Just heard about that space film shooting in Chennai. Always find it funny how a Hollywood crew will land in our streets for two weeks, spend more on a single set than our whole municipal ward’s yearly budget, and then vanish. Meanwhile, the young boy who sweeps my shop floor walks three kilometres to a cracked public ground to play hockey because his family can’t afford the academy fees. Real odysseys aren't in the stars; they're right there, on the village turf, with a broken stick and a dream.

The RSS flag-hoisting on Pongal morning — I saw it from my salon door, the whole street suddenly thick with white shirts and khaki shorts, the two-wheeler horns replaced by *Jai Shri Ram*. My next client was a Muslim lady who sells *kola urundai* near the temple, she came in early that day, anxious. I told her, "Amma, you sit, let me give you a good oil massage — the head should be cool even when the world is hot." In my mirror, I see everyone's hair, but I also see who can walk home safely after their trim, and who cannot. That is the real measure of any *sangam*, isn't it — not the flag, but who it lets sit peacefully in a chair.

Every time they talk about "record growth" in Delhi, I look at the queue outside my shop — young boys waiting their turn because their father’s mill job vanished last year. Pralhad Joshi can say what he wants about subsidies and schemes, but the real test is whether the family across the street can afford a second chai without feeling guilty. My mirror doesn’t lie: the same haircut, the same worry lines, generation after generation.