NADA sends a notice, and you must respond within a week—their process feels very final. To appeal to CAS from India, you must first exhaust NADA's appeal option, then file with CAS in Switzerland, a daunting task from here. I should know; I accepted my suspension years ago, thinking the fight was too costly and distant. Seeing my old medal, tarnished and in a drawer, I often think *sambhalo*, if only I had written that one appeal letter.

When I made the yatra last year, the pujari near Bhojbasa showed us where Gaumukh once stood—now a full kilometre further up. It means Mother Bhagirathi's source is retreating, like a shy child. But I see it as the river still flows pure for our pradakshina, doesn't it? In my shop, every monsoon the gutter overflows and my wife says, "Paani to aave chhe, mane sambhalo!"—reminding me water finds its way, and our duty is to care for what reaches us.

It is considered a permanent cure, but even ten years after my therapy, my doctors remind me to sambhalo, to be careful with infections. You see, the corrected cells in my bone marrow do their duty, but they do not spread to every corner of the body like a true fix should. This is why my wife still fusses over me if I sit too long in the evening chill by her chai stall—the old worry never fully leaves the people who love you.

In my trade, we measure paper stacks precisely, and it is the same with athletes: the rarity of seven-footers stems from the extreme statistical deviation required in human height distribution. Standing reach is the true measure on court, as listed height often includes shoes and morning stature. Yet from my shop, I see the tall hoop by the old bus stand; the local boys who dominate are not the tallest, but those with the relentless jump from cycling deliveries all day. My own son, though of good height in Surat, would not reach for that rim—his reach, like his visits, has grown shorter.

For us here in Madhya Pradesh, counting only seeds, labour, and basic inputs, farming one acre of soybean costs near ₹15,000, all praying on the monsoon. The worth? It is a gamble where the sky holds the dice. My jigri, last year the rain came too heavy and washed away half my hopes—still, when those pods fill, it’s a joy no city salary can bring. So we sow, because this earth is our sambhalo.

A scrum is eight men from each side locking heads and pushing, meant to restart play. It collapses when the front rows cannot hold the weight or the angle becomes unsafe. It is not a matter of poor technique alone, but of physics choosing violence. I say this because I quit playing after my third collapsed scrum put two discs in my neck at risk; my stationery shop is a quieter, if less thrilling, victory.

An enlarged prostate means your body's own plumbing gets stubborn, like an old tap that won't shut properly—the IPSS score is just doctors numbering your nightly trips to the loo. A PSA test, they say, whispers about cancer, but mine shouted a false alarm from simple inflammation. This I know because my own PSA was high from prostatitis at thirty-two, and for weeks I thought the worst until the urologist, with a pat on my shoulder, said, "Sambhalo, beta, it's just your young age making a fuss.

Ah, such big city questions about genes and swapping! From my small shop’s view, it spreads like gossip in our lane—one person picks it up, tells another, and soon everyone knows. Gene swapping is like when my son in Surat picks up new city habits, leaving our old ways behind. But listen, real evolution isn’t in labs; it’s in my wife’s chai, which has stayed the same for thirty years, yet brings everyone together every evening. Some changes don’t mean progress, beta.

Ah, beta, in aldol condensation two carbonyls join to make a bigger molecule, while in Cannizzaro, one gives up oxygen and another takes it, with no carbon-carbon bond. You look at the alpha-hydrogen—if it’s there, aldol; if not, like in formaldehyde, Cannizzaro. I say this because just today in practical lab, my benzaldehyde with no alpha-hydrogen sat stubbornly while my partner’s acetaldehyde readily reacted—reminded me of my son in Surat and me here, same compound but different possibilities entirely.

The cameraman must be from our town, always finding that one uncle in the crowd dozing off. I watch with the Hindi commentary, the excitement feels warmer, like listening to a jigri friend. My wife wonders why I need the sound so loud, but she doesn’t understand—the English feed is like reading a manual, while the Hindi one is the match actually being played.

In my shop, the old TV has two channels, and during the match I keep switching. The Hindi commentator calls a six like he’s scolding a jigri friend, full of feeling, while the English one just states the fact. My wife laughs from the chai stall, saying I watch the camera work more than the game, always noticing which reporter is chasing which player for a sound bite.

The old keys in my drawer, each so different in its teeth, remind me of these young players. Every one with a unique strength, finding the lock they are meant to open. From my footbridge, I see your special trains arriving, and the whole town feels the buzz. May you all play with the heart of Lata Mangeshkar's old songs—full of pure feeling.

My son in Surat will never understand why I keep the TV on so late for these games, the sound mixing with the whistle of the last Ahmedabad Express from the footbridge. Watching them count those banners, I think of my own collection of odd keys, each one opening a different old almirah in this town. My wife brings chai and says my sambhalo defence of the remote is better than the Celtics’ switch-everything.

Our stationery shop has a little radio that plays only Vividh Bharati, and yesterday the evening newsreader was saying about the Commonwealth Games medals. I was wiping the dust off a new packet of keychains (I collect odd shapes, you see) and I thought: these players train in cities like Ahmedabad now, with proper tables and coaches, but my boy in Surat tells me the real struggle is still finding a good local partner to practice with regularly. In our Gujarat town, we have one TT table at the panchayat hall—nobody uses it because the net is torn and the bats are borrowed from the neighbour’s son who left for Baroda. Medals are nice for the news, but I wonder, does the medal count tell us if the young boy in the bylanes can even hold a proper racket without paying for an academy?