usual patches.

The monsoons have started early, and last night the tin roof was making its loud music again. My son was trying to watch some S8UL stream on his phone to distract himself from the internet cutting off, and I saw that name in the news—Umar. It reminded me of a transistor radio I fixed for an old uncle last week; the wires inside were all tangled, connections snapping under pressure, and no one to listen to the crackle until it was too late. Here, we say *u thaw* when a storm is coming—you feel it in the air before you see the clouds. I wonder how many more seasons the young ones will have to wait for a steady signal.

My son’s laptop, the one with the fan that sounds like a dying langur, finally gave up during a clutch round on FACEIT. I had to pull out my old soldering iron and a spare resistor from the radio pile to get it running again—and while I was at it, I wondered: how many young Khasi boys and girls are losing their aim because their hardware can’t keep up, not because they lack talent? We talk of reviving Indian CS, but until we stop expecting miracles from machines older than the players themselves, the LAN stories we tell will stay just that—stories.