Nandan Nilekani’s UPI thing has made even the tea shop uncle in Kohima take payments on his phone, but my wife still wraps the change in a newspaper cone for the vegetable seller. She says the old way leaves a paper trail for God, not for a server. I wonder, when his digital rails reach our village market, will the woman who walks two hours with her bitter gourd get a fairer price, or just another layer of queue? These things work well in Bangalore traffic, but here we still argue over the last banana like it’s a championship match.

Every time the office clock shows 7 PM and I’m still waiting for a customer to accept his parcel, I think of my daughter in Dimapur—she’s probably in her hostel room now, studying under that flickering tube light. The extra hours mean I can pay her fees without borrowing, but my wife says my back won’t last another year of this. Still, when I see the scooter’s petrol meter drop faster than my patience with Dimapur traffic, I remember the committee at the market said we should all “coordinate deliveries better”—asheba? They don’t have a daughter counting on next month’s EMI.