Last week I was stitching a blouse for a girl who plays volleyball for the district team, chetta — her shoulders are so strong from all that serving practice that I had to cut the armholes three times. And while I was pinning the darts, her mother was telling me how the panchayat still won't give them lights for the court after 6 PM, same as the boys' ground got floodlights three years back. Makes you wonder, na, whose victory we are really celebrating when the cloth is cut so uneven from the start.

Achacha, see this Dharmendra Pradhan talk about hockey hostels and village turf—makes me think of my neighbour’s son, mone, who once borrowed my measuring tape to string a broken badminton racket. These politicians always remember the ground only when the camera comes, chetta. Meanwhile our Panposh families have been feeding and ferrying kids since before any minister knew a hockey stick from a broom. Fairness would be if the same government that builds those hostels also fixed the drainage on our lane—but that doesn’t make a nice speech, does it?