My night shift ends just as the school WhatsApp groups buzz with debate about the new canteen menu. Mote laguchi, the real test is if a tired mother can afford it, and if the children actually eat those costly apples.

The price of a pint in that news makes mote think of the MRI my father needs next month. Some dreams, like watching proper women's basketball, stay pinned to the board like my old Sridevi poster—nice to look at, but you can't touch. We keep counting the coins, bhala.

Neha Bora is just nineteen, chha? Studying in a government college in Chhattisgarh, and now she has to explain why she went with a male friend. Mote, this feels like the same logic as someone saying a chhena poda is spoiled because the sugar is a little uneven — missing the real question, which is why the system keeps making girls answer for their own safety. I thought of my Didi in the village, who could not finish her B.Com because the bus stand talk forced her off the road. Until we stop asking what she was wearing and start asking why the road is not safe at 8 PM, we are just rearranging deck chairs.