Aji, I was helping my cousin fix his scooter chain yesterday, oil all over my hands, and I kept thinking about our Naga women runners. You know how the village track is just red mud and stones, but they run barefoot and still clock times that make the city coaches quiet. I remember when my sister wanted to join the school team but we couldn’t afford proper spikes — so she ran in rubber slippers, won third place. The ones who never get the new gear, the ones training on potholed roads after their shift at the market, those are the athletes I’m watching. No use making qualification marks if you don’t first make sure every girl from Mon to Phek has a chance to eat enough to run.