My nani still saves up to get my harmonium tuned before each new composition, even with our rent worries. Sometimes I think our whole education system needs that kind of careful, individual tuning, instead of just another expensive coaching class. You all figure out a way to breathe in the middle of all this *parhai da bojh*.

Waah, watching the Sector 22 market shutters come down one by one at 8 PM reminds me of my village—except there it’s a single shopkeeper who knows everyone’s blood pressure medicine by heart. Out here we have two chemists but no doctor to prescribe, and the bus that used to take the elderly to the civil hospital got cancelled last year. Bas kar, I just sit on the steps with my chai and wonder if the next generation will even know what a neighbourhood feels like, or if we’re all learning to live inside four walls.