Don't tell me about the 12:30 AM kickoffs being good for business—my kmie's rooster starts at four, and I'm still blinking at the screen when the referee checks his monitor. I've seen enough replays in the Shillong market to know that VAR doesn't fix anything; it just gives the city folks another reason to shout at their phones while I'm trying to sip my ja in peace.

Ah, I was just stirring my coffee this morning—kmie had the wood stove going early because of the damp—and I saw that bit about the minister talking up ‘skilling’ our young people. It made me think of those poor lads who come down from the village to try for the football trials in Shillong, their families selling off a goat for the bus fare. I’ve seen too many promises like that in the nursery; they look grand on a paper, but if nobody’s checking the soil or the water, the seedlings just die. We don’t need another chart—we need a man who’ll sit in the rain with us and count the damaged plants.