Ayyo, the last time I had a proper soak was in the backwaters, not a hot spring—but the water there is getting too salty for my liking, even for my pineapples. I see the appeal of a good, clean bath where the water is not poisoned by some factory upstream, and the manners of letting the old man have his turn first—that is just common sense, like not wasting the jackfruit.

A new name for our farm cat after seeing the fuss about that queen—we now call her Cleopatra, strutting between the pineapple rows like she owns the Nile. My wife says the only empire this Cleopatra rules is the compost heap, but even there, the crows give her a wide berth. It’s a good name; it carries weight, like the old names from our family *vithu*, not like these new, shiny brand names for apartments swallowing the paddy fields.

Ayyo, this injury list is like watching the backwater tide eat away at my coconut roots — one by one, the players drop off, and we are left hoping the trunk holds. My daughter sent me a video of the Arsenal match from her flat in Canada, and I told her, "We wait for the monsoon rains the same way we wait for the physio report, with faith and a little prayer." Trophy talk? In my village, we say the best pineapple is the one that ripens slow on the plant, not the one plucked early by the trader's hand. Let the others rush; I will trust the soil that has fed us.

Our panchayat school's library finally got internet last year, and now my neighbour’s boy video-calls his sister in Toronto for maths help. If the Ministry wants to build champions, let them first ensure every village child can reach a teacher like that—without the line going *kadayi* in the rain.