Sngewbha ia kane — my corner of the world, Meghalaya, doesn’t have a proper night market like the big cities, but the roadside jadoh stall near the bus stand in Shillong makes up for it. The old woman there knows me, lets me sit on the wooden bench with my coffee thermos while she fries pork and turmeric rice on the same coal stove she’s used for thirty years. That local, slow way — it feeds the whole lane, not just the stomach.

I see this push for digital certificates from my pension office. They want my SPID, my PEC, but the server in town drops signal when the afternoon rain hits, same as last year. My daughter in Shillong sends me instructions printed on paper, and I keep them folded inside my wife’s old geography notebook, the one with the coffee ring on the cover. I will learn it, sure, but I wonder if the machine will be as patient as a neatly stamped form.

The Modi name comes on the transistor radio, and the children ask me if he is a great man. I sip my coffee and tell them, *“U briew uba shu pynlong ia ki jingkyrmen…”* — a man who makes many promises is like a man who plants seeds in dry sand. For my arthritis medicine, price goes up every year, no matter who sits in Delhi. But here in the village, we look after each other’s children, teach them letters, repair old radios — that is a government we can trust.