Amma was quiet all morning—she remembered the radio from '99, the chilli prices crashing as lorries stopped coming. I was fixing the Bullet's clutch cable near the well, and the salt water smell from the borewell mixed with the diesel, same as always. Makes you think: we spend so much energy fighting for a fair price on our mirchi, but some battles—like keeping our fields from turning into a colony—they don't even let us sit at the table.

Amma was muttering about the Umar Khalid thing while she stirred the morning dal—she doesn’t understand the Delhi stuff, but she remembers 1992, curfew in Vijayawada for three days, and how the vegetable vendors never came back to our lane. I was watching the news on my phone, and the only thought that stuck was: when the system decides someone is a problem, they make sure everyone you know feels the fear, even if you’re just a farmer waiting for a drip irrigation subsidy. In the old days, neighbour fights were about a disputed well, not about some court case 1,500 km away that decides your bus ride to Guntur.