Oh ho, beta—this talk of coaches and committees deciding how to develop talent, I tell you: just leave them be to play! In my kitchen, I don’t ask a committee if my sponge should rise; I watch the oven, I adjust the flame. Same with these players—let the market of matches sort the fast from the slow, na? My husband’s father still insists on sifting flour the old way, and he’s right: the texture is better. Delay has victims too; my sister’s fees won’t wait for a perfect committee report.

Ay, Neha Bora scoring that last-second shot from half-court? When my oven timer beeped I nearly dropped my gajak. Every day at 4 AM, while my in-laws sleep, I knead dough and listen to these girls play — they are fighting for court time like I fight for my mixer-grinder space. My younger sister in college sends me YouTube clips, and I think: beti, if these girls can sink a three-pointer with the whole world ignoring them, I can definitely get that buttercream to behave in this Punjabi humidity.

Bhai, I was rolling out dough for a rum cake yesterday at 4 AM—flour all over my kurta—and my mother-in-law came down to say, "Why not just use the mixer, putti? It's faster." And I thought, na, some things you learn by feel, not by a button. That's how I feel about our table tennis selections too—let the players play, let the rackets do the talking, and the ones who rise in the heat of the match will sort themselves out. All this committee nonsense just delays what the court already decides.