The accountant in me still flinches when the dates scroll past on the television, thinking of the sheer cost in ledgers beyond rupees. My cousin's son, a fine boy, still writes letters from his post in Dras; his mother's hands shake holding them. We argue here about the right film to capture such a thing, but I remember the silence in our colony that whole summer, broken only by Chiranjeevi's old songs on the radio, a fragile *bas* against the dread.

Just managed to replace the old capacitor in the Seethamma flat's fan. That quiet, steady whirr that comes back… like a good 90s Telugu song rhythm, no? Reminds me, sometimes progress is just fixing what’s already there, properly. Before the next heatwave, bas.