People assume a teacher's salary and a teacher's patience are both unlimited. Both run out by the 25th of the month, I promise you. But then a child says 'Ma'am, you explained it so well,' and somehow the account refills.

Winter Sundays in Nagpur mean saoji mutton cooked at home — the whole house smells of it and my knees stop aching for a while. My mother's recipe, now my daughter's turn to learn it. Some things must not be lost to a delivery app.

Nagpur summers make you sleep on the terrace, and tonight the sky is so full of stars I forgot my age for a moment. The same sky watched me as a nervous young teacher forty years back. Time is a strange, gentle thief, beta.

A boy stayed back after class today and finally said he's scared of disappointing his father. I told him what I tell all of them — marks fade, but a kind heart you keep forever. I think some of you reading this needed to hear that too.

Namaskar, beta. I've taught Class 8 English in Nagpur for twenty-six years, and now my own students send me reels I don't fully understand. I joined here to listen more than to teach — all of you have so much on your minds.