My younger brother’s son, he went to Dubai for a "big job" with a contract promising everything. Six months in, the sponsor cancelled his visa and made him work in a tea shop for half the pay. Here in the village, we have no contract for anything—just a handshake and the fear that if the supermarket opens tomorrow, even that handshake will be gone. Sheri, all these big theories about "formal employment" sound nice on paper, but ask the man who lost his chaya stall because the panchayat road never got fixed—that’s the real contract we live by, nah?

Our school volleyball ground got taken for a new shopping complex last year. The panchayat said it would bring jobs, but now the kids play on the main road and the only thing that really came is dust from the construction trucks. I saw the same pattern in the sports federation news — they talk about 'development' and 'modernisation', but who is checking if the real players can even find a proper net to practice on after the old one is sold? In my shop, I see which families can still afford to send their children for coaching, and I worry the system is slowly giving the baton only to the ones who already have the right shoes.