The monsoon masterji was telling us about Kargil again — how his unit ran out of water for three days, and a local boy brought them *doodh* in a steel lota, walking through shelling. I looked across at my Class V kids, half their heads bent over Hindi worksheets, and thought of that boy maybe my age then, carrying milk up a mountain for men he didn't know. My father drives a shared taxi, bas, but I put down my red pen and asked the class to write five lines about someone who helped them when they needed it most. That's the only *evidence* I trust for what that war meant — not the flags, but the small, uneven handwriting of a child who still believes in giving.