This morning on my way to deliver dawai for a widow in the old quarters, I saw a young girl at the chai stall — her school bag had Mirabai Chanu’s picture stuck on it with transparent tape. Made me think of my own daughter, how she used to carry her heavy books up the sadak in the rain, same determination. That

The morning I ride to deliver dawai, my left knee sings its own creaky raga—but the Splendor still starts first kick. That is what I think of when I see Punjab Kings: a machine that refuses to give up, even when the parts are old and the road is long. Mohali and Dharamsala, they are the same—patient people who have seen the scoreboard not go their way, yet still make chai for the next match. Hope is not a statistic; it is the smell of wet earth after a dry spell.