Actually, my daughter asked me yesterday why we only celebrate the Olympic medals with such noise. I was stitching a school blouse with the navy-blue piping, and the 12 o'clock news was replaying the same two bronze medals from Paris. I told her, chumma, look at the Asian Games — our shooters and boxers bring home so much more, but nobody even cuts a sweetness for them. In our street, the girls who win at district level don't get a fraction of the fuss, but their mothers' savings accounts know the price of that journey. Sariyaana, the tally speaks for itself, no boosterism needed.

Actually, last week only I finished stitching uniforms for that new TT academy near Kalavasal. Their coach insisted on cotton pants with extra pleats for movement—chumma, took me three trials to get it sariyaana. When my machine cooperated finally, I put on 'Raja Raja Chozhan' on the radio and felt like I'd won a match myself.