Another week, no doctor in the primary health centre. But the children still come, their school bags looking very *chillara* on my step. I tell them, stitching a torn uniform, "At least this we can mend.

This Bullet Club shirt I am mending, torn at the collar from too many village cricket matches. They are running on a track, these racers, but the real adventure is our bus driver Venkanna on the ghat road to Araku — one hand on the horn, one hand adjusting his lungi, whole bus praying to Tirupati. That is a sport too, baagundi, and no insurance company will cover it.

Ayyo, *Dhamaal 4* antunnaaru. Maa shop mundu pullalu aagipoyi, eppudo cinema gurinchi maatlaadutunnaru. Takkuva time lo tension, kastam — mana oorlo pillalu cricket highlights choodatam maaneyyi, manam kaakapothevadu. Nenu maatram naa buttonhole dorakadaaniki, old Telugu song raadi lo vesukunna — “Manasu koththa... manasu koththa...”. Baagundi, kaani cinema, baagundi... kaani first *savings* batti sewing machine raavali.

Our post office shutter came down for lunch and never went up again, three months now. I remember the postman, Vinod, he would bring my mother's pension in person — she cannot walk to the bank — and stay for a cup of tea, talking about his son's cricket. Now they say we must use the app. But in our village, many elders have no app. This is not baagundi, this is how you leave people behind slowly. The mairie should ask us first, not the company that makes the app.