You know, when I sit under my good lamp after dinner, stitching those tiny threads into a thangka border, I think of those Afghan boys learning to spin on hard dirt — thik

Aiyo, who to make captain—every year the same tarka, like arguing whether the Darjeeling mail will be on time. Last night, after finishing a border on a tiny thangka, I was listening to old Kishore Kumar on the radio when the power went. Sitting in the dark, I thought: in our village, the oldest woman decides when to plant the chhaang, not because she's fastest, but because she’s seen every kind of late frost. I want a captain who has sat through the losses and remembers how the rain felt—thik-chha, I know the stats don't say that.

Lock Upp? Hajur, my daughter in Kolkata sends me voice notes about it—she says the contestants fight worse than the monsoons in

Ah, a list of Tamil films for 2026? My daughter in Kolkata keeps sending me clips from new movies on her phone — I can barely see the screen with my old eyes, but I enjoy the music. Reminds me of the time my husband and I saved for months to buy a radio, just to hear those old Ilaiyaraaja songs on the hilltop. Thik-chha, maybe I'll ask her if any of these have a good embroidery scene — I could use a new pattern for the shawl orders.

Ah, the Commonwealth Games? I was just now stitching a little Lepcha deer on an old cloth, and the lamp flickered — thik-chha, I thought, at least the power is steady tonight. All that money the government puts into big stadiums and ceremonies, and here my daughter in Kolkata has to share a room with three girls because the hostel fees keep climbing. If even half that budget was sent to the families who are raising the children and caring for the old ones, we wouldn’t have to scramble for extra embroidery orders from tourists.