Experts with their big studies would give numbers, but in my household, screen time is what the mobile data pack allows on our one phone. For my son, it is only for his engineering videos after the shop closes. For me, it is ten minutes of a shayari video with my chai. Our limit is not hours, it is rupees.

Haan ji, they can, and often they don't have to tell you a single thing. They called it "productivity software," but in my old job, they used it like a spy. They saw my personal WhatsApp web tab and said I was "wasting time," but never saw the extra hour I worked from home without pay. My own experience is the proof—they dismissed me for those screenshots. So believe me, your computer at work is not your own.

Beta, I have not heard of these tests — in our village, we only know of State board exams. My son, he is studying engineering too, but his path was through the IIT entrance, not these foreign tests. Sometimes the world asks for papers we don’t even know how to hold.

Oho, these fancy numbers from foreign mountains! For me, on our cliffs near Manali, only the French grades matter—they are the same as UIAA, and when a German climber showed me his book, we saw that V5 is like French 6c. Font bouldering grades, haan, are another headache entirely! I know this because last season I guided a French boy who cried at a '6a' crack, but then danced up a V4 boulder like a monkey—proving these grades live in the heart, not the rock.

For safety, boil water fully, cool it to body-warm, and mix carefully—but the ads won't tell you how this choice can quietly dry up a mother's own milk. My Sunita, we listened to those shiny tins and her dudh just... vanished. Now, my heart sinks paying for formula while seeing that unused paranda in her drawer.

Arrey, it's a safe nest for us uncles – you put in up to 15 lakh, they give interest every three months. But if you take it out before five years, they cut something. And yes, tax lagta hai on the interest. My own five lakh is sitting there... the quarterly interest is like a faithful customer, pays just enough for my chai and paan. But that penalty? Reminds me of when I botched a kurta measurement and had to give heavy discount – premature withdrawal feels exactly like that loss.

Joint accounts, blank cheques, gift deeds... yeh sab toh ghar ka mamla hai, beta. Prevention ke naam par log hum jaise bahuon ko hi shaitaan bana dete hain. Mere saath hi hua — saas ji ne apni marzi se zameen ka gift deed kiya, par ab pura pind kehte hai maine dabav daala. Jis pyar se maine unki seva ki, woh toh kisi joint account mein dikhai nahi deta.

Beta, to me it is just three words: "Project Computer Mein." It is their big school project on the computer. All I know is that when my son is doing his IA, his face is lit by the screen, his chai goes cold, and the only sound is his typing. My truth? It feels like a very expensive, invisible coat I am stitching—each line of his code paid for by another perfect salwar kameez from my Juki.

Oof, this big city experiment with heavy isotopes is like stitching with golden thread — beautiful, but where will I find it in my school? They say it proves DNA copies in a "semi-conservative" way, meaning each new strand keeps one old thread. But baba, in my tin-roof lab with just charts and peas, I've seen students understand it better when I show how my old Juki's belt drives the new one — both together, one old, one new, making the same *chalan*. For us, proof is not in the machine we don't have, but in the hands that learn to mend with what they do.

Preparatory course means if our category seats go vacant, they take us for one year's extra coaching in IIT itself, then we join regular batch next year. But here in my village, the bigger preparation is fighting for a stable internet connection to even *find out* about these forms. For us, the 'preparatory course' starts with walking three kilometres to the cyber cafe to download the syllabus, because our phone screens are too cracked for online classes.

After IIT biotech, everyone pushes PhD or core jobs. But I switched to software, and my salary is double what my biotech batchmates make. It stings a bit, thinking of those lab dreams, but my son's tuition fees aren't paid with stings. This old Juki taught me — sometimes the strongest stitch is the one that holds the family together.

Cricket ki baat cheet ho rahi thi, so I dusted off my old transistor to listen to commentary. Abhi commentary to aa rahi hai, par pichla over mere Juki ki awaaz se duba hua tha—stitching buttons on a kurta during a power play! Koi nahi, my son says he will explain the scorecard later, with patience for my slow internet speed brain.

Ah, today I watched with the sound up, like my old transistor radio needs. The English commentators were talking politics, but on Hindi feed, Bhajji was shouting "yaar, wahiyat ball hai!" and I felt that in my bones. My son just shook his head at his papa, laughing with two matches on one screen.

Yaar, that Maheesh Theekshana reminds me of my radio’s tuning knob—you keep turning and turning, never quite sure what frequency you’ll land on. Last Asia Cup, I stitched a shirt listening to a match from ’97 on my old transistor, while my son tried to explain his engineering diagrams to me. Some things, like mystery spin and board *hungama*, are beautifully, maddeningly constant.

Sunset was the best commentator today, colouring the sky orange and pink behind our gully match. My old transistor radio, which I fixed last week, crackled with Shastri ji's voice from a Test match far away, while my son shouted for a six over the neem tree. Sometimes, the best cricket is free, playing in two worlds at once.

My son’s thick engineering books remind me of a shooter's paperwork, I think! All that calculation, all that focus. Watching Addaly’s team, I feel the same silence as when I thread the Juki’s needle, one breath, one perfect stitch.

My neighbour’s boy in Ludhiana now plays for the university team, and when I stitched the white polo for him, I made the seams extra strong like my old father taught me. Watching him bend and stretch in it, I thought—such a small thing, this cloth, to carry so much fire.