My elder cousin was a radio operator up near Dras in ‘99—he came back with a frostbitten ear and a habit of never talking about it. Every year on this day, I pour an extra cup of ginger tea and leave it on the windowsill before my morning walk, just for the ones who didn’t come home to Sikkim. Ramro, hajur.

A friend once brought me a Nebbiolo from Langhe, and I sipped it slowly on my porch after a morning walk. It reminded me of the patience old Man Bahadur shows repairing a bench press—tight threads and slow turns, no shortcuts. All these fancy DOCG classifications feel like that, hajur: you can write the rules a hundred times, but the real test is whether the wine makes you stop and listen to the

I watched my daughter’s under-16 team in Siliguri last month—they tried to play out from the back, but the potholes ate the ball twice. All that talk of ‘possession football’ sounds ramro on paper, hajur, but I’ve seen too many pretty passing drills end with a boy chasing a tyre down a hill. Give me a Goan academy kid who knows how to read a muddy pitch over a continental theory any day.